Sunday, 18 August 2013

Mountbatten A Different Perspective


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

1 comment:

  1. Why publish this archaic article from an Iranian company when there are more important issues that need to be highlighted here in Ireland.

    ReplyDelete