BBC (nearly) runs film praising Rwanda’s dictator, “supported” by company linked to ruling party
Update: Many thanks to Nick Wallis, who tells me that the film was pulled from the BBC schedules prior to being aired and never actually went out. Will update again if I can find out more…
Last year I blogged about the Rwandan government’s $50,000 deal with the US PR firm Racepoint, whose strategy includes promoting “Rwanda’s Visionary Leader… highlighting President Kagame and his visionary leadership”, while “communicating the successes of Rwanda with key stakeholders in the political and financial elite communities”.
The PR firm… outlines “a consolidated set of tactics to publicize both Rwanda and President Kagame“. This will initially involve “leveraging top print and broadcast outlets to communicate the Rwanda success story… and, in the process, validate it based on their credibility”, together with “a proactive campaign that leverages the web to seed stories favorable to Rwanda”.
Racepoint singles out the Huffington Post as a particular online media target, together with “careful seeding across the blogosphere” to “initiate an offensive to control the organic search on Rwanda and set the agenda in print and broadcast”.
One of the key themes within the PR strategy’s “Education and inform program” would include:
“The Rwandan Miracle: Healing of a Nation – We will highlight the rapid healing of the Rwandan nation, it will rely on visuals to drive the story home, Including inviting a handful of top-tier influencer media into the country to observe and Interview people in society.”
So I was very interested to hear about a new 45-minute film, reportedly due to air on May 12th and 13th on BBC World News, called “Rwanda-17 – Healing a Nation”.
The blurb from the film paints a heartwarming picture of the country’s under-17 football team, which it suggests “represents Rwanda’s breathtaking evolution and hopes for a better future, with good leadership and unity at the heart of not only sporting success but also a nation’s efforts to achieve reconciliation and prosperity.”
“What is it about Rwanda? What it is it that you’ve got *so* right?” asks the interviewer in the 2-minute trailer. His respondent tells him that “every ship” needs to have “a good captain”.
“Our team today, to play well, *they* a good captain, they need a good coach. They need somebody who has a vision. This is what we have in Rwanda.”
The shot then cuts to an interview with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame: “As the captain of this ship, what would you say you need to deliver to the people?”, his friendly interviewer asks. “We want to leave poverty behind us. We want to leave any kind of conflict behind us”, Kagame tells him.
This will doubtless come as good news to the UK-based dissidents who Rwanda’s government tried to murder last year… And the exiled opposition leader who has twice avoided assassination in South Africa, though it’s sadly too late for the opposition politician found beheaded in Rwanda in 2010.
There is a longer version of the trailer here, where it is stated that the film was “supported by Crystal Ventures”.
According to a DFID-funded research paper on Rwanda’s development, Kagame’s ruling party “funds itself by a combination of member contributions and the dividends paid by a private company which it fully owns… formerly known as Tri-Star Investments S.A.R.L. and now registered as Crystal Ventures Ltd.”
The Crystal Ventures website, meanwhile, states that:
“The company is wholly owned by Rwandan business people who pooled resources together to meet challenges of economic recovery and take advantage of growth opportunities in a virgin environment.”
Opposition activists, however, have claimed that the company is effectively controlled by the Rwandan President.
Google reveals lots more speculation – but far less concrete detail – about Crystal Ventures and its background. I’d be grateful for any input from readers on good sources to help unravel this…
“Breaking Their Will” – book review in the New Humanist
My latest book review is in this month’s New Humanist magazine, looking at a harrowing account of religiously-motivated child abuse and neglect: “Breaking Their Will”, by Janet Heimlich. This month’s edition also features the excellent Alom Shaha and Martin Robbins.
The New Humanist magazine is published by a registered charity, the Rationalist Association. It’s a great example of the growing trend for non-profit organisations to fill the gap left by the decline of the mainstream news media, covering niche and public interest issues that are covered superficially or ignored by commercial newspapers. If you want to support this project, you can subscribe here.
The 1930s advert that Mercedes Benz would rather forget
…found by a family member in an old magazine from the 1930s:
Gove’s Folly? The mystery of Durand and Saint Cuthman’s
Mystery surrounds a multi-million pound government grant to the charity behind one of Michael Gove’s flagship Academy schools.
Last year, the Durand Education Trust was awarded £17.3 million to build what the Telegraph heralded as the “first fully free state-run boarding school” .
Durand Primary School in Stockwell, South London, had earlier, said the Daily Mail, “used proceeds from a leisure and student accommodation business it runs” to buy St Cuthman’s, the site of a former special needs centre in Midhurst, West Sussex.
The school’s plan was to give its pupils an alternative to poorly-performing local secondary schools when they completed their time at Durand. The new secondary school would be based in the countryside to keep the children far away from “stabbings and the constant threat of trouble”.
“Teenagers will be transported from London on Monday mornings to spend five days and four nights in the country, returning on Friday evenings, all free of charge”, reported the Mail .
To those tempted to ask whether public money would be better spent improving the local secondary schools rather than building an entirely new one, 50 miles away, and then shipping hundreds of children there and back every week, the school had a good answer:
“It wouldn’t cost [the government] a penny”, Durand’s Executive Head told the Spectator. While the secondary school’s core expenditure would be funded by the state in the normal way, “we’d cover the costs of boarding from the profits of our health club”.
According to the Economist, “Nothing quite like it has been tried before”.
According to the Daily Express, “Parents… are delighted their youngsters will get the chance to enjoy a Harry Potter-style education away from the area’s notorious gang culture.”
“Unlike other state boarding schools, it will not charge for accommodation”, explained the Guardian. “Instead, its running costs will come out of private income the school generates from a swimming pool, gym and block of flats.”
Media coverage has been so positive, in fact, that the PR and lobbying company employed by Durand to promote the St Cuthman’s project, secure government funding, and “make Durand Academy synonymous with educational excellence” last year won an advertising industry award for the £200,000 campaign.
It may also have helped that the school has repeatedly deployed libel lawyers Carter Ruck against critics of the school’s management, and is currently suing Lambeth Council over three emails in which its chief auditor raised concerns about its financial affairs.
Yet amid all the glowing news reports, two big problems seem to have been overlooked.
1. Notwithstanding claims that Durand purchased the St Cuthman’s site “using its own funds”, and “using income from a gym and flats on its London site”, Companies House records appear to show that the Durand Education Trust actually took on a debt of £1.9 million to buy the property – over half of its reported £3.4 million sale price:
2. The reported profits from Durand’s business activities cover only a fraction of the school’s boarding costs. It appears that the project will therefore need millions of pounds in additional funding in order to become financially viable – at a time when other schools are having to cut back.
State boarding school lodging costs reportedly range from £7,500 to £12,000 per year for each child. Even at the lower end of that scale, Durand would need more than £4.3 million per year to board the 625 secondary pupils it hopes to take in. In the last three years, the school’s business arm, London Horizons, has generated £304,964 (2009), £255,157 (2010) and £350,120 (2011) for Durand Primary School and the Durand Education Trust – an average of just over £300,000 – less than 10% of the money the school looks to require.
According to “Spears Wealth Management Survey”, Durand has recently launched a public fundraising campaign urging wealthy individuals to sponsor children at the new school, costing this at £3,800 per child, per year. But even at that level, this would still require around £2,375,000 per year for 625 children. This is a sum that many long-standing charities would struggle to raise in a good year, let alone a start-up fundraising programme focussing on a single state school in the midst of a global recession.
When I asked for a copy of the budget and costings for the boarding school project, the Department for Education refused to reveal it, claiming that “Disclosure of certain information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the Department, the proposers or both by adversely affecting bargaining positions and resulting in less effective use of public money”.
