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

by Craig Murray (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Mainstream Publishing; New edition edition (1 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1845962214
  • ISBN-13: 978-1845962210
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 23,496 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #10 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Civil Liberties & Political Activism > Political Violence > Political Oppression & Imprisonment
    #20 in  Books > Biography > True Crime > Murder

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Product Description

Review
"I thought that diplomats like Craig Murray were an extinct breed. A man of the highest principle"
-John Pilger
"An important and well-told story from a frontline on the war of terror"
-"The Spectator"
"The Uzbek people know only one word for Craig Murray: hero"
-Mohammad Salih, Uzbek opposition leader
"Heroic. This darkly comic tale...rings horribly true. It helps explain the moral bankruptcy [of] the Blair government"
-Sir Max Hastings, "Sunday Times," 16 July 2006
"The book is fantastic. It is very, very funny...It also deals with the fact that the reason he is no longer ambassador is that the British Government was using information obtained from torture and he thought that was wrong"
-Michael Winterbottom, Director
"This candid account...looks set to ruffle a few feathers"
-"Bookseller"
"The actions of this brave and principled man have certainly exposed the 'war on terror' for the sick charade that it is"
-"Morning Star"
"Excellent"
-"Sunday Express"

Justin Marozzi, The Spectator, 29 July 2006
An important and well-told story from a frontline of the war on terror. A very good thing indeed. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Telling the Truth for His Country, 11 Jul 2006
By BioDiplomacy "Iain" (London SE26, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Hardcover)
Few of us have done battle with a murderous dictator. "Murder in Samarkand" tells how a British Ambassador did so and survived, only to be stabbed in the back by his own government. The FCO's attempt to dismiss Craig Murray for invented disciplinary offences is an individual tale of injustice. However, the core of this gripping tale is of a studious, individualistic and patriotic Ambassador driven to take absurd risks in remote parts of Uzbekistan as he builds up a dossier of the brutal crimes of his host government. Those who try to obstruct him find the mild scholar is no pushover. He disputes the lies of petty bureaucrats. He storms into a corrupt procurator's office and dismisses him as a criminal - a risky way of exercising an Ambassador's "full and plenipotentiary" powers. But it works. The bully is exposed as a coward in front of those he has bullied. There is even a snow-shrouded car chase with Karimov thugs in pursuit - no wonder the film rights are under
discussion.
The shocking part of this story - narrated with skill and candour - is that, at heart, much of the FCO agreed with the advice Craig Murray was providing from Tashkent. Dealing with human rights abuses is never easy. Murray knew his way around Whitehall well enough to make sure that a controversial speech critical of Uzbekistan had support from the human rights desks in the FCO and in the Department for International Development. But when the Americans complained to No 10 and this was passed on to the FCO, spines crumpled - from Jack Straw down. This book makes one both proud and ashamed of British diplomacy. There is a simple lesson for Blair to learn. If you ask diplomats who are trained to report truthfully, to tell lies, the lasting problems will come from those who obey you, not the ones who stick to their professional calling. "
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45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb attack on Blair foreign policy, 29 Aug 2006
By William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Hardcover)
Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. He has produced a memoir of his experiences that reads like a thriller, vivid, full of incident, dramatic and funny.

As he shows, since Uzbekistan became independent of the Soviet Union, things have got much worse. There is far less personal freedom, and living standards have plummeted. The universal literacy and good roads of the Soviet era have gone.

Murray opposed the US-British policy of supporting the Karimov regime and its increasing repression, which, as he observes, is promoting Islamist terrorism. In doing so, he diverged from US foreign policy, so Blair decided that he had to go. As Murray quotes Oscar Wilde, "Anyone who tells the truth is bound to be found out sooner or later."

Murray dared to expose the regime's appalling human rights abuses, when Colin Powell told the US Congress that Uzbekistan's human rights record was acceptable. Yet there are 7,000-10,000 political and religious prisoners in a population of 22 million. Torture in Uzbekistan is `widespread and systemic' and `used as a routine investigative technique', according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Murray shows how the Blair government accepts information obtained under torture from Uzbekistan, as it also does from Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. MI6 regularly receives this `intelligence' from Uzbekistan via the CIA. Receiving torture material, like receiving stolen goods, is complicity in crime. This breaches the UN Convention Against Torture, whose Article 4 bans `complicity' in torture. Yet the Blair government, despicably, argued in the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords for its right to use torture material as evidence to guide security operations and to detain people without trial. Murray rightly holds that torture material is morally and legally unacceptable, and practically useless.

Further, the book's footnotes reveal that the Blair government has censored various details and names. It even threatened to sue Murray if he included in the book documents that he had made the government release under the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts. These documents are still available on the net, at www.blairwatch.co.uk/murray/docs.html and www.dahrjamailiraq.com/murray/index.plp



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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Because There is No Six Star Option, 8 Jul 2006
This review is from: Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Hardcover)
My daughter bought this and I picked it up on the breakfast table two days ago. I just finished it - and it isn't a short book.

It came as a welcome surprise that Murray is not sanctimonious or knee-jerk left wing. Indeed he comes over as a kind of Graham Greene anti-hero, racked by guilt and self-doubt and painfully honest and open about the kind of stuff most of us hide. His outbreaks of laddism can be a bit sickening, and it is one of the most fearless accounts of enduring mental illness ever written. But he still comes across as a much better man than the cold politicos who drove him over the top, just as they drove David Kelly.

Readable, wonderfully written and scary about the horrible things done allegedly to protect us. Pity the photos are minute and the Enron letter reproduced at the front is small and illegible.

For anyone who wonders just how low New Labour can get, here is the answer.



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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading
For those at a loss to understand how the war on terror actually works, here it is in all its dubious glory. Read more
Published 3 months ago by O.A

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, brave, exciting, depressing
A surprising page-turner from a man of rare integrity. I expected it to be another dark lumbering account of the world's underbelly -- worthy and necessary, yes, entertaining and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Evan Hendrikse

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've ever read.
Is there a democracy? What does "Human Rights" mean to you? What is true evil? Who are the Good guys and who are the Bad guys? Read more
Published 4 months ago by R.M.

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy-to-read account of the horrors of the Uzbek regime
I found this book surprisingly easy to read and found myself getting through 200 pages in a day.

The book covers the human rights abuses of the corrupt Karimov regime... Read more
Published 5 months ago by F. Khan

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye opener, but not unexpected!
I thought this book was a fascinating read. It truly exposes the sham that foreign 'diplomacy' is.

Whils I do take some exception to Mr Murrays attitude towards his... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Phill in the UK

5.0 out of 5 stars Oskar Schindler meets John Stalker
Serial adulterer, heavy drinker, attention seeker. A pain to his government, a thorn in the side of officialdom, a righteous upholder of justice. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Frank

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth is stranger than fiction!
Murder in Samarkand. I read an article in the Big Issue and vowed to read this book. It is FANTASTIC. A man against the system... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mrs. Susan Quinlan

2.0 out of 5 stars Over simplified and self -satifying
Craig Murray documents his time as British Ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan from 2002-4. He highlights the problems he saw within the country and made a personal, "moral"... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mr. D. J. Walford

4.0 out of 5 stars Whisky, women and tea parties with fascists
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... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Tristan Martin

5.0 out of 5 stars good read
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... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Nomad in Caledonia

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