Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror [Import] [Paperback]

Craig Murray (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 6, 2007

Craig Murray was the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan until he was removed from his post in October 2004 after exposing appalling human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of President Islam Karimov. In this candid and at times shocking memoir, he lays bare the dark and dirty underside of the War on Terror.

In Uzbekistan, the land of Alexander the Great and Tamburlaine, lurks one of the most hideous tyrannies on earth – one founded on cotton slavery and brutal torture. As neighbouring 'liberated’ Afghanistan produces record levels of heroin, the Uzbek rulers cash in on massive trafficking. They are even involved in trafficking their own women to prostitution in the West. But this did not prevent Karimov being viewed as a key US ally in the War on Terror.

When Craig Murray arrived in Uzbekistan, he was a young Ambassador with a brilliant career and a taste for whisky and women. But after hearing accounts of dissident prisoners being boiled to death and innocent people being raped and murdered by agents of the state, he started to question both his role and that of his country in so-called 'democratising’ states.

When Murray decided to go public with his shocking findings, Washington and 10 Downing Street reached the conclusion that he had to go. But Uzbekistan had changed the high-living diplomat and there was no way he was going to go quietly.

Editorial Reviews

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

About the Author

Craig Murray was born in 1958. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1984 and served in Nigeria, Poland and Ghana, before being appointed Ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2002. He retired from the Civil Service in 2005. He now lives in London, where he works as a writer and broadcaster.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing (March 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845962214
• ISBN-13: 978-1845962210
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 7.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Diplomat Tells the Truth for His Country July 11, 2006

By BioDiplomacy

Format:Paperback

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 Prime Minister. Tony Blair ignored diplomatic advice if it complicated his relations with George W. Bush. How the British Foreign Office tried but failed to dismiss Ambassador Murray for invented disciplinary offences is an individual tale of injustice. However, the gripping core of this story is of a young and studious Ambassador driven to take absurd risks in remote parts of Uzbekistan as he builds up a dossier of incontrovertible brutalities by his host government. Those who try to obstruct him find this experienced and slightly overweight scholar is no patsy. He disputes the lies of petty bureaucrats. He storms into a corrupt procurator's office and dismisses him as a criminal - a risky way to use 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 chase with President Karimov's goons in pursuit - no wonder film rights are under discussion.

The shocking part of this story - narrated with skill and honesty - is that, at heart, much of the British Foreign Office valued Ambassador Murray's reporting from his Embassy in Tashkent. Dealing with human rights abuses is never easy. Murray knew his way around the policy heavyweights at home well enough to make sure that a controversial speech critical of Uzbekistan had support from the human rights desks. But when the White House complained to Tony Blair and he passed this down the line, spines crumpled - from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw down. This book shows how diplomats can bring shame or honor to their country.... There is a simple lesson for Tony Blair (and George Bush) to learn. If you ask diplomats who are trained to report truthfully, to tell lies, the lasting problems will come from the ones who obey you, not the ones who stick to their professional calling. Read more ›

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The enemy of my enemy is my friend July 13, 2006

By Sabretache

Format:Paperback

Allegations of visas in exchange for sex against a British ambassador to some ex-Soviet republic; subsequently cleared on all counts but forced out nonetheless. Like many in Britain that was all that really remained in my memory of the lurid headlines and media reports of a year or so ago - and life carried on.

Anyone for whom that rings bells owes it to themselves to read this book, as does anyone wondering about the true nature of the West's so called 'War on Terror'. It is deeply disturbing on two levels:

1. It documents the appalling nature of the 20 year Uzbek Regime of Islam Karimov. A regime which spans the pre and post-to-date Soviet era. Not in some dry academic fashion either but through the exploits of the Ambassador who, at considerable risk to his own safety, intervened in numerous cases of offical brutality. The reader is left in no doubt that the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan is on a par with the very worst of the worlds self-serving and brutal dictatorships. It was during this period that controversy about US/UK willingness to 'make use of evidence obtained under torture' and US so called 'rendition flights' became public. The ambassador reported that any such 'evidence' from Uzbekistan was useless since the regime was simply in the business of forcing 'dissidents to confirm what the regime wanted the West to hear. His reports were unwelcome.

2. To have the true nature of one the then principal strategic allies in the West's 'War on Terror' exposed to scrutiny was judged by the Foreign Office top brass to be (euphemistically) 'counterproductive'.... In spite of him having overwhelming support from human rights organisations and the Ex-Pat British business community, not to mention achieving more genuine influence with the Karimov regime than any of his predecessors, he had to be stopped. The methods employed to stop him were the inspiration of those headlines which hid a myriad of other kafkaesque stratagems . They bring shame on both the British government and the upper echelons of a politicised civil service which even now is doing all it can to prevent both the sale of this book and publication of documents which prove its authenticity. Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly superb book February 1, 2008

By Violetta Smart

Format:Hardcover

I can't understand why there are no reviews of this book. It is truly superb, a gripping account of a British ambassador, who defended the principles upon which a genuine democracy is based, waging a battle against a bloody dictator supported by the Bush/Cheney regime and his own government.

Why did Bush/Cheney/Blair support Karimov, whom Craig Morris exposed as a torturer who had boiled an opposition leader in oil? Because of the dictator's "contributions" to the so-called War on Terror: a military base in Uzbekhistan for the Bush/Cheney regime, and a willing accomplice in the torture individuals believed to be terrorists.

Of course Craig Murray suffered at the hands of his own government--the ways are revealed in the book--when he complained vehemently against using "information" which was the product of torture by the dictator's inhuman henchmen. He didn't know it at the time, but the CIA was carrying out a policy now known as "extraordinary rendition."

The book is valuable, not only because it is a well-written account of Craig Murray's insistence on refusing to cooperate with a savage regime that terrified the population of Uzbekhistan in ways that the worst of our nightmares could not conceive, as well as this ambassador's battle against his own government, but also because it provides details of the daily life of a ranking diplomat, a rare occurrence.

I cannot recommend Murder in Samarkand highly enough! The book deserves every one of the five stars I have given it.