So I made a Freedom of Information request to Durand Academy asking for:
“Details of how much Durand paid for the purchase of the St Cuthman’s site”, “The amount of any funds borrowed by Durand to finance the purchase” and “The terms of any such loan, and details of how any such loan is
to be repaid”.
I got the following reply:
1. Details of how much Durand paid for the purchase of the St Cuthman’s site in Sussex.ZERO (DAT did not purchase the site)
2. Details of how Durand financed the above purchase.
NOT HELD. See above
3. The amount of any funds borrowed by Durand to finance the purchase.
ZERO
4. The terms of any such loan, and details of how any such loan is to be repaid.
See above
When I queried this, pointing out that a video on Durand Academy’s own website states that “Durand used its savings to purchase a site in the countryside”, I got no response.
But the school appears to be working on the basis – at least when it comes to Freedom of Information – that the Durand Education Trust is legally a separate entity from Durand Academy, and that FOI requests to the latter do not cover the former.
I subsequently told Durand that I’d seen information suggesting they were in debt, and that this seemed to raise questions about the viability of the St Cuthman’s project and the government’s decision to award it so much money at a time of “extreme national austerity”.
They issued a strong denial, stating that:
“Your assertions and source are factually incorrect on this matter. Durand Academy is not in debt, nor has liability for the land purchase and it would be wrong to suggest either.
“On the issue of value for money, we must object. More than any other school we are aware of, Durand has worked tirelessly and independently over the last twenty years to add significant value and opportunities for local tax payers, without impacting the public purse. Without additional central government support Durand has: improved the condition and value of the school estate substantially; absorbed a run-down failing primary school; completely refurbished that school to a high specification as a specialist early years site; expanded the number of places available to the local community; built state-of the art leisure facilities that children enjoy free use of and the wider community benefit from; reduced class sizes; subsidised healthy meals and; invested in a secondary school project that will provide choice and opportunity for local parents.
“We appreciate very much the ‘extreme national austerity’ that you refer, and that is why we believe that the Government has chosen to support a project and a project team that has never asked for hand-outs and are self-sufficient, has always made maximum efficient use of resources and have a strong record of delivery, not only in education, but in delivering projects on time and to budget.
“The £17.34 million pledged by the Government is some £8m to £15m less than has typically been spent on establishing a new secondary school to serve inner London in recent years. This money will help to deliver a secondary state boarding school from scratch, providing life changing opportunities for thousands of children. This project is innovative and ambitious, but we can assure you it is viable and we are committed to its delivery.”
Confused, I asked whether this applied to Durand as a whole – ie. not just Durand Academy but also the Durand Education Trust (for whom my usual correspondent at the school is listed as the main contact).
I was told: “As stated below this is from Durand Academy. Durand Education Trust is a separate entity. I am an administrator at Durand Academy and field correspondence for Durand Education Trust.”
So I asked my correspondent to refer my previous query about the financial situation to the Durand Education Trust. At the time of publication, a follow-up request for clarification had been acknowledged, but not replied to.
Given that the Durand Education Trust is legally constituted as an “independent charitable trust”, rather than a government body, it is not clear whether the Freedom of Information Act can be applied to it.
It may be that I’ve missed something obvious here (in which case, please do email me or leave a comment below). Or it may be that Durand has a substantial, and previously-undisclosed, source of additional income that can plug the financial gap.
But at the moment it is difficult to see how the Department for Education will be able to avoid committing many more millions each year to this experimental project – leaving millions less available for other, less favoured schools within the education system.
Update: I have now had some comments from the Durand Education Trust. Here’s what they say:
“1. Some of your estimates are so over the top as to be risible. For instance, though there will be costs associated with providing boarding (principally the extra costs associated with keeping duty staff on site overnight for safeguarding) the idea that these would amount to almost £30,000 per night, which is what is consistent with the lower figure in the range you cite, is frankly absurd.
2. DET did not take out a bank or building society loan to fund the purchase of the site. Any information you have to the contrary is false.
3. The figures you quote for London Horizons revenues were figures supplied to you in respect of sums historically paid over to Durand Primary School and Durand Academy. They do not reflect the level of income accruing to DET now or in the future.”
The Durand Education Trust also complain that “Whilst we are prepared to be as transparent as commercial sensitivities allow, we note that almost everything you have written about Durand in the past… has been unfair or inaccurate, and sometimes both. It is hard to resist the conclusion that your reporting is actuated by malice and/or a political agenda…”
So it looks like the mystery will continue for a while yet. I’d welcome any comments from readers that could help to clear things up.
On the financial question, the figure of £7,500 to £12,000 per year per child for state school boarding costs comes from a broadly positive Telegraph article, in which Durand got a prominent mention (“More cash needed for state boarding schools, warns head“, November 28th 2011). Over a 39-week school year where 625 children were boarded for 4 nights per week, the lower end of this scale would indeed amount to approximately £30,000 per day, which certainly is a lot of money.
It’s worth noting, however, that the cost-per-child cited by Durand in their new fundraising campaign – £3,800, would, under the same analysis, equate to around £15,000 per day for 625 children – or £24 per child. While this is significantly less, it is still a substantial sum, and with a total yearly cost that would still be much higher than the reported annual profits, to date, of London Horizons.
It is not yet clear how the costs of transporting 625 children on the 50 mile trip to and from West Sussex each week would fit into the above analysis, or where the money for this would come from.
I have asked the Durand Education Trust for more details of the things I’ve written that they feel have been unfair or inaccurate, and invited them to produce a “right to reply” piece for publication on this blog, putting their side of the story. I will update this post if and when I receive a reply.
In literal terms, The Durand Education Trust appear to be correct in stating that “DET did not take out a bank or building society loan to fund the purchase of the site”. Records from Companies House show that the company which lent them £1.9 million was not a bank or a building society, but a firm called Alderley Land. More on that in due course…
Factchecking on Freedom of Information: Has FOI really done nothing to improve accountability?
“We have a wretched Government here which has… caused the resignation of me and many others, because it was this Government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act” – Conservative MP Anthony Steen, on being exposed in the MPs’ expenses scandal.
There’s been a lot of coverage this week about a Ministry of Justice study which among other things claimed, according to the Guardian that “Civil servants do not believe the Freedom of Information Act has increased accountability”.
This suggestion seemed surprising, given the number of high-profile cases where FOI has helped expose abusive behaviour by our public officials, most notably the MPs expenses scandal. Although the damning details were ultimately made public via a leak, the writer and activist Heather Brooke had fought a long and well-publicised legal campaign to establish that Parliamentary expenses were subject to FOI, and it is widely acknowledged that the existence of FOI requests by Brooke and others helped to precipitate the news story.
This is the case even for some of those exposed in the scandal. When the Conservative MP Anthony Steen was forced to resign after it emerged that he’d spent £90,000 of public money on his country home, he specifically blamed the Freedom of Information Act, saying:
“I think I have behaved impeccably. I’ve done nothing criminal. As far as I’m concerned and as of this day, I don’t know what the fuss is about…
We have a wretched government here which has completely mucked up the system and caused the resignation of me and many others because it was this government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act, and it is this Government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot… What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.”
