Blogoir: July

Back to Craig Murray's Murder in Samarkand - off with his family to Tashkent (Chapter 3).

Uzbekistan was one of the fifteen Soviet republics to become independent in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Craig offers a few paragraphs on the history of 'Uzbek independence', without saying anything about what makes Uzbeks a distinct community in that complicated part of the world. He has one excellent line about the ruling elite there:

... But they left the USSR in order to keep the Soviet system, not to destroy it.

Craig complains that "short-sighted US Republicans" have confused Uzbek leader Karimov with the pro-democracy heroes of Central Europe (Walesa, Havel). 

Cliche Alert (1): US Republicans = Bad.

Hmm. Short-sighted US Democrats made the same mistake.

Arriving in the middle of the night the Murray family are met by Embassy colleagues Karen Moran and her partner Chris Hurst. Karen is one of few women featuring in the book (another is Mrs Murray) without a vivid description.

The Murrays drive into Tashkent, proud to see the Ambassadorial flag flying on the Embassy car. A minor diplomatic solecism? Usually this is not appropriate until a new Ambassador has presented credentials.

The next day he explores for the first time the poorly laid-out Embassy offices and gives the staff an opening pep talk:

I wanted the embassy to make a positive difference to Uzbekistan ... to influence the policy of the government of Uzbekistan, the policy back in London and the policy of international institutions, in such a way that the lives of people in Uzbekistan would be discernibly better for our work.

This (to me) strikes an odd note. Is Craig's Main Effort as a British Ambassador to improve the lives of people in Uzbekistan, or the lives of people in the UK? Is not his job to implement London policy, not 'influence' it for the benefit of Uzbeks?

That aside, Craig gets off to what reads like a strong start, visiting local British businesses in their offices (not done by his predecessors) and resolving to do a lot more driving round the country to see for himself what is happening (Note: in principle a sound plan, but time-consuming and tiring - how will the small underpowered Embassy shop run itself during these prolonged absences?)

The Murrays are invited to Uzbekistan Independence Day celebrations, a sprawling noisy affair. They are told to be ready in their seats at 1730, but the show does not start until the President arrives at 1930.

Craig is 'livid' at being kept waiting. The next day he sends a formal diplomatic note to the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry pointing out their 'gross discourtesy' in expecting Ambassadors to be seated some two hours before the event started. He copies this missive to all other Embassies in Tashkent:

This caused a sensation ... Diplomats in general being wimpish, none of my colleagues had ever raised a whimper before. For exhibiting the remotest trace of a backbone, I was viewed as fantastically daring and backslapped by the entire diplomatic community.

Cliche Alert (2): Wimpish diplomats.

Another oddity. In formal protocol/professional terms, putting in a Note of the sort Craig describes and copying it round the Diplomatic Corps is completely out of order when he has not yet presented his credentials.

You might say that the vile Uzbekistan regime do not merit much if anything by way of protocol niceties. And you might well be right.

Yet ... is this Wise?

Your job as Ambassador is not to win cheap points with your diplomatic colleagues, wimpish or otherwise. Your job is to advance British interests, which means (in a place like this) carefully taking stock and seeing how best to work the local system, odious as it might be, to the UK's overall advantage.

I would have done it differently, writing a personal letter to the Head of Uzbekistan Protocol (cc the Foreign Minister's and President's respective offices), expressing my private disappointment at the protocol arrangements at the fascinating and spectacular Independence Day events, and suggesting that improvements could be made which I was sure other Ambassadorial colleagues would value.

That sort of deft letter catches their attention at a high level, but does not cause too much open embarrassment/annoyance.

The problem with Craig's much more public, 'in their face' protest is that it achieves Impact, but perhaps at too high a cost.

The tough Uzbeks will be impressed by the fact that a new, forceful British Ambassador has hit town. But what conclusion will they draw?

That he needs to be taken seriously, as a sign that the Brits are changing their whole approach towards Uzbekistan? Or rather that he is a patronising, showy-off lightweight?

