Lord Mountbatten: a rogue’s history
Press TV 18th August
Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, otherwise
known as Lord Mountbatten, has been a key figure in securing the British royal
family’s interests through successfully advancing divisive ploys in different
countries in the mid-20th century.
Mountbatten
was the second cousin to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and uncle of her husband
Prince Philip.
He
was the last Viceroy of India under British colonialist rule and the first
Governor General of the country after its independence from Britain.
As
such he oversaw the inevitable transition of India out of British rule but
retained the Queen’s position in the country as the head of state - at least by
1950 when India announced itself a republic - and administered the partition of
India.
Mountbatten,
born on June 25, 1900, was a German aristocrat, born Prince Louis of
Battenberg, but Britain’s Queen Victoria was his great grandmother and was as
such a cousin to Queen Elizabeth II.
The
Lord, known in the circle of family and close friends as Dickie, was appointed
chief of the British War Office’s Combined Operations Headquarters in April
1942 and was later promoted to the position of Supreme Allied Commander South
East Asia Command.
At
that position, he oversaw the seizure of Myanmar (called Burma by the British
government) from the Japanese forces during the World War II, hence earning the
title 1St Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
His
service to the Queen also earned him the position of the British imperialism’s
Viceroy of India on February 12, 1947.
In
that capacity, he showed the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru a
“secret” British plan, named “Plan Balkan”, that proposed “devolved power to
the [Indian] provinces” including the princely states.
Nehru
condemned the plan as a trigger for “fragmentation and conflict and disorder”.
The
plans also proposed “a continuing entity” as an Indian state, but opposed to a
Muslim state, which came to be called Pakistan.
Contrary
to the promoted liberal image of Mountbatten, he was the person to decide a
united independent India was not achievable, effectively setting the stage for
bloodshed and loss of life in several provinces especially Punjab and Bengal.
Still,
he once more secured the Queen’s interests handing all Offshore Indian oil
projects to British companies, where it goes without saying that British
Petroleum was a giant with Queen as a major shareholder.
He
ended his post in India on June 21, 1948 to return to the Royal Navy where he
became commander of a new NATO Mediterranean command in 1953, Britain’s first
sea lord in 1954 and finally the chief of British armed forces in 1959.
He
was retired in 1965 but has now emerged a significant figure in the plots against
Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the 1960’s.
He
seems to have been the point of convergence of the different networks of
anti-Wilson conspirators.
As
chief of defence staff from 1959 to 1965 he had contacts with all sections of
the military.
Lord
William Waldergrave said on the BBC documentary Plot Against Harold Wilson back
in 2006 that Mountbatten was at the center of a planned coup.
“There
were people talking about coup d’états. Lord Mountbatten was going to become
head of some sort of junta that was going to rescue us,” he said.
The
documentary also said that Mountbatten was approached by different groups of
British politicians including the then Earl of Cromartie and even formed a
private army to stage a coup, in favor of a British pro-royal Conservative
government.
The
controversial figure was assassinated in a bombing by Northern Irish dissident
group Irish Republican Army in the village of Mullaghmore in County Sligo on
August 27, 1979 near his family holiday home at Classiebawn Castle.
Later
IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was carried out at the height
of Northern Ireland Troubles and the republicans’ push for independence from
Britain.
“What
the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other
people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying
in what was clearly a war situation,” the then Sinn Fein vice-president Gerry
Adams said at the time.
In honor of his services to the Queen, both
politically and financially, she avoided visiting Northern Ireland until 2012.
Sinn Féin Mountmellick – Serving The Community
Why publish this archaic article from an Iranian company when there are more important issues that need to be highlighted here in Ireland.
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