It’s difficult to think of a clearer example of FOI-induced accountability than this. So I had a look through the Ministry of Justice study. Here are some extracts:
“FOIA has resulted… in the disclosure of significant amounts of information which has enabled the public to hold public authorities to account.” (page 60)
“The Government believes that the expansion of the Act… will continue to promote openness, transparency and accountability across the public sector.” (page 66)
“% of FOI officers who agreed that the following objectives were being achieved:
- increased accountability 78%” (page 84)
“surveys of officials and stakeholders across public authorities found that the FOIA had indeed made central and local government more accountable” (page 88)
“the evidence suggests that the FOIA has had considerable success in achieving its primary objectives of greater openness and accountability… Claims that the FOIA would undermine civil service neutrality or ministerial accountability have likewise proved unfounded” (page 90)
“Conclusion: The FOI legislation set out to improve transparency and accountability, and evidence to date indicates this has been achieved…” (page 99)
Whoever told the Guardian that the study showed “civil servants do not believe the FOI act has increased accountability” appears to have been mistaken…
Alleged bribery of eyewitnesses by Trafigura and MacFarlanes
From The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Privacy and Injunctions
1. The Dutch media have aired detailed allegations that a major London law firm, acting on
behalf of Trafigura, offered bribes to witnesses in a civil case being brought in the UK courts
against the company over the toxic dumping incident. Despite the gravity of these
allegations, they have not been reported in the mainstream UK media. Only one outlet – the
magazine Private Eye – has made any mention of them. One journalist has told me explicitly
that they want to run this story but dare not for fear of the legal repercussions.
2. Media outlets outside the UK have consistently reported that the 2006 toxic waste
incident caused at least 15 deaths. In contrast, many UK media articles about the case have
made no mention of this central allegation. In one instance, Trafigura successfully sued the
BBC for libel over the allegation, and in others it was able to secure a retraction. No legal
action has been taken against media outside the UK who have reported on the alleged
deaths.
3. Trafigura is currently under investigation by the Dutch authorities over an alleged bribe of
466,000 Euros made by Trafigura from its UK bank account to Jamaica’s ruling People’s
National Party (PNP). The Dutch investigation has been widely reported in Jamaica. Yet
despite the fact that the allegedly corrupt payments originated in the UK, our media have
not covered it.
Alleged bribery of eyewitnesses by Trafigura and MacFarlanes
In May 2010, the Dutch media published detailed allegations of corruption relating to
Trafigura and a major London law firm, MacFarlanes. In a series of interviews aired by
NOVA TV, a number of the drivers involved in dumping the waste alleged that they had
been offered bribes by MacFarlanes to give false testimony to the UK courts in a civil case
against Trafigura over the dumping incident (http://vimeo.com/16874069).
According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide:
The drivers who dumped the waste now say they were approached by Trafigura’s lawyers and asked
to sign false statements. They were persuaded to lie about the nature of the waste and to deny they
had suffered health problems.
“There are some sentences in the declaration that are not true, they are lies,” says one of the
drivers who was approached by Trafigura.
The drivers say they each received 650 euros in exchange for signing the false statements. They
were told that the statements would be used in the London court case Trafigura was fighting against
the Ivorian victims…
The drivers say they were approached a second time by Trafigura, this time to sign a statement that
they had never received money from the company. They claim to have received 2,300 euros each
for the second statement.
(http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/trafigura-accused-bribing-witnesses)
Trafigura and MacFarlanes deny these allegations, saying that such behaviour would have
been “grossly unethical” and “would have constituted serious professional misconduct by
MacFarlanes”. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/31503180/Verweer-Trafigura)
Nonetheless, given the nature of the allegations, and the fact those making them were
prepared to do so on camera, it is striking that – other than one piece in Private Eye – the
mainstream UK media has made no mention of them.
To the best of my knowledge, Trafigura and MacFarlanes have taken no action against any of
the Dutch media that have reported the story.
Death toll from the 2006 toxic waste incident
“I was supposed to do an interview on British radio the day that the court in Abidjan had
come to a decision and had sent two people to jail. I was told that I should in no way
mention Trafigura because of possible libel claims.” – Marietta Harjono, Greenpeace, May
2009
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/13/trafigura-pr-campaign-pollution-ivorycoast)
In May 2009, Trafigura issued libel proceedings against the BBC over a Newsnight feature
which alleged that the 2006 incident had led to a number of deaths and serious injuries. In
early December 2009, the programme, and its accompanying article, disappeared from the
BBC’s website without explanation (although it reappeared on the website Youtube soon
afterwards).
On December 17th, the BBC announced that it had agreed to withdraw its allegations about
the Probo Koala incident, pay damages, and broadcast a public apology. Some reports
suggested that fighting the case could have cost the BBC up to £3 million had it come to
court. (http://www.englishpen.org/aboutenglishpen/campaigns/reformingthelibellaws/bbc-andtrafigura/)
Commenting on the settlement, Trafigura noted that the BBC had ‘stated that Trafigura’s
actions had caused a number of deaths, miscarriages and serious and long-term injuries in
Abidjan in what Newsnight claimed “may be the biggest incident of its kind since….Bhopal.”’.
Trafigura described these as “grave, yet wholly false allegations”, over which it had “no
alternative but to commence libel proceedings”
(http://www.trafigura.com/pdf/2009.12.17_TrafiguraStatement.pdf)
Yet Trafigura appears to have taken no legal action over a November 2009 New York Times
article which described the Probo Koala incident as “one of the worst toxic dumping
scandals in years”, which had “become notorious as a kind of African Bhopal”, and claimed
that “About 108,000 people sought treatment for nausea, headaches, vomiting and
abdominal pains, and at least 15 died”.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/africa/05trafigura.html).
On February 22nd 2010, the Independent newspaper published an apology and ‘correction’
for its September 2009 article, “Toxic shame: Thousands injured in African city” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/trafigura-no-link-identified-between-toxicdumping-
incident-and-serious-injuries-1904830.html)
On April 30th 2010, the Times issued a ‘correction’ over a March 26th article which had
referred to allegations that the Probo Koala incident had led to 17 deaths. The correction
stated that “the dumping was not carried out by Trafigura… but by an independent local
contractor without Trafigura’s authority or knowledge. Furthermore, in September 2009
lawyers for Ivorians who were suing Trafigura over injuries allegedly caused by the dumping
acknowledged that at worst the waste could only have caused flu-like symptoms”.
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7111946.ece)
To the best of my knowledge, Trafigura has taken no action against any media outlet outside
of the UK that have made similar allegations. Trafigura continues to deny that its waste
caused any deaths.
Alleged bribery of Jamaica’s ruling party
According to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper, Trafigura is currently under investigation by
the Dutch authorities over an alleged bribe of 466,000 Euros made in 2006 by Trafigura
from its UK bank account to Jamaica’s ruling People’s National Party (PNP). While some of
these allegations have previously been reported in the Guardian, to my knowledge the
current investigation has not been mentioned anywhere in the UK media.
The Gleaner reports that a senior politician, Bruce Golding, who was until recently Jamaica’s
Prime Minister, has made a formal complaint to the Dutch authorities asking them to
investigate whether this payment amounted to a criminal offence in the Netherlands.
According to the Gleaner:
Golding also told Dutch authorities that on August 23 [2006], Charles Dauphin, president of
Trafigura, arrived in Jamaica and met with government ministers… He said no public announcement
of these meetings was made to the people of Jamaica… He stated that in early September 2006,
between September 6 and 12, prior to the PNP’s annual conference, Trafigura transferred
€466,000 or more than J$31 million from its account in the United Kingdom to an account in
Jamaica known as CCOC Association…
The address provided by CCOC Association is c/o Portmore Gas, Bridgeport, St Catherine … . One of
the signatories on this account is Senator Colin Campbell, general secretary of the PNP and a
minister of government having portfolio responsibility for information and development.”
The document stated that shortly after the funds were received into the account, two cheques
totalling $30 million were issued payable to SW Services (Team Jamaica), both bearing Campbell’s
signatures.
Golding noted that on Thursday, October, 2006, the chairman of the PNP, Robert Pickersgill,
confirmed payment of the funds by Trafigura and described it as an unsolicited donation to the PNP
for its upcoming political campaign.
