WikiLeaks cables: millions in overseas aid to Africa was embezzled

CLICK HERE FOR THIS STORY ON TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

The true scale of the theft of overseas aid money by corrupt foreign regimes is disclosed in leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been pocketed by their ministers and officials, much of it used to buy luxury goods

By Gordon Rayner, and Steven Swinford 10:00AM GMT 05 Feb 2011

In one of the worst cases, £1.2million given to Sierra Leone by the Department for International Development (DfID) to “support peacekeeping” was stolen by the country’s “top brass” and spent on plasma television sets, hunting rifles and other consumer items.

Other examples include £16.5million allegedly stolen by ministers in Uganda and £800,000 intended for schools in Kenya stolen by education ministers.

DfID is said to be fully aware of the thefts, but regards the losses as being “within reason”. Details of the embezzlement will reopen the debate over the Government’s decision to increase DfID’s £7.3billion budget at a time of cuts.

In August, 2009, a secret cable from the US embassy in Freetown reported “deep corruption” within Sierra Leone’s defence ministry, “primarily through pocketing of enlisted members’ salaries”.

June Carter Perry, the US ambassador, wrote: “The British envoy revealed that the GoSL (Government of Sierra Leone) demanded a $4 million [£2.46million] contribution from the UK for the Ministry of Defense to support peacekeeping.

RELATED ARTICLES

• How US spied on the Foreign Office

  04 Feb 2011

• WikiLeaks cables: Zardari is a numbskull, British told Americans

  05 Feb 2011

• WikiLeaks cables: The bear with a sore head and the fish that flew the flag

  05 Feb 2011

• WikiLeaks cables: Thailand's royal pet

  05 Feb 2011

• KENYA: OCTOBER ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS

  04 Feb 2011

• United Kingdom: Investment Climate Statement 2010

  04 Feb 2011

“Upon examination, the British discovered that half of the funds were for the personal use of the minister [Palo Conteh] and top brass. Items such as 36 plasma TVs and hunting rifles for the minister’s own use were included.”

Two months later, the US embassy in Nairobi reported that £800,000 from two educational support programmes funded by DfID and the World Bank had been “misappropriated” by officials working for Kenya’s education ministry, leading to the suspension of 25 staff. Separately,textbooks valued at £10.6million had been “lost” to “fraud, theft, and destruction” over the previous four years.

The embassy noted: “The primary donor, DfID, is reviewing the issue but is not expected to pull funding from the program. DfID considers the Free Education Program to be a major success and the level of losses to be within reason.”

In January last year, senior Ugandan officials were accused of “misusing” £16.5 million allocated to help pay for the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. US diplomats in Kampala noted that Britain was “deeply angered” by the scandal and was “seriously considering visa restrictions” on the men in question to punish them.

WikiLeaks exposes U.S. strategy at the United Nations

click here to view this on ForeignPolicy

Posted By Colum Lynch Monday, December 13, 2010 - 8:56 AM

WikiLeaks has released its first confidential cable written by diplomats from the U.S. mission to the United Nations. While the December 2009 cable -- which discusses U.S. efforts on a range of issues before the U.N. General Assembly -- provides no major news revelations, it contains some valuable insights into the way America conducts its business here.

The confidential U.S. diplomatic communication -- which was approved by U.S. ambassadorSusan E. Rice -- shows how reliant the U.S. is on its allies, particularly in Europe, to take the lead on politically sensitive issues like the promotion of human rights, where the U.S. often faces criticism for its military and detention policies. The cable credits the European Union with "collaborating pragmatically" with the Obama administration on its top priorities, including efforts to require emerging economic powers to pay a larger share of the U.N.'s administrative and peacekeeping costs, and to adopt U.N. resolutions criticizing the human rights record of Burma, Iran, and North Korea.

The EU, led by Sweden, also helped Washington fend off efforts by an influential alliance of developing countries -- known as the Group of 77 -- to adopt resolutions that would increase American financial burdens, including a draft resolution affirming a right to economic development.

The EU "responded with alacrity to new U.S. flexibility, particularly on arms control and economic/social issues," according to the cable. "The Swedish ambassador himself repeatedly engaged with G-77 colleagues to sway votes."