Professional Judgement Rating: 6/10.  Lively positive new engagement with UK business community and energetic 'new broom' sense with Embassy staff. But to get best results needs to watch his dealings with local officials (even when his concerns are justified) and not give the impression that he seeks the limelight at the expense of being effective.

One of the things we all need to do is spend our inherited capital wisely, not blow it on trivial consumption.

Alas we humans have been squandering like billy-oh the inherited richness of global oil and gas reserves created millions of years ago by decaying forests.

It turns out that once upon a time the Arctic was covered in lush jungle in quantities sufficient to lay down a mere 90 billion barrels of oil.

So surely we need to start planning to replace it as we begin to use it?

Alas the Arctic is covered in all that useless ice, which usually stops jungle from growing properly.

Maybe the answer lies in the planet getter rather warmer so that vegetation can grow there profusely once again, as it should?

Or am I missing something?

Update:  I discover that there is a lively controversy going on out there about the claim that oil derives from long-squished vegetation. Some scientists (not least a good bloc of Russian opinion) say that that is tosh, and that oil occurs from natural geological processes.

Time to tip-toe away from this one. 

Martin Kettle in the Guardian on Labour's horrible byelection loss in Glasgow yesterday:

Almost no Labour MP, including Brown, is now safe. Glasgow East was Labour's 25th safest seat in the UK and its third safest in Scotland. The seat had been Labour since the 1920s. If the 22.5% swing was replicated in a general election, Labour would have just one Scottish MP left. It doesn't get worse that this.

Er?

Of course it can get worse. Labour could have no seats in Scotland.

Or would that in fact be better? 

My new Total Politics piece is out, full of Helpful Tips about how a new Minister should start to run a government Department.

It's quick to register and you can then see it on the E-zine.

More in the pipeline for issues 3 and 4.

Under the UK's Parliamentary system if an MP dies or steps down during a Parliamentary term a new election in his/her constituency takes place to fill the gap - no 'appointing' of new MPs as happens in countries with a party list system.

This of course compels the political parties to stay on their toes to fight such battles as and when they happen, in what often turns out to be a local mini-referendum on the Government's record.

The outcome is not representative of what might happen at a general election. All opposition parties can pile in forcefully to this one constituency to attack the government, whereas in a general election all efforts/resources are spread across the country.

Still, it makes for livelier politics.

And in the right circumstances the results can be dramatic.

Too much Karadzic can be wearing, but the pieces at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on the man and his arrest are excellent, especially this one:

In the end, Karadzic miscalculated. His dream of uniting all Serbs in a single state failed, and now they are scattered across five independent countries. His closest associates ended up in The Hague or as fugitives in hiding. Slowly but surely, his fellow Serbs are moving away from his radical nationalist ideology.

All eyes should be on Serbia now. It will be instructive to see how the Serbian leadership handles the situation now that Karadzic has been arrested. How many people will come out to protest? ...

... My feeling is that the reaction will demonstrate that Karadzic is of little importance to them anymore. Life has moved on.

Chandler Rosenberger at National Review Online takes a big picture look at US Balkan policy over the past decade and more.

I might disagree with him at various points. He offers a rather US-centric view.

But he does bring out well that while thematic, sustained and firm approaches to dealing with Bad Leaders have their ups and downs, they can eventually bring positive results.

The problem for diplomats is that they often see the realities of what can be achieved pretty well. It is politicians who do not like hitting the nasty bumps along the road, even when the road is bumpy and one has to go down it to get anywhere.

Hitting bumps on that sort of road is a sign of success, not a sign of failure.

Bottom Line for the former Yugoslavia: no-one else out here really cares what your problems are, but we do expect you to solve them nicely, which means you rooting out the worst disruptive idiots and gangsters who claim to be your leaders.

Got that yet? 

See the words of wisdom of Radovan Karadzic aka Dr Dabic - at his site! (The Ever Increasing Need for Alternative Viewpoints in the Modern World)

Try this one:

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

Via Tim Worstall and Tom Paine.

Can this be real, or is it a fast assembled Serbian spoof?

Who cares?

As I always say, some things are so stupid they can't be true. Others are so stupid they must be true.

What a great place the Balkans is/are.

