THE INDIRECT CONNECTION

We modern humans have always lived in pretty well connected world, so if you think that there is no direct or even indirect connection between a public meeting about the plan to build a gas fired power station in Wrecsam and the suppression of a teacher union in Bahrain, then think again. The plan to build an £800 million pound gas-fired power station in Wrecsam, which Wrexham Power have said could create up to 1,200 construction jobs and 50 permanent posts on the proposed site at Wrecsam Industrial Estate, has led to the creation of an action group Wrecsam Residents Against Power Scheme (Wraps) whose concerned members have "many reservations" about the proposals for the gas fired power station.

The plan to construct (yet) another gas fired power station (in Wales) adding to ones constructed earlier in Pembrokeshire and in Newport (Gwent) is part of yet another Conservative inspired ‘dash to gas’. Whether the thrown bone of jobs is enough of a distracter to allow to project to go through on the nod is a matter of conjecture. If nothing else the Con Dem Westminster Government is running greater risks by increasing the UK’s dependency upon imported gas from the chronically unstable Persian Gulf and Russia.

Successive Westminster Governments should have been working consistently to ensure our energy independence. Instead they have presided over our increasing dependence on imported energy supplies and left energy planning to the privatised energy companies who are only interested in generating more profits.  Much of the gas for the new generation of gas fired power stations comes from the Persian gulf and despite Mr Cameron’s best efforts to sell the Gulf elites more rubber and real bullets than they can use in a month of Sundays the region remains chronically unstable.

Bahrain has a reputation as being quite the repressive regime having cracked down on protests for democracy in 2011. Amongst those arrested in the crackdown were members of the Bahrain Teachers Association. Amnesty International has repeatedly called for the release of the jailed president of the Bahrain Teachers Association, Mahdi Abu Dheeb. He was convicted by a military court of plotting to overthrow the government during unrest that swept Bahrain in 2011, receiving a 10 year sentence, reduced to five on appeal.

Mr Abu Dheeb and his vice-president Jalila al-Salman have made allegations that they were tortured in detention after calling for a strike by teachers in March 2011 to support pro-democracy activists who had occupied the Pearl Roundabout, in Manama (the capital city). The Bahrain Teachers Association was subsequently dissolved by the government after its leaders were arrested. Ms Salman was originally sentenced to three years in jail but that was reduced to six months on appeal. In March this year she was sacked from her teaching job after criticising Bahrain's human rights record at a conference in Washington DC.  All these people did was call a strike as trade union leaders.

This is where energy policy, political repression and Human Rights all meet up. On a very basic level, to have an energy strategy that is to all intents and purposes dependent on imported gas from a politically unstable region is questionable to say the least. Surely if nothing else the events of the Arab spring should have taught the West one thing at least, in that at some point even the most heavily tooled up repressive regime can fall if enough people are willing to challenge it. At which point when the lights begin to flicker where exactly will we be left standing?

A WIND OF CHANGE?

Small stones can start large avalanches, opposition to Muammar Gaddafi and his murderous repressive regime is not new, it has a long history both inside and outside of Libya. Not that former PM Tony Blair and other Western Leaders who were busy snuggling up the repressive leader and his spawn would have noticed, but courageous Libyans defying the repressive Gaddafi regime took to the streets not a month ago, but more than two years ago. They risked torture and death sentences and their protest largely passed unnoticed by most of the world, a small group of families began to hold weekly demonstrations in Benghazi, the city that has become the epicenter of the uprising that swept across Libya.

In less than three months Gaddafi has gone from being the West's best mate to billy no mates. The UN Security Council has twice in three weeks done the right thing, initially by referring Libya to the International Criminal Court, then, by authorizing military force to protect civilians from Muammar al-Qaddafi's crazed wrath. Qaddafi is in many ways the perfect stage villain complete with an iffy dress sense, madness and way over-the-top threats to "show no mercy" to the people of Benghazi, along with his regional meddling and megalomaniac ideas, left him few friends or defenders.

Now What's even more amazing aside from the fact that China and Russia decided not to vote or even to abstain in the UN, is the fact that the Arab League (which has long promised much and delivered little for the Arab peoples) has also played an key role by abandoning its usual position of opposition to Security Council action against some of it's more repressive members. Previously the league has watched silently as Sudan's Omar al-Bashir committed crimes against humanity in Darfur, somewhat less recently, Saddam Hussein (Iraq) massacred Shia and Kurds, and Syria's Hafez al-Asad destroyed the town of Hama.

Now the question are the winds of change wafting through the Middle East and North Africa or is the ground literally crumbling beneath the feet of a whole host of iffy and repressive regimes - with popular dissent and demonstrations in Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Bharain - where next people may well wonder? What's embarrassing for Western leaders in particular is that they now find that many of the despots they have feted because they brought 'security and stability' to the region (and also lucratively armed to the teeth) are now busy repressing their own people in what appears to be a series of increasingly bloody and brutal (and hopefully futile) attempts to stay in power.

Gaddafi and friend (AFP / Getty)

Western leaders are 'discovering' that 'their boys' are a pretty grim and repressive bunch of (hopefully) no hopers. I suppose that we should all be grateful in that at least we have been spared the embarrassing suggestion that they did not no what they were like or what they were doing. Certainly the former New Labour Government and no doubt the Con Dem's spent plenty of time being nice to Gaddafi regime (the sight of Peter Hain (Labour MP for Neath) defending a long line of arms sales to Libya recently on BBC Question time comes to mind). Now the people are taking to the streets throughout the region, risking their lives for freedom, democracy and human rights against autocratic leaders that have long denied them for so long.

Here's hoping what we are seeing is the wind of change and here's hoping that Gaddafi (and his ilk) and the rest of the repressive bunch end up in Court and after due process spend a seriously long time in goal answering for their crimes. When Saddam went far too much was swept under the carpet (the Kurds amongst many others never did get their day in court) and we never did find out which Western Governments (and the rest) and which companies had been quietly breaking the sanctions because after all he was 'our boy'.

And while we are at it lets have a long hard look at just who's been profitably tooling up the forces of repression around the globe and shine some light on the UK's foreign policy and exactly what decisions have been and are being made on our name? Now this wave of revolution has been fuelled by the courage of ordinary people who are prepared to stand up and be counted, aided and abetted by Facebook - the blocking of which by repressive regimes is a key sign of unrest and dissent- incidentally I wonder if Facebook is blocked in Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbarbwe and Iran all of whom have expressed their support for Gaddafi?

MORE THAN A FAINT WHIFF OF HYPOCRACY

There is more than a faint whiff of hypocracy surrounding William Hague's somewhat belated condemnation of the brutal repression currently being undertaken in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. If my memory serves me correctly UK PLC has been actively supporting, nurturing, arming up-skilling and re-tooling the forces of repression across the globe in a whole host of unsavoury regimes. Now that for want of a better phrase the various peoples of the Middle and Near East are trying to find their political and economic freedoms then the house of cards so ably supplied and abetted by Old Labour, Conservative, New Labour and Con Dem threatens to come crashing down around the Foreign Offices' ears.  If Hague's musings are somewhat embarrassing to listen to, then just imagine all the sweet nothings he would be whispering to Mubarak if he had survived.