The cable, however, also singled out areas where key European powers refused to budge, including its annual support for a General Assembly resolution condemning the U.S. embargo against Cuba: "Spain was a particularly tenacious critic of our Cuba policy." It also expressed frustration with the failure of the EU, despite strong support from Britain, France, and the Netherlands, to significantly weaken a raft of nine pro-Palestinian resolutions that criticize Israel each year. "The EU's annual negotiation of these nine drafts... improved marginally.... The vote outcomes remained lopsided."

On the whole, this U.N. cable was certainly more businesslike than many of the most dramatic reports flowing out of U.S. embassies around the world. But I anticipate that future releases may provide sharper insights into many of the U.N.'s more colorful personalities. Perhaps they will even show us what Rice really thinks about U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch.

UN rapporteur says Assange shouldn't be prosecuted

CLICK TO VIEW THIS ON ABC AUSTRALIA

ELEANOR HALL: The United Nations representative for freedom of opinion and expression says he is now working on a new report on free speech and the internet.

Frank La Rue says he doesn't think that the United States Government will be able to make a case against Julian Assange. But he warns it would set a very bad example for free speech if it did take action against him.

He spoke to me earlier today from his home in Guatemala City:

Frank La Rue you monitor freedom of expression and attempts to curtail it around the world. Do you agree with supporters of WikiLeaks that its founder Julian Assange is now a martyr for free speech?

FRANK LA RUE: It certainly is. If there is a responsibility by leaking information it is of, exclusively of the person that made the leak and not of the media that publish it. And this is the way that transparency works and that corruption has been confronted in many cases.

I do believe there's some types of limitations that I actually drafted in my report in Geneva last year and some basic principles. But essentially they have to be in exceptional form.

They have to be established by law. They have to protect a superior goal and imminent danger. And the legislation has to be prior, it has to be clear so people can actually understand perfectly well what will be limited…

ELEANOR HALL: So do you think given that then that the US Government has any grounds to charge the WikiLeaks founder and to seek his extradition?

FRANK LA RUE: I don't think so. I think with the WikiLeaks founder there's two issues at stake. He supposedly is going to be extradited to Sweden for other types of crime not related at all to freedom of expression.

If that is the case I have nothing to say except that I wish that Sweden or any country where he will be tried give him the full guarantees of due process of law and a full possibility of defence.

But in reference to what has been published in WikiLeaks I think there is no criminal responsibility for being the medium. This is one of the big debates in internet and up to now the general doctrine is that there is no responsibility just to transfer information.

There is a responsibility in I would say in this case in two situations. One is that some statements can clearly be a threat to national security. And the second issue is the personal safety of individuals. Those are the cases that really have to be looked at.

But having said that just the fact that the information is embarrassing information to a government does not make it subject to be blocked or filtered or reprisals to the director/founder of the service.

ELEANOR HALL: So have you made representations to the US Government about their attempts to curtail Julian Assange's activities and to prosecute him?

FRANK LA RUE: Up to now the information we have, and I have been asking, is that they have been talking about prosecution of matters not related to the recent information revealed in WikiLeaks. And I have nothing to add because that's beyond my mandate.

ELEANOR HALL: Well at least one company is alleging today that it's coming under pressure from the US Government to stop dealing with WikiLeaks. Do you have concerns about that?

FRANK LA RUE: I do. And that I do understand that is the case and there I have not been required by this company, all the information I would ask them to handle. But I have made it clear that just the fact that the information is leaked should not be the excuse to pressure any of the enterprises that are serving that information.

ELEANOR HALL: Then there's the counter-attack or payback operation they're calling it from WikiLeaks' supporters. Is that retaliation justified?

FRANK LA RUE: I don't believe in retaliation per se. I believe in defending the principles of freedom of expression. My position is that all expression should be allowed.

ELEANOR HALL: What about the freedom of expression of those who express outrage about WikiLeaks? Should people be allowed to call for a person's assassination for example?

FRANK LA RUE: Never. That is incitement to hatred and violence. And that is, that falls under article 20 of ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).

I think people can express their outrage and people can say that they feel offended by the content of what's being presented in WikiLeaks. But never to call for harassment or direct action against those that are doing that.

ELEANOR HALL: You work for one of the world's biggest diplomatic organisations. Do you have any concerns about WikiLeaks publishing diplomatic cables? I mean do the political players at the UN also have a right to private conversations or does free speech WikiLeaks-style trump that?

