Gurkhas win right to equal pensions

By Thomas Harding
Last Updated: 1:57am GMT 08/03/2007

Gurkhas serving in the Armed Forces celebrated last night after learning that their pensions would finally be brought into line with the rest of the British Army.

After years of campaigning, all the Nepalese soldiers will be able to transfer their pensions into the Armed Forces Pension scheme and see their retirement income increase fivefold, Parliament will be told today.

The deal means that the highly-regarded troops will have incomes worth a considerable amount when they retire to their homeland.

In a country where the average income is just 60p a day, soldiers who have served for 16 years will see their pensions rise from £1,200 a year to £6,600. Senior ranks will received well in excess of £7,000 and considerably more depending on the time they have served.

All Gurkhas who joined the Army from July 1, 1997 will be offered the chance to transfer to the scheme. There are currently 3,300 Gurkhas in the Army, the majority of whom have served on all overseas operations, especially Afghanistan and Iraq.

But for decades they have been on a lower pension band than British colleagues while doing the same job and facing the same dangers.

The troops have been helped in their campaign by the Forces Pension Society, and former soldiers have protested outside Downing Street. Derek Twigg, the veterans' minister, will announce the change, which is expected to cost the Ministry of Defence £20 million a year.

"They fight and die for Britain and fully deserve to be treated the same as everyone else in the Army," a Whitehall source said last night.

But older Gurkha veterans are still in poverty because the Ministry of Defence has abandoned them, a report last year claimed.

Troops who served with distinction during and since the Second World War were becoming "increasingly desperate", living on less than £20 a month. The Government had refused to examine their cases because of a "magic cut-off date".

While the review has been going on into the terms and conditions of soldiers who joined up after 1997 - when the Gurkhas' headquarters moved to Britain after Hong Kong was handed back to China - an estimated 25,000 living in Nepal have been ignored.

The ministry maintains that all Gurkhas who retired or were made redundant before 1997 were either given lump sum payments or pensions that reflected the local standard of living and do not need to be included in the review.

About fucking time.At last Blair and his cronies have got something right.

Faugh-a-ballagh

Yes about time, just a shame that many of the others will not get what they trully earnt, while fighting for us

How did they get round the agreement with India regarding Ghurka pay and coditions?

Acorn,

As far as pay is concerned, the MoD circemvented the Tripartite Agreement by catogorising the difference in pay as 'Allowances" and not a salary increase. Don't know how they're managing the pensions though. Truth be told the Tripartite Agreement is effectively redundant especially since the mid 1990's. We take so few Gurkas each year (average around 250 for the past few years) that it in no way impacts on Indain or Nepalese Army recruitment which the Agreement was supposed to safeguard.
Regards

Jack

I see from Sky news this morning that the Gurkhas are now recruiting Nepali women for non Infantry units.

Faugh-a-ballagh

Fuckin too right - it's a tad late imo, 43000 KIA. Should have been sorted years ago - "About 22,000 Gurkhas who retired before 1997 will not benefit and will continue to be paid a pension based on the standard of living in Nepal, A Gurkha rifleman who retired before 1997 gets a pension of £1,185 a year".

Disgrace.

I would pull the plug on Gurkha women! They frighten their men!

Gurkha veterans stage equality protest

By Natalie Paris and agencies
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 29/03/2007

Thousands of Gurkha veterans who fought for Britain took part in an equality march yesterday calling for fair treatment and equal pensions.

An estimated 2,500 retired soldiers joined the protest following a recent Government announcement that citizenship rights and fairer pensions would apply only to currently serving Gurkhas.

Campaigners claim troops who served with distinction during and since the Second World War are becoming "increasingly desperate".

They say thousands of the most vulnerable Gurkha veterans are living in poverty with some forced to survive on just £23 per month or nothing, because of a "magic cut-off date".

The 1997 "Dividing Line" prevents Gurkhas who retired before that date from having the right to live in the UK or help with their pensions.

Yesterday the soldiers, many wearing their war medals, held placards reading 'PM Blair give us what we deserve' and 'Equal pensions for all Gurkhas'.

Conservative MP for Maidstone and the Weald Ann Widdecombe thanked the veterans for fighting for their country.

"We are not asking for charity. We are asking for justice, plain and simple justice," she said.

"I am ashamed at the way that we treat our Gurkhas."

She added: "The 1997 dividing line is not only illogical, worse than that it is immoral."

Organiser and Liberal Democrat campaigner Peter Carroll told the crowd: "I cannot understand why in 2007 we have a situation where people who are prepared to fight and possibly die for this country suffer great injustice and are discriminated against so badly."

He urged those attending to "harness your greatest assets - the great affection in which you are held in Britain and across the world".

The veterans planned to march on to the cenotaph where a wreath will be laid to honour Gurkhas who died in the service of Britain.

Captain Ram Bahadur Limbu, 66, from Nepal, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for saving two wounded comrades in Borneo in 1965, was to have led the protest but was unable to fly to the UK because of ill-health.

Captain Gary Ghale, 52, who served between 1972 and 1997, spoke in his place. Captain Ghale, who lives in Hampshire, said: "I speak on behalf of all ex-British Gurkhas spread around the world that we stand here today for equal justice for the sacrifice we have given to the British."

A small delegation was expected to hand a personal letter to Downing Street for the Prime Minister.

http://www.mediaplayer.telegraph.co.uk/?item=13A385C7-CAA7-43BA-A4C7-00AFC1E05148#

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"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes..."

I fully support the Idea of equal pensions for all ex Gurkha Soldiers.

I do find it odd that I can't remember Ms Widdecome being so vocal on this subject when her party were in Government. Maybe its my age and failing memory.

Faugh-a-ballagh

This film forced the French goverment to act on a simular issue.

regards ferret


Days of Glory (Indigenes)
Starring: Bernard Blancan, Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Aurelie Eltvedt, Benoit Giros
Directed by: Rachid Bouchareb
RS: 3.5of 4 Stars Average User Rating: 3.5of 4 Stars
2006 Weinstein Co. All Movies

Algeria's pick in the Oscar race for Best Foreign-Language film is a wounding indictment of discrimination in the trenches.

Indigenes (the French title, meaning "Natives") is set during the last years of World War II. Equality and fraternity fell by the wayside when it came to the North African soldiers who joined France in fighting the Nazis through Italy and Provence.

These Algerian Arabs were merely straw dogs to their bigoted French superiors. Director and co-writer Rachid Bouchareb, born in Paris to Algerian immigrants, knows these racial tensions are still simmering. And in this wallop of a war movie he makes you feel the heat.

The superb cast, including Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Roshdy Zem, Samy Naceri and Bernard Blancan, who plays their sergeant, shared the Best Actor prize in Cannes.

The tribute is apt and inspiring. And there's more icing on the cake.

Bouchareb's film helped shame the French government into raising pensions for more than 80,000 of these veterans. Here's that rare movie that really did change things. I'll be damned.