(http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20111113/lead/lead4.html )
Greenpeace International reports that: “Trafigura is thought to have bribed a Jamaican
politician with the apparent aim of extending an oil contract of Nigerian oil.”
(http://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/News/news/Trafigura-new-corruption-charges/)
Trafigura insist that the money was a political donation and that they have done nothing
untoward.
Conclusion
Trafigura’s “reputation management” strategy has not prevented the above information from
being read, and shared, in the UK. But it has inhibited the ability of our domestic media to
debate these very serious issues openly and robustly, and left the British public reliant on the
foreign press to inform them of the full facts behind a major public interest story. The
Trafigura case highlights a worrying gulf between our own media laws and those of the
United States and our European neighbours, and raises serious questions about the state of
freedom of expression in the UK.
7 December 2011
Trevor Kavanagh learns a hard lesson about human rights and due process
“The overwhelming odds are that these guys were put inside for good reason — whatever sob stories their human rights lawyers are peddling on their behalf.” – Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun, 2007
“It is important that we do not jump to conclusions. Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted“, Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun, 2012
Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper has long been hostile to the idea that people suspected of wrongdoing should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, that no-one should be locked up for extended periods without a fair trial and due process, and that even if someone is tried and convicted of a criminal offence, they are still entitled to basic human rights.
When, in 2005, 47 Labour MPs joined opposition ranks to throw out the Blair government’s attempt to award itself the right to detain for 3 months, without charge or trial, anyone it claimed was a “terrorist”, the Sun’s political editor Trevor Kavanagh branded them “traitor MPs” who had “betrayed the British people”.
When, in 2007, Gordon Brown’s government requested the release of five UK residents who had been held for years without charge or trial in Guantanamo Bay, the Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh declared that “The overwhelming odds are that these guys were put inside for good reason — whatever sob stories their human rights lawyers are peddling on their behalf.”
“It’s just about possible the five… are totally innocent… But not very likely”, he suggested.
Yet despite these “overwhelming odds”, four of the five men – Binyam Mohamed, Omar Deghayes, Jamil El Banna and Sameur Abdenour – were subsequently freed after the US government failed to produce any evidence that could convict them of a crime. The fifth, Shaker Aamer, has still not been charged or tried, ten years after he was first detained.
Mohamed, Deghayes and El Banna were subsequently awarded millions of pounds in compensation after a court heard evidence (or as the Sun might describe it, a “sob story”) detailing the UK government’s complicity in their “rendition” and subsequent torture.
This weekend, another five men were arrested on suspicion of a criminal offence. Unlike Binyam Mohamed, Omar Deghayes, Jamil El Banna, Sameur Abdenour and Shaker Aamer, these five men were given prompt access to a lawyer, questioned, and then freed on bail. Unlike Binyam Mohamed, they were not bundled into a plane, flown to Morocco and tortured with a scalpel, forced into stress positions or subjected to deliberate and prolonged sleep deprivation. They were not – as would have been the case for anyone accused of terrorist offences under the 2005 Bill championed by Trevor Kavanagh and the Sun – held without charge for 90 days while the Police scraped around for evidence.
Has British Justice Gone Soft? Given Trevor Kavanagh’s previous comments on human rights and due process, we might have expected him to be outraged that these five criminal suspects have been treated so leniently. But here he is discussing the case in today’s Sun:
“It is important that we do not jump to conclusions. Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted.”
Here he is on Radio 5: “the evidence that’s been suggested to those who have been arrested so far, is pretty flimsy stuff… people are wondering what on earth is happening… I feel very sorry for them and I know it’s causing them and their families a great deal of anguish”.
What could possibly explain this change in tone? Perhaps the fact that *these* five criminal suspects were Sun journalists, suspected of making corrupt payments to police and other public officials.
The problem with attacking basic democratic principles like human rights and due process is that you never know when you – or someone you care about – might be in need of them. Trevor Kavanagh’s Damascine conversion to the cause is surely to be welcomed. His friends at the Sun do, of course, have a right to a fair trial and to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. It will be interesting to see if they will now extend that same courtesy to the rest of us.
Amnesty Urgent Action – Burundi: Free activist who spoke out
From Amnesty International
URGENT ACTION
FREE ACTIVIST WHO SPOKE OUT
Anti-corruption activist Faustin Ndikumana was arrested on 7 February and charged with making “false declarations”. He had alleged that some magistrates had got their posts by bribing officials in the Ministry of Justice.
Faustin Ndikumana is President of Words and Action for the Awakening of Conscience and the Evolution of Mindsets (PARCEM). He wrote to the Minister of Justice asking him to investigate and halt corruption in the recruitment of judges. He held a press conference and gave radio interviews on 3 February denouncing alleged corruption within the Ministry.
He was arrested on 7 February, questioned by a magistrate at the Anti-Corruption Court and charged with making “false declarations” under Article 14 of the Anti-Corruption Law. He could face five to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 1,000,000 Burundian francs (US$ 775). It appears that he was arrested on the basis of a judicial complaint filed by the Minister of Justice. Societies and associations can also be prosecuted under the law and fined up to 10,000,000 Burundian francs (US$7,750).
Faustin Ndikumana is detained in Mpimba Central Prison, in the capital Bujumbura, and held in overcrowded and insanitary conditions. He is detained in violation of Burundian law. Under Article 71 of the criminal code, pre-trial detention must only be used where it is necessary to preserve evidence, protect public order, protect the suspect, prevent the crime from continuing or to ensure that the suspect appears in court.
Amnesty International considers Faustin Ndikumana a prisoner of conscience detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression. His detention may have a chilling effect on other civil society activists and journalists in Burundi. It could increase self-censorship, as they seek to protect themselves from arbitrary arrest.
Please write immediately in French, English or your own language:
- expressing concern that Faustin Ndikumana has been detained on defamation charges for denouncing reports of corruption within the Ministry of Justice;
- urging the authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression;
- reminding the authorities that, as a state party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Burundi is obliged to uphold the right to freedom of expression.PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 22 MARCH 2012 TO:
President
His Excellency Pierre Nkurunziza
Président de la République du Burundi
Bureau du Président
Boulevard de l’Uprona
Rohero I, BP 1870
Bujumbura, Burundi
Fax: +257 22 22 74 90
Salutation: Votre Excellence / Your ExcellencyFirst Vice-President
His Excellency Thérence Sinunguruza
Bureau du Président
Boulevard de l’Uprona
Rohero I, BP 1870
Bujumbura, Burundi
Fax: +257 22 22 74 90
Salutation: Votre Excellence / Your ExcellencyAnd copies to:
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Monsieur Laurent Kavakure
Ministère des Relations Extérieurs et de la Coopération Internationale
Bdg Grand Bureau, Bvd de la Liberté
BP 1840, Bujumbura, Burundi
Fax: +257 22 22 39 70
Salutation : Monsieur le Ministre / Dear Minister
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Burundi has a vibrant civil society which continues to speak out despite government attempts to silence it. The authorities have used harassment by judicial authorities, arbitrary arrests, prolonged pre-trial detention, and procedural violations of Burundian law to unduly restrict freedom of speech.
Burundi is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which protect freedom of expression. It is well established under international law that public officials must tolerate more, rather than less, criticism than private individuals.
Defamation or false declaration charges are regularly brought against civil society activists, human rights defenders and journalists. They often result in prolonged pre-trial detention seemingly in attempts to silence government critics. Juvenal Rududura, vice-president of the trade union of non-judicial staff of the Ministry of Justice, was detained on charges of making false statements in September 2008. He had also alleged corruption in recruitment at the Ministry of Justice. He was detained for 10 months without trial, and the charges against him were never formally dropped.