FRANK LA RUE: No I believe there's a right to privacy. And I believe there is a criminal responsibility for those that leak it. But I think that is from those functionaries that are actually leaking the information and not from the medium that is making it public.

ELEANOR HALL: Some are suggesting that the WikiLeaks release of secret documents is a game changer. Does the notion of free speech need to be updated to deal with the realities of the modern flow of information?

FRANK LA RUE: I don't think so. My next report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June is going to be precisely on freedom of expression and internet.

And I deal with some issues of that nature - blocking, filtering, criminalisation of some speech; but also with issues of privacy, data protection.

And one issue that no-one is really dealing with for me is crucial is the question of access - accessibility to the internet.

ELEANOR HALL: The US Government seems pretty determined to find some way of charging Julian Assange. Who do you think is going to win this battle?

FRANK LA RUE: I will hope certainly that the principle of freedom of expression is the one that prevails because I believe that even if the US feels embarrassed it will be a bad example if anyone is harassed or charged or prosecuted for that.

ELEANOR HALL: Frank La Rue is the United Nations special reporter on freedom of opinion and expression.

And you can listen to a longer version of that interview on our website later this afternoon which includes his reaction to the WikiLeaks cable that suggested the US authorised its diplomats to spy on UN personnel.

Exclusive: Corruption charges to feature in WikiLeaks release

click here to view this story on Reuters

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:23pm EST

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:23pm EST

(Reuters) - Classified U.S. diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders are expected in official documents that WikiLeaks plans to release soon, sources said on Wednesday.

The whistle-blowing website said on its Twitter feed this week its next release would be seven times larger than the collection of roughly 400,000 Pentagon reports related to the Iraq war which it made public in October.

Three sources familiar with the State Department cables held by WikiLeaks say the corruption allegations in them are major enough to cause serious embarrassment for foreign governments and politicians named in them.

They said the release was expected next week, but could come earlier.

The detailed, candid reporting by U.S. diplomats also may create foreign policy complications for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, the sources said.

Among the countries whose politicians feature in the reports are Russia, Afghanistan and former Soviet republics in Central Asia. But other reports also detail potentially embarrassing allegations reported to Washington from U.S. diplomats in other regions including East Asia and Europe, one of the sources familiar with the WikiLeaks holdings said.

The U.S. government has strongly objected to past WikiLeaks revelations, which it said compromise national security and can put some people at risk.

Past WikiLeaks releases of classified U.S. documents on related to Iraq and Afghanistan have given a battlefield view of both conflicts and sensitive intelligence, but contained few startling revelations.

CREATING TENSION

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington was assessing the implications of what WikiLeaks may reveal and was notifying foreign governments "that a release of documents is possible in the near future."

"We decry what has happened. These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests. They are going to create tension in our relationships,' Crowley said. "We wish that this would not happen but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will."

Both the State Department and the Pentagon confirmed they had been in touch with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to inform them of what may be coming.

Sources said three international news organizations which previously published stories based on classified U.S. government documents acquired by WikiLeaks -- the New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel -- were given access the documents some time ago by Julian Assange, the Australian-born computer hacker who says he is WikiLeaks' founder and leader.

Two of the sources said Assange has also made the documents available to at least two other European publications -- the newspapers El Pais of Spain and Le Monde of France.

Assange did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

The New York Times, Guardian and Der Spiegel are trying to coordinate when they release their first stories about the material -- likely to be next week -- but one of the sources said that it is unclear whether Le Monde and El Pais will be publishing on the same schedule.

The sources said the documents -- which also report on other local controversies beyond allegations of corruption -- may result in more international uproar than did the earlier release by WikiLeaks of Pentagon reports on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Asked by e-mail to comment on the latest anticipated WikiLeaks release, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Reuters: "If we had a big story in the works, we'd be disinclined to discuss it before publication."

