The guest speaker at tonight’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Motherwell and Wishaw was the former diplomat, human rights activist and author, Craig Murray.
On joining the civil service, Craig chose the HM Diplomatic Service because it was the only government department which really interested him. He had a number of overseas postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in Africa and Europe. In London, he was worked in the FCO's Southern European Department as Cyprus desk officer and, later, became head of the Maritime Section.
In August 1991, he was appointed head of the FCO section in the Embargo Surveillance Centre. This job entailed monitoring the Iraqi government's attempts at smuggling weapons and circumventing sanctions. He was responsible for giving daily briefings to Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
Rising through the ranks at the FCO, Craig was appointed British ambassador to Uzbekistan. While in Tashkent, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights violations, which he argued was contrary to the wishes of the British government. On a number of occasions, he complained to the FCO that intelligence linking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to al-Qaeda was unreliable, immoral and illegal, as it was being obtained through torture, with the CIA’s rendition of prisoners to Uzbekistan for this purpose. Craig described this as "selling our souls for dross" and this resulted in being removed from his ambassadorial post on 14 October 2004.
Moving on, Craig has written three books and was the Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007–10.
Craig delighted his audience with many tales of his experiences and situations he found himself in and had the members in raptures when he described the reasoning behind the title of his second book, "The Catholic Orangemen of Toga". Craig had brought along some of his books which were available for sale. He then answered the many questions put to him by members.
John McDonald gave the vote of thanks.
The winner of the weekly bonus ball was Past President Charles Keeper.'What We Do' Main Pages:
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