The independence of the judiciary in Burundi is regularly compromised through political interference. The United Nations Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Burundi, Fatsah Ouguergouz, cited problems with judicial independence as a key weakness of Burundi’s justice system in his May 2011 report.
Name: Faustin Ndikumana
Gender m/f: mUA: 44/12 Index: AFR 16/001/2012 Issue Date: 9 February 2012
State-funded primary school spent £244,000 on libel case against father of former teacher
A state-funded South London primary school which has repeatedly been praised by Education Secretary Michael Gove has admitted incurring over £387,000 in legal costs since 2008.
The bulk of the costs, disclosed by Durand Academy under the Freedom of Information Act*, relate to a libel case against Jeff Newell, the father of a former teacher at the school, over comments he had made about the school’s headteacher and senior management team. Durand records legal fees of £244,675 in relation to this libel case.
The school states that “Mr Newell made a full and unreserved apology. All costs that could be recouped, given Mr Newell’s financial situation, were paid to Durand”. Details of the amount covered by Mr Newell are not given.
The latest FOI disclosure comes on top of an admission by Durand Academy last year that it had paid nearly £200,000 to a PR firm, “Political Lobbying and Media Relations”.
The new figures do not include the as-yet-undisclosed amount that Durand has spent funding an ongoing libel complaint against Lambeth Council and its chief auditor over three emails which raised concerns about the school’s management. Index on Censorship last year estimated that this case may already have cost over £100,000.
But Durand does disclose the legal fees totalling £81,876 that it spent persuading the Department for Education to grant it FMSiS financial best practice accreditation**. According to court documents from the Lambeth libel case, the school employed the law firm Carter Ruck to represent them in this effort. Durand also hired Carter Ruck in the Jeff Newell libel case, and the ongoing case against Lambeth council.
In a landmark ruling in the early 1990s, the House of Lords determined that there was “no public interest favouring the right of organs of government, whether central or local, to sue for libel… to admit such actions would place an undesirable fetter on freedom of speech”.
As a public body, Durand Academy therefore cannot sue for libel in its own right. Yet individual staff and governors can take action over allegations made about the school, so long as they can make the case that they were personally defamed within the discussion. Durand is one of a number of public authorities who have chosen to fund such personal libel actions by their employees in recent years.
(*See here for my original FOI request, made in June 2011, with a chaser message sent in November. The school’s disclosure follows a complaint to the Information Commission the following month after Durand continued to ignore the request.)
(**The remaining disclosed legal costs were: £28,340 incurred in relation to a 2008-09 hearing at the General Teaching Council, £19,163 on planning/property, and £13,487 spent on converting the school to an Academy.)
Judiciary kept in the dark as Burundi opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije is “investigated” by Tanzania’s Foreign Ministry
This doesn’t seem to augur well for the prospects of a fair trial…
From Tanzania Daily News
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Eliezer Feleshi, on Wednesday said he had not yet received the file from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation concerning the case against the Burundian opposition party leader, Alexis Sinduhije, in order to open a case in court.
“The case is not yet mature, because, if it was, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have sent the file to us to open the case.
“The DPP is not concerned with investigative affairs, this case is currently being handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Mr Felishi told the ‘Daily News’ yesterday over the phone.
Speaking to this newspaper, Sinduhije’s counsel, Habas Nyange, said that he was not aware of the fate of his client. “I am just like you journalists, I have been coming to Kisutu Resident Magistrates’ Court waiting for my client but to no avail.
“I cannot talk to my client properly as I can only talk to him more freely once he is taken to court yet I’m not being informed when he will be brought to court – so he could even be brought to court without my knowledge and then remanded, it is a very difficult situation,” complained Nyange.
“we have done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever” – #BellPottinger chief Tim Bell on the #Wikipedia editing scandal
The FT has an amusing report about this week’s meeting between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and staff of Bell Pottinger, the shamed lobbying firm that was caught “factory-farming” the online encyclopedia on an industrial scale.
Despite his firm being exposed using multiple fake identities to whitewash embarrassing information about its clients, Chairman Tim Bell (who also happens to be a Conservative member of the House of Lords), is said to have insisted that “As far as I am concerned, we have done absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever”.
Echoing fellow Tory Lord and Press Complaints Commission Chair David Hunt, Tim Bell reportedly bemoaned the lack of a “regulatory body” for people to complain to about online content that they were unhappy with.
Bell’s ethical stance is certainly interesting. While he sees nothing wrong with his colleagues’ misleading behaviour on Wikipedia, he was reportedly outraged when the Bureau of Investigative journalism used subterfuge to expose his company’s dubious business practices, condemning the deception as “underhand, unethical and improper” – and reporting the journalists concerned to David Hunt’s Press Complaints Commission.
Back in 2008, however, Bell was insisting that “I don’t see any reason why I or my company should follow some arbitrary set of ethical values”.
Permission To Speak: Conservative Lord suggests that government “may end up regulating” the blogosphere
Last month Liberal Conspiracy reported on plans by David Hunt, a Conservative Member of the House of Lords, and the new head of the Press Complaints Commission, to “invite political bloggers to volunteer for regulation by the PCC’s replacement”.
Hunt was also reported to have said that bloggers posed a “greater challenge” than the tabloid press, and that “At the moment, it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”
In response, I wrote to David Hunt via www.writetothem.com with ten questions about his idea.
Here’s what I asked:
1. Despite the recent growth of the internet, many more people still read books than read blogs. Some of the things that are written in books are inaccurate and misleading. Thousands of new books are published in the UK each year. Yet other than the law of libel – which is equally applicable to blogs – there is currently no formal mechanism for challenging inaccuracies published in books. In order to be consistent, will the Press Complaints Commission therefore be seeking to “kitemark” books – or book publishers? If not, why single out blogs and blogging?
2. It has been suggested that you believe inaccurate reporting by bloggers to pose a “greater challenge” than inaccurate coverage by the tabloid press. Can you provide some specific examples of inaccurate reporting by bloggers that you believe might substantiate this claim?
3. In 2010 I reported the Daily Mail to the Press Complaints Commission over an article in which it made a series of false claims downplaying the health risks of white asbestos. [see http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/27/asbestos-press-watchdog-pcc]. The newspaper eventually agreed to print a correction. Can you provide an example of a similarly toxic false health claim made by a blogger?
4. Can you provide an example of a blog whose reporting is consistently less accurate than, for example, that of the Daily Mail?
5. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to all organisations that publish a blog (eg. Cancer Research UK [http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/] or Topshop [http://insideout.topshop.com/]) or only to individual blogs that are deemed “political”?
6. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to political blogs published by Members of Parliament – for example Nadine Dorries MP [http://blog.dorries.org/] and Tom Watson MP? [http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/]
7. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to all blogs read in the UK (ie. including US-based blogs such as BoingBoing [http://boingboing.net], and the US edition of the Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/?country=US]) or only to blogs written by people living in the UK?
8. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to publicly visible postings and “groups” on Facebook, and to postings on microblogging sites such as Twitter?
9. Many political blogs are highly critical of the habits and standards of commercial newspapers, including the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Sun and Daily Telegraph. Given that the Press Complaints Commission would receive the bulk of its funding from such sources even under the alternative arrangements you are proposing, would this not create a serious conflict of interest, undermining the credibility of any attempt by the PCC to “regulate” political bloggers?
10. Many political blogs are highly critical of the Conservative Party and its donors, and of the wider political establishment in which the three main political parties operate. Given that both you and your predecessor are Conservative members of the House of Lords, does this not also create a serious conflict of interest, and undermine the perceived neutrality and objectivity of any PCC “kitemarking” scheme for political bloggers?
