A View From The Foothills

by Chris Mullin

  Result

  By 3.30 p.m. a halfway decent speech on the poor guy killed in Gaza had been put into my hand. Just as well, his sisters were in the gallery.

  We live dangerously.

  Wednesday, 3 November

  Everyone pleased with my little breakthrough in Addis. Jack has endorsed my minute on the subject with the words ‘good work’ in his distinctive red ink. This afternoon I entertained Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian mediator, to lunch. Later I took him to Nigel Sheinwald at Number 10 – and The Man dropped in for 20 minutes. It has been agreed that I should go back to Asmara soonest to test the water with Isaias.

  Thursday, 4 November

  To Westminster Hall for the terrorism debate, armed at last with a competent though bland speech into which I had spent the morning trying to inject some life. A simple matter and yet I was uncommonly nervous. Iraq and terrorism are not my natural territory and, as the only member of the government to have voted against the Iraq adventure, it was necessary to keep a straight face and stick strictly to the script. Endless questions: ‘What is the government doing about human rights in Pakistan/poppy-growing in Afghanistan/WMD in Russia?’ You name it. A huge, platitudinous flow of paper from officials. I, lacklustre, stumbling, dry-mouthed. I should have just got up and answered their questions instead of ploughing through my script. I could see them thinking, ‘That Chris Mullin is not all he’s cracked up to be.’

  Home on the 20.00. A ghastly week. Thank God it’s nearly over.

  Friday, 5 November

  The masses have rejected, by a margin of four to one, the proposed north-east regional assembly. That it was defeated comes as no surprise (though no one anticipated the scale of the rout). What clearer evidence could there be of the growing gulf between leaders and led? In 17 years I cannot recall a single letter from a citizen demanding a regional assembly whereas the rulers of the north-east talked of little else. Nor did it help that the referendum was held when politicians are at an all-time low in public esteem.

  Tuesday, 9 November

  Our family home, in Manor Drive, Great Baddow, changes hands today after 50 years. The new people are moving in immediately. Most of Mum’s goods and chattels have gone to auction or to the dump. A few things have been spared – photo albums, the Tibetan rug, Dad’s paintings have been shared out. So that’s it. There is nothing left.

  Wednesday, 10 November

  In the Foreign Office courtyard, I came across David Manning, on his way to brief The Man for his visit to Washington at the weekend. He thinks there is a chance of progress on the Middle East. ‘I believe there is a will in the White House. The death of Arafat opens a window of opportunity.’ He seemed to agree with my suggestion that the only way to make the Israelis co-operate is to threaten the loan guarantees, as George Bush (senior) had done.

  Tuesday, 16 November

  An awkward question from Eric Avebury: ‘When did HMG first receive reports of a possible coup in Equatorial Guinea?’ The truth is that there have been rumours of coup attempts for months, some of which have even been reported in the press. Our original answer referred to press reports, but Jack deleted the reference, making it look as though we had advance knowledge which we kept to ourselves. As a result, a number of people with no particular interest in Equatorial Guinea, but with nothing better to do, are busying themselves trying to organise a crisis where none exists. The mercenary Simon Mann, at present in a Zimbabwean jail, is to be flown to Equatorial Guinea to testify at the trial of those accused of being involved; whether he’s done so voluntarily and is ratting on his erstwhile colleagues or whether he is being extradited against his wishes remains to be seen. As yet it is unclear whether or not this will turn into a fully blown crisis, but one can see the possibilities.

  Thursday, 18 November

  The latest on Equatorial Guinea: South Africa is being asked to extradite Mark Thatcher. He is obviously worried and has asked to see our High Commissioner, Ann Grant, presumably with a view to learning what we can do to help. The possibility that Thatcher junior will end up in one of Obiang’s stinking jails would set the cat among the pigeons. It can only be a question of time until we start receiving inquiries from Number 10. As luck would have it South Africa’s air-head High Commissioner called on me this afternoon (to press her country’s case for a seat on the UN Security Council – which she did with extraordinary incompetence). I took the opportunity to say that we didn’t think it would look very good for South Africa to send Mark Thatcher to Equatorial Guinea and she undertook to pass the word. It’s probably a false alarm. South Africa and EG have no extradition treaty.

