Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/unmi6sawers061709.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 17 -- After representing the United Kingdom at the UN and its Security Council, John Sawers has been tapped to head the UK's intelligence agency MI6. It triggers a selective review of his time at the UN, perhaps more critical than the BBC's "Sawers Can Dance" piece.
Perhaps to his credit, Sawers was recently called "an amateur diplomat" by his Sudanese counterpart. The charge can after Sawers was quote that the Council bypassed Sudan during its recent trip across Africa, in order to avoid meeting with its indicted war criminal president Omar al-Bashir. "The UK and Sawers have blood on their hands," Sudan's Ambassador replied. Then came the promotion.
Just before the announcement, in an on the record sit-down with the UN press corps, Inner City Press asked him to assess his and the Security Council's performance on Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands have been killed this year. Sawers said that the votes had been there to put Sri Lanka on the Council's formal agenda, but that he'd thought the unity of the Council more important.
Therefore, after a few informal meetings without outcome in the UN basement, Sri Lanka is not on the Council's agenda, as internment camps continue to grow and critical voices are denied visas or deported. Was Sawers' the right judgment? Apparently this UK government thinks yes. And if intelligence and "anti-terrorism" are the priorities, the choice seems predetermined.
Under Sawers, the UK mission to the UN displayed, at least in the view of this reporter, a bent for secrecy. Most Wednesday mornings, Sawers would brief select journalists who cover the UN. It was called a background briefing, but from the stories that would be written, it was obvious who had spoken. Once what Sawers said on background over breakfast differed notably from what he had told Inner City Press on the record at the stakeout.
After reflection, Inner City Press wrote story noting this one incongruous aspect of Sawers' presentations, leaving others out. (Inner City Press attends other countries' briefings, applying this same standard without incident.) But Sawers then-spokesman responded that Inner City Press had no right to even mention the breakfast briefings, and grilled the participants on who had told Inner City Press what had been said. He tried to drive a wedge, and all to protect what: the right of a powerful country to anonymously snark at the smaller and less powerful? Call it intelligence.
That Sawers was aiming for higher postings seemed clear, for example when during the Council's visit to a refugee camp in Darfur, Sawers left the other Ambassadors sweltering off camera in a meeting with camp elders, and set off alone with the press to meet and greet the IDPs. Some other Ambassadors grumbled. But as the early bird gets the worm, the intrepid Ambassador leaves many of his colleagues behind.
Sawers was always attentive during the visits to the UN of Gordon Brown, David Miliband and even Mark Malloch Brown. To his credit, Sawers in less formal settings was usually gracious, and often funny. At the farewell party for his next spokesman, Michael Hoare, Sawers joked about among other things Hoare's fascination with the James Bond films and dressing in tuxedos.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/unmi6sawers061709.html
