Networks of Informers I
The Channel 4 independent witnesses :
Prof Rajiva WIJESINHA
Watching the Channel 4 film that is now doing the rounds, I was
struck by its essential predictability. It relied very heavily on three
individuals whom it suggested were independent witnesses, though in all
three cases their reliability is in grave doubt. I had in fact drawn
attention previously to the potential dangers posed by these
individuals.
The failure to have taken action in this respect is I believe another
indictment on the lack of professionalism within our government
departments, a lack of professionalism which I fear will continue in the
absence of intelligent, high-powered groups to monitor and anticipate
and deal with problems. I have been suggesting such bodies for months
now, only to be told endlessly about the difficulties of setting them
up. We thus tend to react to attacks on us, often without consistency,
which often contributes to further attacks.
Three star witnesses
An example of what we failed to do is provided by Bernard Dix, who
was trotted out after two years to be one of the three star witnesses in
the case against the Sri Lankan state. There had previously been a dress
rehearsal for this, when he had popped up in Geneva to attack us, way
back in 2008. We got the UN to put a stop to this, but we failed to get
from them, despite my suggesting this at the time, something in writing
that specifically repudiated Dix and what he was doing.
I can do no better now than republishing something I wrote a year
ago, in which I noted that doubtless Dix 'will be recycled elsewhere at
some stage'. Sadly, though it is always heartening when one's foresight
is proved correct, the continuing failure of our system to develop such
foresight in general will continue to create problems for us.
The article as a whole also suggests other reasons for us facing so
much criticism now. I regret too therefore that I never got answers to
the questions I raised in 2009 with our Ministry of External Affairs
about Holdsworth, and indeed the intervention of one of its officials
who tried to persuade us to reverse our decision.
Emotional and Other Excesses of UN Staff Within the UN system
In considering the individuals within the UN system who have tried to
undermine the Sri Lankan government, and in the process also contributed
to undermining the good work that the UN in general tries to do, we
should look carefully at the various examples of what might be termed
pernicious excess.
Most obviously we have those who have gone out on a limb, and been
found out, so that even the usually complacent UN system had to deal
with them with relative if still inadequate firmness. Prominent amongst
these in the last couple of years were John Campbell and Bernard Dix.
The latter in fact behaved badly openly only after he had left the
services of the UN in Colombo, but then he turned up in Geneva where he
was escorted round to various missions by Amnesty International. He did
a sort of magic lantern show with slides, which were obviously not very
revealing since we did not hear of them later. What gave them, and his
critical narrative, substance was his status as an employee of the
United Nations, which most regrettably Amnesty was selling for all it
was worth.
Very naughty
I told the normally scrupulous Peter Splinter, head of Amnesty in
Geneva, that it was really very naughty of him to make use of an
emotionally overwrought individual who was in breach of his contract.
Peter however seemed to think such conduct was not reprehensible.
Fortunately the UN system disagreed, and the UN head in Colombo made
sure that Dix stopped using his position to advance criticisms that were
fraudulent and proving an embarrassment to the UN as well as to Sri
Lanka.
Sadly the UN did not see fit on this occasion to issue a statement
making its position public, but the system seems to have worked, for
that was the last we heard about Dix and his tale of woe. Doubtless he
will be recycled elsewhere at some stage, not least because he had been
taken into the UN system after a stint with Solidar, which was at the
height of its influence at the time. Another example of emotional excess
was John Campbell, who had finally to be sent away from Sri Lanka by the
UN, which admitted that he was immature.
I suspect however that his performance was not quite so
straightforward. He first came to our notice when he was cited by the
BBC as claiming that the situation in Sri Lanka was as bad as the one in
Somalia. The BBC naturally presented him as speaking on behalf of the
UN, and later he was confidently cited by a British journalist, Peter
Foster, as evidence for the assertion that 'relations between the Sri
Lankan government and the United Nations are strained on the ground'.