A comment by me adding some operational background on international attempts to arrest Karadzic is up at the Independent's Open House.

The steady insight of Lord Owen, with the deafening noise emitted by Simon Jenkins.

Good piece in the Independent too.

But they spoil it by adding a list of War criminals still at large.

These people are not war criminals. They are war crimes suspects or indictees, unless and until they have been tried in their absence and convicted.

Innocent until proven guilty, and all that. Important!

News that the Arabic word for God has been found miraculously enscribed on a piece of meat in Nigeria alas does not impress me.

When I was in Serbia the erudite paper Twilight Zone carried a picture of the image of Milosevic which had been found on a piece of toast.

And these days people are impatient for miracles.

So, praise the Lord, you can make your own.

When Milosevic was abruptly transferred to the Hague Tribunal in June 2001 I dusted off my barristerial wig and sent a lively telegram to London from Belgrade on the theme "Is Milosevic Innocent?".

My point was that linking Milosevic to the calamitous events in Bosnia and other non-Serbia parts of former Yugoslavia in a way capable of withstanding rigorous legal scrutiny would not be easy.

There probably would not be clear documentary or other physical proof linking him as a Serbia leader directly to proven atrocities in Bosnia/Croatia. 

So to convict him at ICTY it would have to be proved beyond doubt that in some less explicit way he was 'responsible' for them - maybe he ordered lesser actions which, given the obvious circumstances, had to lead to such atrocities elsewhere, or at least he did not do all he might have done to stop them.

Could be ... Tricky. 

Thus was it likely that Milosevic was directly responsible for the horrendous Srebrenica massacre? On the face of it, no - why would he have wanted something like this to happen when he knew it would provoke a huge international outcry against the Serb cause generally?

Will Karadzic's guilt be easier to establish?

Probably yes.

Or not. 

He (unlike Milosevic) was (a) an openly influential figure in Bosnian Serb ranks and (b) actually in Bosnia as the conflict raged, meeting the media and genially denying any wrong doing.

His operational responsibility over the Bosnian Serb forces was self-evidently higher, as was his operational leadership capacity to influence political events for the better - hence also higher his legal/moral responsibility for horrors occurring when (and because?) he did not do so.

That said, for those very reasons of proximity he can (unlike Milosevic) attempt at his trial to drum up all sorts of arguments that for every given Bosnian Serb alleged war-crime he was acting closely in one way or the other with the 'international community' on the ground, in its various bungled efforts to bring peace to Bosnia.

And (unlike Milosevic) he can point in detail to Bosniac/Muslim and Croat military and political decisions which (he might say) forced the Serbs into justifiable self-defence measures.

Or he might dwell on the strange ways in which heavy weaponry found its way to the Bosniacs/Muslims during the conflict despite an international arms embargo, with various Western powers not exactly doing much to stop this.

He might force the Tribunal to look hard at the political and moral events leading to the outbreak of hostilities in Bosnia, where the Izetbegovic Muslim tendency arguably played a highly irresponsible role. If someone else recklessly starts a fire, is your legal responsibility somehow diminished if you behave badly in the ensuing panic?

And/or he could try to claim - and be able to show - that at different points senior international negotiators made him promises or otherwise deliberately and knowingly influenced his calculations in a way which is now highly embarrassing in some circles. 

In short, he has lots of options for creating a circus, with all this grimly complex history being pored over for years in excruciating detail. There will be no shortage of money for top-end legal defence teams, if he wants them. 

Or is there another option - that he is just worn out by it all, and plans quietly to plead guilty to all charges?

Somehow I doubt it. 

Finally. Radovan Karadzic the former Green activist has been arrested, in Belgrade.

I never met him. By the time I reached Sarajevo in mid-1996 he was already lying low, although not that low. NATO troops were in effect instructed not to look for him or other war crimes suspects, but to arrest them only if they encountered him "in the course of their normal duties".

This seemed to be interpreted to mean that if they knocked him down while driving to and fro between Sarajevo and Pale that might be a good time to detain him, but not otherwise.