I’m pleased to say that I’ve now received a reply. It came, somewhat incongruously, on paper, through the post (I will be responding in detail via my 50-mile-long network of Semaphore towers), so this is lovingly hand-typed from the original:
Dear Mr Wilson,
Thank you for your letter dated 19th December. I am pleased that you were interested in my recent interview.
As you will have seen from my reported comments any future plan for online media would be to invite bloggers who write on current affairs to volunteer to be regulated by the new system of self-regulation. This logically follows because such blogs are news-like and similar in content to newspapers and magazines.
All media and publications will make mistakes on accuracy from time to time. The important thing is that content is regulated by an agreed code of practice and that errors can be corrected speedily and with due prominence.
With regard to my reported comment that bloggers were a “greater challenge”. This was a passing remark made in an interview which has been amplified. I was not discussing standards in blogs, but rather the structural issue that they represent an area of free speech, which government may want to regulate, or may end up regulating. The point I was making was that work needs to be done to stave off statutory regulation for everyone, including blogs. This is the challenge.
Demonstrating adherence to such a set of standards and to an effective self-regulatory system would of course mean that publications could convey to their readers that they could trust what they read and would mean that readers could recognise the intentions of the editors of that publication whether in print or online. That is why I suggested some kind of “kitemark” would convey a gold standard for those publications that carried it.
I hope the above information helps you understand the voluntary nature of the system I have suggested. Of course the key to the success of such a proposal is designing a new regulatory regime that is seen to be effective and which publishers will want to be part of and buy into.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]
The Right Hon The Lord Hunt of Wirral MBE
Readers will note that David Hunt has sidestepped a number of my questions but let’s focus on what he does say. Hunt’s starting point seems to be that there is a substantial danger that the UK government may decide to impose compulsory regulation on bloggers – and that creating a voluntary scheme of “self-regulation”, run by the Press Complaints Commission (or whatever replaces it), might therefore be an effective way of heading this off.
Now I don’t doubt that a large section of the UK political establishment would love to start imposing further controls on what we say and do online – although it is sobering to see this being discussed as a serious possibility by a Conservative member of the House of Lords. But the idea that the best way to prevent this is to start accepting “voluntary” regulation of bloggers seems self-defeating.
It’s worth remembering that UK bloggers have never operated in a regulation-free-zone. Bloggers can be – and have been – sued for libel if they write something about somebody that that person finds objectionable. We can, in principle, be sued for breaches of privacy or copyright infringement, arrested for contempt of court if we ignore a gagging order, or subject to police action under lackadaisically-drafted “harrassment” laws. We are subject to the Cancer Act, and the Advertising Standards Agency.
So any new regulations the government decided to impose would be additional to these limits.
A better starting point, it seems to me, would be to insist that the UK government has no business trying to “regulate” the blogosphere beyond the constraints that already exist. Rather than simply accepting the regulation of political speech as a grim inevitability, and then voluntarily embracing PCC oversight in the hope of retaining some measure of liberty, it would surely make more sense to turn the tables and demand that our politicians adhere to the “standards” we expect of them – one of these being a clear understanding on their part that our freedom of speech is not up for negotiation.
Burden of proof: Should evidence determine policy?
My latest piece for the New Humanist
A growing number of activists are calling for science to play a larger role in policy. But will it work? Richard Wilson asks the experts
In the latter days of the last Labour government, then Home Office minister Vernon Coaker introduced a law designed to enable the prosecution of those who paid for sexual services. The government had published a lengthy report, “Tackling Demand for Prostitution”, arguing that evidence showed such a change could reduce the violence and exploitation suffered by commercial sex workers.
In the House, Liberal Democrat science spokesman Dr Evan Harris raised concerns that the evidence in the report had not yet been published – and could therefore not be properly scrutinised. Harris cited the fact that the Royal College of Nursing had expressed concern that further criminalisation could actually be counterproductive, driving victims of sexual exploitation further underground, and away from where they might seek help. There was, Harris argued, a need to examine more thoroughly the evidence on which the proposed legislation was based. “We are looking at publishing the evidence,” replied the Minister, but “in the end, you pick the evidence which backs your argument.”
To those familiar with the scientific method this cherry-picking of data to support a preconceived hypothesis is a hallmark of quackery. Watching the debate, “mouth agape”, was Harris’s Parliamentary researcher, and biology graduate, Imran Khan. Khan was astonished that a government minister could think about, or talk about, scientific evidence in this way. He is now Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), a lobby group for science and technology education, and cites this tale as a textbook example of “policy-based evidence-making” – when evidence is chosen only to support or defend an already decided policy. Khan is one of a growing cadre of scientifically literate activists who see it as their job to root out this kind of back-to-front thinking, and to promote instead “evidence-based policy-making”, where rigorous, reputable and, crucially, publicly available evidence plays more than merely a fig leaf role in public policy. These include prominent public figures like Khan’s old boss Harris, who writes the Political Science blog for the Guardian, science writer and scourge of the chiropractors Simon Singh, and the Guardian’s Bad Science columnist Dr Ben Goldacre.
Ten questions for the Press Complaints Commission and David Hunt
Earlier this week, Liberal Conspiracy reported on plans by David Hunt, the new head of the Press Complaints Commission, to “invite political bloggers to volunteer for regulation by the PCC’s replacement. Blogs who promise to abide by the new code will get a ‘kitemark’ of approval.”
This follows a Guardian interview last month in which Hunt appeared to argue that inaccurate reporting by bloggers posed a “greater challenge” than the (now well publicised) excesses of the tabloid press.
This seemed like a surprising thing to say given the shocking details that have been emerging from the Leveson inquiry, and my initial reaction was very much in line with that of the “Broken Barnet” blog.
But I was also curious to find out more about the motivation and rationale behind the idea, and the extent to which it has (or hasn’t) been properly thought through.
So I’ve written to David Hunt, C/O his office in the House of Lords, with a series of questions. If I get any kind of response I’ll be posting it here.
Dear David Hunt,
I was intrigued by reports that you are hoping to introduce a “kitemarking” scheme for bloggers. As a writer who has a blog and closely follows a number of others, I have some questions about this idea that I’m hoping you might be able to answer?
1. Despite the recent growth of the internet, many more people still read books than read blogs. Some of the things that are written in books are inaccurate and misleading. Thousands of new books are published in the UK each year. Yet other than the law of libel – which is equally applicable to blogs – there is currently no formal mechanism for challenging inaccuracies published in books. In order to be consistent, will the Press Complaints Commission therefore be seeking to “kitemark” books – or book publishers? If not, why single out blogs and blogging?
2. It has been suggested that you believe inaccurate reporting by bloggers to pose a “greater challenge” than inaccurate coverage by the tabloid press. Can you provide some specific examples of inaccurate reporting by bloggers that you believe might substantiate this claim?
3. In 2010 I reported the Daily Mail to the Press Complaints Commission over an article in which it made a series of false claims downplaying the health risks of white asbestos. [see http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/27/asbestos-press-watchdog-pcc]. The newspaper eventually agreed to print a correction. Can you provide an example of a similarly toxic false health claim made by a blogger?
4. Can you provide an example of a blog whose reporting is consistently less accurate than, for example, that of the Daily Mail?
5. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to all organisations that publish a blog (eg. Cancer Research UK [http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/] or Topshop [http://insideout.topshop.com/]) or only to individual blogs that are deemed “political”?
6. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to political blogs published by Members of Parliament – for example Nadine Dorries MP [http://blog.dorries.org/] and Tom Watson MP? [http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/]
7. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to all blogs read in the UK (ie. including US-based blogs such as BoingBoing [http://boingboing.net], and the US edition of the Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/?country=US]) or only to blogs written by people living in the UK?
