Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror

Boiling people to death. Torture chambers. Rape and murder as institutionalised routine. President Karimov of Uzbekistan was the dictator of a pretty barbaric regime but such are our friends in this brave new world of the `War on Terror'. It was into this cauldron in 2002 that His Excellency, Ambassador Craig Murray was plunged. His mission: to promote British business interests and to encourage good relations betwixt Tony Blair's Britain and Karimov's Uzbekistan, a relationship deemed geostrategically vital.

Ambassador Murray was tipped for great things, if he would simply keep his mouth shut and follow the party line - a respectable career, a cushy posting to Brussels or Switzerland maybe, a knighthood at the end of the line. Instead, he ended up disowned by Jack Straw's Foreign Office and virtually bankrupt, buying stale bread from a garage forecourt and eating it toasted. His crime? Refusing to have a tea party with fascists and acting in defence of basic human rights. Murder in Samarkand describes in intimate detail Murray's journey in which he becomes a witness to a country being bled to death.

Craig Murray's good humour shines through in this terrific read. Out one night at a belly-dancing club, he jokingly comments that the dancer is wearing too many clothes for his taste. His companion says, "Don't worry - they wear a different costume for each dance." Murray keeps watching, only to discover that the dancers' wear progressively more clothes for each performance. He notes that he half expects to see the final dancer put on a hat and coat! Murray's taste for drinking and enjoying himself are one of the many charges that he had to fight when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office decided to drag his good name through the mud. He successfully defeated every charge but one: not to discuss any of the charges...

These brief shafts of humour provide all too few moments of relief amongst some tense situations: confronting Karimov's secret service in the middle of a field, with only two women and an old peasant woman they had been interviewing. The two burly agents threaten to rape and perhaps kill the women - a not uncommon event. Balding, pot-bellied Murray, hardly an imposing figure, confronts them head on without any backup or security.

Craig Murray by rights should have been celebrated by the New Labour government for defending essential virtues shared by our common humanity. After all, Britain was at the time following George Bush's lead in proclaiming that we were going to war against Afghanistan and Iraq in order to remove regimes that failed to meet our high moral standards. If ever there was testimony to this moral hypocrisy that has shamed the nations of those involved, none was as honest or eloquent as Murray's. Murder in Samarkand is an essential document and should these terrible events that Murray records be consigned to the black hole of history and the notoriously short-term memory of the West, Murray has included pictures of Bush smiling and shaking hands with the tyrant Karimov.

good read (1/1 people found this helpful)

I suppose the author is not your usual diplomat, but that makes the book only better. The impressions that I got from my only few visits to the country, including the conference that author describes, tie very well with the picture painted by the author. Massacre in Andijan that took place after Murray's departure only validated his views. If I'm not mistaken, eventual US and UK criticism of Andijan events lead to US air base in the country being closed by Karimov. Sadly, in spite of Murray's signals, mass killing of people had to take place before US and UK realised that Karimov used their war on terror to brutally supress Uzbekistan.

A gripping but flawed story that should be read - but with reservations (1/4 people found this helpful)

Murder in Samarkland is the revealing memoir of former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, ousted from his post in 2004 seemingly after pressure from the top of the British government. To the uninitiated, Uzbekistan is a former Soviet Republic, a US ally that assumed great importance because of its proximity to Afghanistan during the war on terror. It is ruled over by the repressive and frankly weird President Karimov, a man with no respect for western norms of human rights.

Murray's ambassadorship was spent primarily voicing his concerns about the Karimov regime and the fact that the UK government were receiving (not very good) intelligence, which had been taken from tortured prisoners. In doing so, Murray fell foul of his superiors, who were trying to keep the Uzbek regime onside. Eventually he was forced out of his job following a lengthy dirty tricks campaign. Murder in Samarkland is Murray's account of what is happening in Uzbekistan and what happened to him. It exposes the dirty world of foreign policy, and shows how truth can be stranger than fiction. Indeed had it been told by a more accomplished writer, one might have thought it came from the imagination of John Le Carre or Graham Greene.

Nevertheless I have a number of reservations about this book. Murray was a British ambassador and it was his job to further UK interests in Uzbekistan. But most of his days, according to Murder in Samarkland, seem to have been spent chasing around investigating human rights abuses. I accept that there were times when he needed to bear witness and verify incidents as a matter of record, but his job was not as a human rights envoy, which is what he seemingly tried to act as. His Foreign Office line managers are portrayed as supine and backstabbing, but could it just be that they wanted Murray to get on with the job in hand? While he was unquestionably pursuing worthwhile causes, he does come across as a bit of a pain. After a while, it is not surprising that the Foreign Office wanted rid of him, irrespective of whether he was `off-message' or not.