(Editing by Andrew Quinn and Mohammad Zargham)

WikiLeaks: Is Russia the Next Target?

click here to view this on TIME

By Simon Shuster / Moscow

Say what you will about Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, but his work has shown him to be pretty fearless. After his site published the biggest cache of secret files in U.S. history on Oct. 22, detailing some of the ugly truths about the war in Iraq, he continued to travel around Europe despite U.S. reprimands and warnings. He even told the global media that new leaks would expose more secrets not only about the U.S. military but about other "repressive regimes," such as Russia and China. The signals coming from Moscow, however, suggest that the Russian reaction will not be as reserved as America's. So is WikiLeaks really ready to take on the world's more callous states?

It's certainly talking the talk. In an interview published on Tuesday, Oct. 26, in Russia's leading daily newspaper, Kommersant, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said that "Russian readers will learn a lot about their country" after one of the site's upcoming document dumps. "We want to tell people the truth about the actions of their governments." (See the top 10 leaks in history.)

So far Russia has had no official response. But on Wednesday, an official at the Center for Information Security of the FSB, Russia's secret police, gave a warning to WikiLeaks that showed none of the tact of the U.S. reply to the Iraq revelations. "It's essential to remember that given the will and the relevant orders, [WikiLeaks] can be made inaccessible forever," the anonymous official told the independent Russian news website LifeNews.

When reached by TIME, the FSB, which is the main successor to the Soviet KGB, declined to elaborate on the comment or say whether it was the agency's official position. But history has shown that the FSB readily steps in to shut down Internet tattlers. In June, a Russian analog to WikiLeaks called Lubyanskaya Pravda published a series of documents it claimed to be top-secret FSB files detailing the agency's operations in the former Soviet Union and conflicts with other Russian security forces. (Watch WikiLeaks' Julian Assange discuss TIME's top 10 leaks.)

The site stayed online for less than three weeks — during which time no Russian newspapers published the files — and then put up a notice saying it was under construction. With the site down and the people who anonymously ran it unreachable, the leak was apparently stopped. "The FSB could have easily found the people behind it and convinced them that this was not a good idea," says Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian security services. "It is also possible for the FSB to take down a site like WikiLeaks. They have the capacity for all of this."

In a far more gruesome case of leak patching, former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who had published damning books about the agency and Russia's leadership, was poisoned with a rare and highly radioactive polonium isotope while living in London in 2006. British police suspect former Russian security agent Andrei Lugovoi of murdering Litvinenko. But the Russian government, which vehemently denies any connection to the murder, has refused to extradite Lugovoi, and a nationalist party has since made him a member of the Russian parliament. (See pictures of Russian police breaking up an anti-Kremlin rally.)

"If the FSB says it is capable [of taking out WikiLeaks], I believe them," says Gadi Evron, an expert on cybersecurity and counterespionage. It would not be necessary to crash the WikiLeaks site, says Evron, because "behind every Internet project, there are people." And people can be coerced — or worse. (Read TIME's 2007 piece on the launch of WikiLeaks.)

But other observers say WikiLeaks presents a far more serious challenge to Russia's security services than the sources of previous leaks. For one thing, WikiLeaks has established a reputation for publishing authentic documents, which means the Russian press would be more likely to cover the story and republish the files. It is also a diffuse and secretive organization that is technologically prepared to deal with cyberattacks. The kinds of hacker raids that took down Georgia's government websites during its war with Russia in 2008, for example, probably wouldn't keep WikiLeaks offline for long. (See pictures of Russian soldiers in Georgia.)

So the most likely Russian reaction, at least at first, would be to undermine the authenticity of the alleged secrets. "That is the main tool — to filter it through the state-controlled mass media, which would discredit WikiLeaks and put into question the reliability of its sources," says Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C. "This would limit any public debate of the leak to the Russian Internet forums and news websites, which reach a tiny fraction of the population."

Zlobin says it would also take something extremely damning to rattle Russia's political elite. "Russians already believe that their leaders steal, that they have offshore bank accounts and funnel money into them," he says. "It would have to give shocking details about the country's two leading figures [Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev], and even then, the complete apathy toward politics in Russian society would absorb a lot of the shock waves at home." (See TIME's photo gallery "Vladimir Putin: Action Figure.")

Russia's reputation abroad, however, could be badly hit by the release of foreign-policy secrets. As the Kremlin pushes ahead with a drive to charm the West, its security agencies will be eager to prevent that kind of embarrassment. And there's no knowing how far they'll go to save face.

Freedom of Expression in Europe

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE VIDEO