8. Would the proposed kitemarking scheme apply to publicly visible postings and “groups” on Facebook, and to postings on microblogging sites such as Twitter?
9. Many political blogs are highly critical of the habits and standards of commercial newspapers, including the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Sun and Daily Telegraph. Given that the Press Complaints Commission would receive the bulk of its funding from such sources even under the alternative arrangements you are proposing, would this not create a serious conflict of interest, undermining the credibility of any attempt by the PCC to “regulate” political bloggers?
10. Many political blogs are highly critical of the Conservative Party and its donors, and of the wider political establishment in which the three main political parties operate. Given that both you and your predecessor are Conservative members of the House of Lords, does this not also create a serious conflict of interest, and undermine the perceived neutrality and objectivity of any PCC “kitemarking” scheme for political bloggers?
I will be publishing these questions on my blog. If you are able to respond then I would be happy to include your answers in full. You would also be welcome to add a comment to the blogpost itself, which can be found at http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com.
Best regards,
Richard Wilson
Paul Kagame’s “cheerleader in chief”. Guest post by “Rwanda Nkunda”
This is a guest post by Rwanda Nkunda. You can find more of their work via the blog “Cry for freedom in Rwanda”.
Tony Blair is on an official visit to Rwanda. This is probably the seventh visit since his departure from Downing Street in 2007.
The visits are part of his Africa Governance Initiative; although, he is also an official adviser to the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame. As noted by the Independent, the two share a close but bizarre relationship in which Mr. Blair functions as Mr. Kagame’s “cheerleader-in-chief”.
How the former leader of one of the world’s most powerful democracies became the publicist for a notorious “predator of the press” is a subject that remains closely guarded. The many explanations that emerge are wild guesses that tend to be borderline conspiracy theories–the sort that blames the western world for all evil in this world.
My focus here is less on how the two became involved with each other, but more on the substantive outcome of what we might consider to be Mr. Blair’s advice.
What is becoming a bit more apparent is that Mr. Kagame seeks to use Mr. Blair as a cover up for his past and present failures. Indeed, the relationship seeks to extend credibility and legitimacy to a brutal dictatorship; which frequently uses murder as a political tactic?. As such, Mr. Blair has become the benign face that promises enticing reforms while Mr. Kagame continues with business as usual.
The precise nature of the relationship seems very unclear. What we know is that Mr. Blair is frequently shuttled around the world in Mr. Kagame’s private jets and gets celebrity treatment whenever in Kigali. For a man who was once one of the most powerful figures in the world, the appetite to feel important or regain a glorious past might be the weakness that Mr. Kagame is exploiting.
To be sure, the regime has the capacity to dismiss some of the killings that the opposition attributes to Mr. Kagame. However the capacity to do so does not depend on Mr. Kagame’s innocence or lack thereof. It is simply that, when Kagame’s critics get murdered, there is little that gets done in terms of investigations. Moreover, and naturally, the regime never admits responsibility for such crimes.
It is deemed more convenient for them to deny and deceive, hoping that the “naïve” westerners will fall prey to their antics and continue to pump aid money. Yet, despite the many human rights concerns that have been raised, including massive irregularities in the 2010 presidential elections, Britain has doubled aid money to Rwanda to become the country’s leading donor.
The whitewashing does not always seem to work in the regime’s favor. In fact, if recent media reports are any indication of western perception, Mr. Kagame is slowly being revealed for what he is. For many of us though, the truth has always been clear. The nature of the killings that target opposition members has always left Mr. Kagame’s fingerprints showing.
The fact that Mr. Kagame tolerates no dissent has never been a secret. The Economist has for instance argued that Mr. Kagame “allows less political space and press freedom at home than Robert Mugabe does in Zimbabwe”. What is rather more surprising is that many people around the world appear too quick to forget that Mr. Kagame is essentially a military dictator. Otherwise, the world would be holding him to a much higher standard, if it remembered his questionable military past.
President Kagame’s speeches, at least those delivered in Kinyarwanda, are often filled with vile and threatening language. There is nothing inspiring about them. His diction is that of a man without patience who is always seeking to bully his way. He regularly refers to opposition figures as “human waste” and promises to crush them without mercy.
When such killings do happen, it is little wonder that the opposition identifies Mr. Kagame as the prime suspect. Indeed, Rwandans have a proverb that says, “akaba ku mutima gasesekarira kumunwa” translating into (“that which is at the heart reveals through the mouth”). As we saw with the recent events in Libya, what a president says can inspire or destroy a nation!
Even if Mr. Kagame refutes all the allegations, his past is heavily tainted with greater crimes. Rwanda has invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo three times and has supported rogue militias including the CNDP whose leaders Laurent Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. Moreover, various United Nations have accused Mr. Kagame of pillaging and stealing DRC’s mineral wealth.
As if the crimes above were not enough, Mr. Kagame has also been accused of committing a possible genocide against members of the rival Hutu ethnic group between 1996 and 1997. This is important because genocide is the crime of crimes. Moreover, Mr. Kagame often rides on his high horse claiming that he ended the Rwandan genocide. As such, if these crimes are referred to the ICC, the usual moral card that Kagame plays against the west might not count anymore. The evidence behind these allegations is very strong, hence the very reason why Rwandans believe that Kagame is a mass murderer.
In the meantime, Mr. Blair and Kagame seem to be winning. Mr. Blair seems to have won over the bulk?of British’s political class, whether conservatives or liberals, on Mr. Kagame’s side.
Since 2007, conservatives have been sending their MPs to Rwanda through project Umubano for volunteer work. While their good intentions are commendable it begs the question of whether the British parliamentarians would be comfortable to extend such missions to other oppressive countries such as Burma, North Korea or Zimbabwe. Doing so in Rwanda, sends the wrong message and weakens the resolve of those who are struggling to plant democracy.
Ultimately, as it seems, “crushing” independent voices is Mr. Kagame’s biggest fantasy. The question that needs asking is, should Britain be helping him to achieve this macabre goal?
“Richard Wilson’s blog” has been kitemarked
Via "Love and Garbage"
I’m honoured to announce that this is the second ever UK blog to be recognised as an official, government-approved, kitemarked-and-licensed communicative online blognode (GAKALCOB).
The scheme was launched earlier this evening when “Love and Garbage” became the first to achieve this coveted status:
This official kitemark confirms that this blog has passed the stringent tests of self-regulation imposed by the independent regulator (namely a guarantee that when asked I will forget whether or not any of the things I have written on here are questionable, unethical, or immoral – and if they don’t ask if stuff I write is illegal or has been obtained in an illegal way I won’t have to answer that question). Let this assurance guarantee to you, my dear reader, that everything you read on here is of a quality at least as high as that you see in national newspapers.
Be assured that my chairing of the loveandgarbage Code of conduct committee where I assess if the loveandgarbage blog has breached any ethical moral or legal issues is a guarantee that I, and the licensing body, takes self-regulation very seriously indeed.
I’m delighted to be following “Love and Garbage”‘s lead, and to assure my readers that I will be following this code almost as assiduously as he will.
More background on this noble enterprise here.
GAKALCOB Kitemarking complaints procedure:
Should you believe that any aspect of this blog breaches the GAKALCOB Kitemarking Code, you may first complain to me, in writing, via the postal address given at the bottom of the page. Should you not receive a response within 365 working days, or should you wish to appeal my automated-rejection of your complaint, you may complain to the GAKALCOB regulator at the following address:
Lord Hunt of Wirral
House of Lords,
London, SW1A 0PW
Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold. Calls may be monitored for training purposes. Resistance is futile.