Second, he was a civil servant. It was his job to obey government policy - whether he believed it appropriate or otherwise - not challenge it.

Third, while Murray makes few attempt to hide his flaws, he can't help but come across as the very apotheosis of the Foreign Office's slurs, i.e. a heavy drinking sleazebag. His lack of self-awareness is most obvious whenever he encounters a new woman, who is invariably described in chauvinistic terms and rated according to her looks. Here, no cliché is ever far away as he describes acquaintances and colleagues in the manner of a second rate romantic novelist. When his wife confronts him about his affair with a local stripper, Murray is affronted by her threats of divorce. But I've had mistresses before! he basically says, as if that makes the cheating okay.

This leads into my fourth reservation - that there's seemingly plenty that Murray doesn't tell us. He is open about the Foreign Office censoring parts of his book, but what of the old mistresses - who are mentioned as a throwaway remark. What of Murray himself? We learn nothing of his background or his past, although his origins are hinted at on several occasions. Other significant elements of the story are glossed over, such as when he casually drops in that his mistress was raped twice while he was out of the country, but tells us nothing more. Or the Andijan massacre, which occurred after his time as ambassador was over, but which should have validated all he had stood for. Why did this only get a couple of cursary paragraphs?

It should also be made clear that Murray is no writer. The book is too long and too much attention is given to insignificant or banal detail (the food on the flight over from London, etc.). He spends too long mentioning and justifying his every move, and not enough on driving forward the narrative.

Murray says that one of his reasons for writing the book was to clarify that he was no hero, that he was just doing what he thought was right. Ultimately he fulfils both counts, for he is no hero and did what any right-minded citizen would do - though given his position, he was probably naive as well. While Murder in Samarkland has plenty of flaws it is a revealing insight into the calamitous foreign policy of the Blair years, and a fine example of the insidious lengths the government went to ally its foreign policy with the of America. It is a good story, not especially well told and which should be read with reservations, but worthwhile nonetheless.

Read this book (1/1 people found this helpful)

I finally got aroound to reading this during the Christmas holiday and was not disappointed. Even if you have no prior interest in the politics of the War on Terror this is great story, a rollicking good read told well by the man in the eye of the storm. If you do have an interest in the politics of the region and our government's craven support for the US neocons this book is essential reading.
CM is a very brave and honourable man who found that he could not keep quiet in the face of the totally dishounourable behaviour of his emploter the Blair government. By speaking truth unto evil he sacrificed his career.
Great book - great read - depressingly awful story - how Jack Straw and the mandarins of the FCO can sleep at night I do not know.
Thefatman

Diplomacy the Murray Way (8/12 people found this helpful)

Craig Murray's stand against human rights abuses and the stinking hypocrisy of Western governments in general makes for a rivetting read. No doubt the his opponents in the UK and US governments would claim that his account is self-serving, exaggerated and unrealistic in the current geo-political climate. However, the strength of his position is that if only 10% of what he claims is true, then those governments are lying, unprincipled opportunists who are complicit in enabling appalling abuses against the unfortunate people of Uzbekistan (high on my list of places to avoid at all costs). Hands up who hadn't worked that one out yet ...

On the downside, with what we might charitably call "disarming honesty", Mr Murray portrays himself convincingly as a 24 carat prat in an alarming number of ways, and as someone who seems to have spent most of his career cheerfully trying (with success he boasts) to cheat on his martyred wife.

In addition, some of this admitted behaviour is to my mind somewhat peculiar for an ambassador. Personally, I wouldn't expect the UK representative in any country to find his kicks in the local illicit lap-dancing venue, where he clearly does his utmost to abuse his position and relative wealth to pull local girls, who are already generally treated like dirt by the Uzbek police, security services, men generally, etc.

I'm a little lost as why the UK FO found it necessary to trump up charges against him, as I'd have thought he'd hung himself out to dry quite sufficiently anyway. And for that matter, why they simply didn't just move him somewhere else: perhaps I've missed something, but I'd assume the diplomatic service can re-assign people much as they see fit.

In summary however, a fascinating and deeply depressing account of yet more Western hypocrisy by a man who appears to be both very brave and very stupid.

Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror

Craig Murray

Reader Reviews:

Whisky, women and tea parties with fascists (0/0 people found this helpful)

good read (1/1 people found this helpful)

A gripping but flawed story that should be read - but with reservations (1/4 people found this helpful)

Read this book (1/1 people found this helpful)

Diplomacy the Murray Way (8/12 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories