Britain’s 42 coups since 1945

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 12 January 2023 The UK has planned or executed over 40 attempts to remove foreign governments in 27 countries since the end of the Second World War, involving the intelligence agencies, covert and overt military interventions and assassinations, Declassified has found. Probably the most well-known coup staged by British intelligence […]

The UK’s 83 military interventions around the world since 1945

Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest The British military has used or threatened to use military force […]

British government ministers have been complicit in millions of deaths since 1945, so don’t be surprised that they won’t face justice over coronavirus

By Mark Curtis Declassified UK, 2 May 2020 The UK government’s failure to provide protective equipment to all health staff treating coronavirus victims prompts questions whether ministers are legally culpable for failing to prevent deaths. But UK ministers routinely act with impunity and every prime minister since 1945 has been complicit in deaths abroad. At […]

East Timor / Timor Leste: Declassified

Documents ‘Declassified British Documents Reveal U.K. Support for Indonesian Invasion and Occupation of East Timor, 1975-1976’ (31 documents, National Security Archive) Articles ‘Declassified British Documents Reveal U.K. Support for Indonesian Invasion and Occupation of East Timor, 1975-1976’ (Hugh Dowson, National Security Archive) ‘UK embassy lied over fate of Timor journalists’ (Guardian, 1 December 2005) ‘Indonesia, […]

Brief for the Chief of the Defence Staff, ‘Possible political developments in Indonesia within the next few months’, JIC (65)7, 27 January 1965

“The evidence is by no means conclusive and it would be unwise to base any plans on his [Sukarno’s] supposed departure from the Indonesian scene in the immediate future. However, he is a sick man who may die at any time; without an operation he is unlikely to last more than a year and, if […]

Indonesia: Declassified

The UK files on Indonesia show a range of  remarkable UK policies by Conservative and Labour governments alike: support for the slaughter of up to 800,000 people in 1965, complicity in the invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975, killing a further 100,000, and the covert operation to attempt to overthrow the Sukarno government […]

The UN: A brief history of the UK’s long opposition

By Mark Curtis An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses In the mainstream, the official view is that British governments provide enduring support to the United Nations. The opposite is true: it is clear from the historical record that the UN has traditionally been seen as a major threat. Britain’s ambassador to […]

New, updated edition of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam

The new,updated edition of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam was published on 22 March 2012. Read the introduction here Order the book here Read the media release here

Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam

Mark Curtis’s new book was published on 1 July 2010 and updated in 2018. Read The Guardian‘s coverage of the book, 6 July 2010, here. Read Mark Curtis’s Guardian article, 6 July 2010, here. Read reviews here (Independent), here (Metro), here (New Humanist) here (Asharq al-Awsat, in Arabic) here (Al-Masry Al-Youm, in Arabic) here (Morning […]

Ten year’s of New Labour’s arms exports: A Review

By Mark Curtis Reviewing British arms exports for the ten-year period under New Labour, the figures speak for themselves: – The UK has exported £45 billion worth of arms around the world since 1997. – Over £110m of military equipment has gone to Israel, throughout a period of offensive operations in the occupied territories and […]