The only way is ethics #BellPottinger
“I don’t see any reason why I or my company should follow some arbitrary set of ethical values”
- ‘Lord’ Bell in 2008, after taking on a contract to buff the image of the Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenka
- ‘Lord’ Bell in 2011, after his company was caught by undercover reporters bragging about its influence over the UK government, and its use of “dark arts” to bury bad coverage.
Bell Pottinger cuts health information on skin cancer, replaces it with details of their client’s “telemedicine solution”
Thanks to the tireless Tim Ireland, the world now knows that the PR/lobbying firm Bell Pottinger have for years been factory-farming Wikipedia – ie. astroturfing on an industrial scale.
One of the more prolific accounts identified in Wikipedia’s subsequent investigation is IP address 109.231.203.194, and its list of edits makes interesting reading. The person or people behind this account were particularly busy with the Wikipedia entry on Melanoma (a type of cancer that most commonly appears on the skin). Their first edit, on September 2nd this year, was to add the following text:
Online screening
A recent telemedicine solution has been developed that allows people to screen moles online in under 24 hours – reducing the burden of needless anxiety on those with benign lesions, and unnecessary consultations with healthcare professionals. The service was launched in September 2010[1] by a company called Moletest and uses a unique ‘computational vision’ to assess photographic images of lesions (melanocytic nevus) against known case results – providing a ‘traffic light’ based evaluation where green is a ‘normal’ lesion, amber a ‘borderline’ lesion with potentially unpredictable biological behaviour, and red a potentially ‘cancerous’ one. The process is overseen by a panel of professional dermatolagists and has the potential to revolutionalise melanoma screening and detection, in the same way that smear testing did for cervical cancer in women.
It turns out that the company Moletest is or was a client of “De Facto Communications”, which describes itself as “Part of Bell Pottinger Health – the healthcare and pharmaceutical arm of the UK’s No.1 PR group” .
Soon afterwards, the Bell Pottinger account added near-identical text to the entry on Melanocytic nevus (skin lesions more commonly referred to as “moles”).
But in this case they went one step further – actually removing a whole tranche of text that gave details of how people concerned about a possible skin cancer might check themselves for symptoms. Here’s what they cut:
A basic reference chart used for consumers to spot suspicious moles is found in the mnemonic A-B-C-D, used by institutions such as the American Academy of Dermatology and the National Cancer Institute. The letters stand for Asymmetry, Border, Color, and Diameter.[5][16] Sometimes, the letter E (for Elevation or Evolving) is added. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, if a mole starts changing in size, color, shape or, especially, if the border of a mole develops ragged edges or becomes larger than a pencil eraser, it would be an appropriate time to consult with a physician. Other warning signs include a mole, even if smaller than a pencil eraser, that is different than the others and begins to crust over, bleed, itch, or becomes inflamed. The changes may indicate developing melanomas. The matter can become clinically complicated because mole removal depends on which types of cancer, if any, come into suspicion.
A recent and novel method of melanoma detection is the “Ugly Duckling Sign”[17][18] It is simple, easy to teach, and highly effective in detecting melanoma. Simply, correlation of common characteristics of a person’s skin lesion is made. Lesions which greatly deviate from the common characteristics are labeled as an “Ugly Duckling”, and further professional exam is required. The “Little Red Riding Hood” sign,[18] suggests that individuals with fair skin and light colored hair might have difficult-to-diagnose melanomas. Extra care and caution should be rendered when examining such individuals as they might have multiple melanomas and severely dysplastic nevi. A dermatoscope must be used to detect “ugly ducklings”, as many melanomas in these individuals resemble non-melanomas or are considered to be “wolves in sheep clothing”.[19] These fair skinned individuals often have lightly pigmented or amelanotic melanomas which will not present easy-to-observe color changes and variation in colors. The borders of these amelanotic melanomas are often indistinct, making visual identification without a dermatoscope very difficult.
People with a personal or family history of skin cancer or of dysplastic nevus syndrome (multiple atypical moles) should see a dermatologist at least once a year to be sure they are not developing melanoma.
The changes to both entries were cancelled just over an hour later by an eagle-eyed Wikipedia editor – the site’s editing rules stipulate that “Wikipedia is not …a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing”.
But it nonetheless seem striking that anyone would think it was a good idea to delete a fairly detailed account of how people might check for potential skin cancer symptoms and replace it with a puffy advertorial for a company that charges for online screening.
Bell Pottinger really do seem to be in a class of their own…
Pinochet, Bell Pottinger, and “reconciliation”
It turns out that long before they started shilling for the Belarus dictatorship and writing speeches for Sri Lankan war criminals, Bell Pottinger were paid apologists for the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, lobbying hard to help the General evade justice after he was arrested in the UK on torture charges in 1998.
From The New Internationalist
Business people associated with Chile’s Augusto Pinochet Foundation are bankrolling the campaign in defense of Pinochet. Bell Pottinger, the public-relations firm headed by longtime Conservative PR guru Sir Tim Bell, worked under a $310,000 contract with the Chilean Reconciliation Movement, a pro-Pinochet organization operating in Britain…
Bell Pottinger has sent 14 postcards, in the name of the Chilean Reconciliation Movement, to 5,000 British ‘opinion makers’ (including the heads of the top 2,000 corporations, the members of the Houses of Commons and Lords, and the major news media). The buzzword of ‘reconciliation’ appears frequently, and several of the cards argue that Chileans are entitled to and have in their majority chosen reconciliation over ‘recrimination’ and revenge. But the content of the postcards is hardly conciliatory. Clanging relentlessly through the campaign is the claim that in 1973 the elected Chilean Government was raising paramilitary forces in order to establish a communist dictatorship – this is their justification for the military’s violent seizure of power and dictatorial rule.
Tim Bell’s public-relations expertise was also employed for a televised meeting between Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher in the house where the ex-dictator is confined. The meeting was arranged by Robin Harris, a senior advisor to Thatcher. Harris has also produced and sent to over 5,000 UK ‘opinion formers’ (the same 5,000 as the postcards, perhaps?) a paper entitled ‘A Tale of Two Chileans: Pinochet and Allende’. Harris’s paper rehearses the same accusation as the postcards – President Allende had planned a ‘self-coup’ with dictatorial aims. Over half of the paper’s footnotes cite a document produced by the dictatorship with CIA assistance shortly after the military coup. Harris also promises shortly an appendix detailing ‘Plan Z,’ the fictitious plot under which Allende and his associates were to eliminate an extensive list of enemies including prominent members of the armed forces.
The apologists of the dictatorship accuse the Left of crimes in fact perpetrated by the Right. On the lurid accusations of ‘Plan Z’, there were two current or former commanders-in-chief of the Chilean Armed Forces assassinated during the 1970s, but they were not assassinated by the Popular Unity. General Rene Schneider was murdered in 1970 during a failed kidnapping by right-wing military conspirators who planned to blame the crime on the Left in hopes of scuttling Allende’s victory at the polls. General Carlos Prats was assassinated in 1974, after his exile to Argentina, by agents of the military dictatorship. Both were despised by the Right for their ‘constitutionalist’ scruples…
The current campaign is not the first project in which the public-relations industry has served Pinochet and company. In fact, the military dictatorship directly employed numerous PR firms to polish its image over its 17 years. Starting in 1974, a US organization called the American-Chilean Council began work with the aim, in its own words, ‘to expose the misinformation, gross exaggerations and downright lies [about the Chilean dictatorship] being fed to the American public through the Left/liberal establishment’. Four years later the American-Chilean Council was revealed, in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, to be working in the pay of the dictatorship, basically as a front for the public relations firm of Marvin Liebman Inc…