Foster's diatribe
Foster's diatribe was peculiar, in that he claimed it was based on
information supplied by a 'veteran international aid worker'. It is
almost certain that this was a UN official, since much of the material
is about UN activities. Thus we find horror that UN vehicles were
searched, with the assertion that even the Serbs in Kosovo were not as
disrespectful of UN staff. This is a telling comparison, given what we
now know about the agenda of at least some elements pretending to do
humanitarian work in Kosovo in 1998.
This wondrous veteran complains again later of a search 'by soldiers
with a pompous attitude which would not have been tolerated by those
being searched on Belfast Streets years ago'. This comparison is equally
telling, since it suggests that the writer is not only British, but also
one of those amnesiac Britishers who has no idea what the people of
Belfast suffered. Obviously he would not dream of reading the report on
the subject of the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, for which British
officers refused to answer questions.
The assumption that this veteran was British is confirmed by a
typically British description of Sri Lankan soldiers 'splashing around
almost naked in the river'. The description is sublimated in the gleeful
rhetorical question, with a very Anglo-Saxon use of the subjunctive, 'Is
it much surprise that the army take such heavy casualties?' Only a
Britisher could have thought death, admittedly at a subjunctive remove,
a suitable punishment for nudity. Certainly only a Britisher could have
believed that wearing discreet bathing trunks might save Sri Lankan
soldiers from Tiger bullets.
Citing Campbell
My own view was that this veteran, who later cites Campbell, was in
fact Campbell himself, since it is unlikely that there were two
emotionally underdeveloped experienced British aid workers with military
backgrounds running around the Wanni at the same time. Campbell we know
served in the British army, and then worked for the UN in Somalia.
That I suspect explains why the UN got rid of him quietly, without a
public repudiation of his outburst. If he was being financed by the
British, it was obviously necessary to be discreet.
It was my experience of these characters that made me wary when I
came across others of that ilk in applications for visas we received
over the last few months. The most bizarre came shortly after the
conclusion of the conflict, when OCHA requested a visa for a
coordinating position, for what seemed a perfectly innocuous candidate.
Subsequently the candidate was changed and, without indicating the need
for someone with a very different background, replaced by someone with a
British military background, Brian Holdsworth.
Satellite imagery
This was the period at which we were being told that countries that
continued to protest their friendship for us had satellite imagery which
confirmed that our forces had behaved very badly.
I rather suspect that this intelligence was of the Weapons of Mass
Destruction sort, where as it turned out military intelligence had not
overstepped the mark but been subject to misinterpretation by the
British government for its own reasons. In this context I should
reiterate that what I would term British professionals, such as the last
admirable British Defence Adviser, have seemed to me very sensible about
a country doing its best to deal with terrorism under difficult
circumstances.
Now that the political compulsions of a few individuals will not
complicate matters (and the British electors have turned their backs
conclusively on the more extreme), I hope we can go back to a productive
relationship with a country that will look positively to the future.
Extremely suspicious
Sadly however, in the past, with both sanctimoniousness and deceit
being standard practice for some politicians, it struck me that the
sudden decision to send a senior soldier to look after humanitarian
operations was extremely suspicious. I thought it best therefore to tell
OCHA that I did not think I should recommend a visa for him. Not
surprisingly, they took the rejection very well.
We will doubtless find out fairly soon whether whoever had proposed
funding the position has now found a substitute equally skilled in
extrapolating information from any data that can be summoned up.
My recollection
My recollection is that one reason for the change in personnel was
that the British had decided to fund the position, but I may be
confusing this position with others which British DFID had initiated.
In all such cases I believe it is vital that the UN first discuss the
need for any official position with the relevant Sri Lankan authorities,
but this is not a principle that is generally followed. Given however
the sad experiences we have had with so many vociferous critics, who
claim and are granted by generally British journalists the status of UN
officials, it is essential that for the future basic principles of
responsibility and accountability be laid down and scrupulously
observed.
To be continued |