The media this morning are linking him to the Srebrenica massacre in Eastern Bosnia, as that is the one most people have heard of. But the main responsibility for that lies rather with General Mladic - still on the run but now having a lot to think about. Suicide runs in his family...

Karadzic looks to have been a second-rate romantic who became improbably entangled in Bosnian nationalist politics and then was carried away in his own self-importance once the conflict really started. He has to shoulder responsibility for many of the ghastly events occurring during the siege of Sarajevo and elesewhere in Bosnia in the first part of the 1990s. He consistently used his political authority to play games and waste lives. 

In 1997 as HM Ambassador in Sarajevo I quietly suggested to London that I try secretly to meet Karadzic with a view to persuading him to surrender - I would have been the first senior international Serbian speaker he would have met. I reckoned that I could find a way to meet him - at that point he had not gone underground completely.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook liked the idea, but allowed himself to be bamboozled by FCO tweebling and consulted Madeleine Albright, who said No.

So I held back. And it took eleven expensive and frustrating years to get him.

If the Tadic Serbs are smart they will hand him over to ICTY v quickly.

Then should follow a very long and involved (and maybe for some in the West embarrassing) legal process at the end of which he'll be convicted and receive a massive sentence.

Good. 

This describes the current UK problems rather well.

Not that that cheers one up.

Do we bring up our children to take seriously the difference between right and wrong?

We think we do. Not much sign that it is working.

One way to catch their attention is to lay out clearly to them that Bad Behaviour has Bad Consequences. That if they do not take responsibility for the results of what they do, they may well be harshly punished.

This alas is not really a lesson for Western life today, as much bad behaviour these days obviously has quite good consequences for the person responsible for it.

In part this is because of Leftist/PoMo deconstruction of the idea of Right and Wrong as some sort of artifice created by Mostly Dead White men to oppress the planet. The 'root causes' of obnoxious behaviour are given pride of place in the dominant analysis of most social problems, diminishing the very idea of personal responsibility.

Ditto at the international level. There is a profound reluctance to confront regimes who fail to meet even the most basic standards. We're not judgemental! 

See the howls of rage against President Bush for having (as Mr Prout might say) the temerity, the affrontery, the audacity, to topple Saddam Hussein. Who does he think he is, imposing his nasty cowboy values on everyone else?

Some parts of the world do not take part in the Western trivialisation of values. Here children learn that if they do something Bad, something Very Bad will happen.

I wonder where the petty theft rate by youngsters is lower?  

Your chance to vote for the Total Politics UK Political Blog Top 100.

First place and Ten Points for this one of course.

After that, up to you.

A reader reponds to my posting on the Bruges Group meeting:

Leaving aside the Grandness or otherwise of the ideas the Bruges Group battles for, what relevance do global Grand Battles of Ideas have to everyday life, and how people try to live it?

I happen to think that Ideas are the bedrock on which Policy and Civilisation are built.

And this fine article by Charles Moore sums up why:

The Tories make the arresting promise that they can do for the broken society what Mrs Thatcher did for the broken economy. It is the right idea. But behind it lies the assumption that the economic answers are nowadays known: it is just a matter of getting out the old tool-box which Labour has left in the shed.

I wonder. What if the coming economic difficulties raise questions which have been hardly thought about yet? What if people start to reject the market liberalisation of the last 20 years because they think it leads to hedge fund managers getting rich by destabilising the price of essential commodities? Capitalism's arrangements will start to seem very unattractive to most people if, as is now happening, they get poorer ...

On top of that comes something that really is new. The assumption of our political attitudes ever since our mass democracy began a century ago is that "we" (by which is meant the West) can ultimately direct our destinies. If primary economic power really is passing away from America and western Europe, to China and to the owners of commodities that we need, will that assumption hold good? If not, what then?

A very pertinent question.

If our Grand Ideas start to wobble, others will take their place.

This sums up exactly what I think.

Having worked for the British state for nearly thirty years, I have no faith in its ability to be both operationally efficient and flexible.

Not that 'capitalism' is necessarily always or invariably better - many large firms operate in highly dysfunctional ways too. But the ultimate threat of going bust keeps them on their toes, whereas government is intrinsically flat-footed. It is just wiser to let the creativity/improvisation of markets come up with solutions where they possibly can.

