Save the Children can now rescind the award; Blair takes another step towards inevitable war crimes trial along with pals Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Petraeus, Perino, Franks, Feith, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez et al
THE TELEGRAPH
By Ben Riley-Smith
03/03/2015
Save the Children has apologised over its decision to give Tony Blair a global legacy award and admitted it damaged the charity.
Justin Forsyth, the charity’s chief executive, said he was “very sorry” for the supporters and staff upset by the decision and called the issue an “unnecessary distraction”.
Mr Forsyth, a former aide to Mr Blair, also said it would have been “wrong” to give an award to the former Prime Minister for his whole legacy rather than his work in Africa specifically.
More than 100,000 people signed an online petition calling for the award to be rescinded and around 500 Saved the Children staff members have reportedly backed a similar petition.
 |
War crimes trials pending for both mass-murderers |
There was anger over Mr Blair’s decision to take Britain into two Middle East wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the deaths that followed. Questioned about the award on Radio Four, Mr Forsyth said: “I know that many of our supporters and volunteers were very upset and our staff, several of our staff too, and I'm very sorry for that.”
He said the decision had been made by the British charity’s “sister organisation” in America, where Mr Blair did not have the same controversial legacy, and explained the award was only for his Africa work.
“Yes, it was a global legacy award. It was called that. But actually it was an award very, very specifically for Tony Blair's efforts on Africa at two G8 summits at Birmingham and Gleneagles, not his wider legacy.
“And if it had been for his wider legacy I think it would be wrong, but it was for something quite specific that helped Africa and children.
“I'm sorry it's upset so many people. It's not really what we do at Save the Children.
What we're really doing is on the ground in Syria with the Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone – that's the work we do.
"This has been really an unnecessary distraction.
I do apologise to those people that it's upset.”
Mr Forsyth admitted the row had “in part” damaged the charity in eyes of some staff but expressed hope people would accept organisations “make mistakes”.
On his Save the Children biography Mr Forsyth says he was recruited to Number 10 by Mr Blair to help work on poverty and climate change and was “one of the driving forces behind the Make Poverty History campaign”.
He then became Gordon Brown's strategic communications and campaigns director before joining Save the Children.
This news
bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political,
human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.