As Damon Runyon maybe said, "The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong -- but that's the way to bet."

Chapter two of Craig Murray's book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds.

He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his 'line management' people. He finds it hard work:

The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant - heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled.

I have a soft spot for Eastern Department, as I was there when it received the name.

Back in the mists of time (to be precise 1640) our Foreign Policy organised itself to deal with different parts of the world in endearingly simple ways. One Department of of State was Northern Department, covering great swathes of the globe north of the equator. The other was Southern Department, covering points south.

Northern Department eventually became the Foreign Office but an FO department with that historic name continued to operate until well after the Second World War, when a reorganisation created 'Soviet Department'. Good riddance. Northern Department had dealt ingeniously with UK/Soviet policy in part by having various Marxists working in its ranks.

I was posted to Soviet Department as Deputy Head of Department in mid-1991 on returning from South Africa. I inherited a vast old 'partners desk' which had an electric switch by one's knee - once upon a time the occupant of the desk could switch on a red light to alert others in the room that he was on the telephone to the Soviet Embassy, hence they should stop talking lest Secrets be Revealed. Cool.

Anyway, after the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991 we had to rename the department. It could not be 'Russia Department' as too many other countries were to be covered by it. Restoring the name Northern Department might provoke, hem, adverse media comment.

So Eastern Department it was, and is. I hope that that desk is still there.

Craig describes his various conversations there with two FCO colleagues whom I happen to know, mainly on Tashkent Embassy resources/management issues. Craig notes that he inherits a small and mainly junior UK-based team: only four FCO officers plus a Defence Attache.

There is a hint of a Problem with one of the FCO team. Craig (reasonably) expresses concern at the absence of a more senior political officer, but is more than confident that he will cope:

I was professionally very capable myself of a high volume of wide-ranging output.

Thereafter Craig meets some senior business people from British firms investing in Uzbekistan, feasts on yummy Uzbek plov with the Uzbek Ambassador in London, and has a pre-posting audience with Princess Anne and Prince Andrew (Note: trite moan about having to wear 'fancy dress' for the occasion).

Craig's final pre-posting calls are on FCO Minister Mike O'Brien ("all haircut and presentation") and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who says:

"Whenever you get to ... wherever it is you're going ... tell them I'm thinking about them."

That was the extent of my instructions.

Putting to one side Craig's attempt (not it must be said totally unsuccessful) to portray his London interlocutors as largely uninterested in Uzbekistan, I find his account of these calls a bit strange.

Pre-posting Ambassadors are expected to work up their own pre-posting briefing round lists. Craig also had plenty of time in the margins of his months of Russian language training to see people.

So where are the calls on eg the FCO Human Rights and EU teams, HM Treasury, DTI, SIS, MOD, Cabinet Office, No 10 and so on? What about British human rights groups concerned about Uzbekistan? Uzbek dissident groups in London? Leading journalists and academics who cover the region? Did he pursue with FCO personnel people the question of the apparent poor performance of one of his future team?

Maybe he met some or all of these people and decided not to mention it in the book.

One way or the other, a key part of a new Ambassador's role is to ascertain 'what is out there' in the UK in respect of the country and issues with which s/he will be dealing, and to spot potential allies and friends.

No evidence is presented by Craig that he did this. The impression he gives us is of meeting only a few cynical busy people who treat Uzbekistan as a far away country of which they know little, and care even less. Their problem, not his!

So to say dismissively that Jack Straw's off-hand remark was "the extent of his instructions" is disobliging, if not untrue.

His detailed 'instructions' would have come from his many meetings round Whitehall.

If he had them.

Professional Judgement Rating: 5/10. Useful and blunt (if a touch dismissive) account as far as it goes of various significant briefing meetings, but no evidence presented that he did a full and comprehensive networking job.

Where else?

But what if your home comes with your job and is intended to be used for public and not party political purposes?

I especially like the line that the Treasury paid a Smith Institute bill accidentally.

The Treasury pays nothing accidentally. That's the point of the Treasury.