  Today – at last – we used the Parliament Act to force through the Hunting Bill. A huge hullabaloo from the hoorays, who are threatening fire and brimstone. Our side, buoyant, but not yet convinced we have carried the day. We have taken on the mightiest vested interest in the land and one with infinite resources at its disposal. This is a dispute we must win, having long ago ceased to be about the fate of a few thousand deer and foxes. It’s about who governs. Us or Them? And on that the jury is still out.

  Saturday, 20 November

  Rang Mum, who sounded deceptively bright. In passing she remarked, without any trace of self-pity, ‘I think I have overstayed my welcome on this earth.’

  Friday, 26 November

  Mamba Point, Monrovia, US Ambassador’s Residence

  To see Monrovia is to glimpse Armageddon. A million people live here without running water or electricity. This is a place where, until the coming of the UN, the Lords of Chaos had free rein. Where youths armed to the teeth and drugged to the eyeballs rampaged at will, looting, raping, murdering. Much of the city is derelict, shop fronts peppered with bullet holes, houses (still inhabited) half demolished or half built; roofless, windowless, burned-out buildings in every street. And in every street a church. Can there be any place on earth that has as many churches as Liberia? So many Christians and so little Christianity. God is everywhere. ‘The blood of Jesus prevails over his enemies,’ says a slogan on a billboard outside the Church of the God of Prophecy. ‘Oh God, please give us your choice of leader for Liberia,’ says another (divine guidance may well be required: so far more than 40 presidential candidates have declared – the latest an international footballer who has every chance of winning). A sign on the road from the airport read: ‘Time is running out for Liberia’. You can say that again.

  Sunday, 27 November

  Butao, Nimba province

  By helicopter to the interior for a hard day’s factfinding. A burly, surly young Ukrainian in dark glasses, with a gold chain around his neck and camouflage trousers, wishes us a nice flight in a deadpan Aeroflot voice. Our party has been gatecrashed by a couple of ministers from the interim government, accompanied by a plump, overprivileged woman dressed as if for a party rather than a visit to the dispossessed. The Liberians are each carrying natty little plastic lunch boxes and the health minister has an ostentatious gold ring. They are here to give the illusion of activity. The truth is, of course, that the Liberian Ministry of Health is an empty shell; the only medical services are provided by foreigners. The man from UNHCR is apologetic: ‘We know they are not real ministers, but we have to pretend that they are.’

  We fly for 90 minutes over forested hills and uninhabited valleys, coming down in a clearing near the border with Côte d’Ivoire. A convoy of white UN Land Cruisers (I counted 16) awaits, watched by a gaggle of bemused Liberians. We set off along a forest track. I quietly fuming. How are we to have any meaningful contact with the locals, if we go about like this? The UNHCR man devises a plan: we let the others go ahead and then detach ourselves from the convoy and head off to the river crossing that leads into Côte d’Ivoire. Côte d’Ivoire looks like becoming the next west African domino to fall to the Lords of Chaos. In recent weeks ten thousand refugees have poured across. The aid agencies are faced with a difficult dilemma. Do they hand out food and risk becoming a magnet or do they let the refugees and their host
families go hungry in the hope that they will make their way home? There is not much to see by the river. Just a few youths in a dugout canoe that serves as a ferry. After we have been there ten minutes the rest of the convoy arrives and we hastily clamber back into our Land Cruisers and head off in the opposite direction; as we look back we can see them turning round to follow us; it is like a scene from a Carry On film.

  We make our way to a village. I insist on getting out and walking. Someone points out a tree laden with grapefruit, another with oranges; there are coffee beans, cocoa and wild swamp rice and on the way to the river we pass two small boys carrying home half a dozen small fish apiece. Yet cultivation is minimal. Everything grows randomly. This is a land in which almost anything will grow. And yet most of the country’s food is imported. In Monrovia tomatoes are said to cost two dollars apiece.

  The natives are friendly, but the air of dissatisfaction palpable. This is the fourth convoy of UN factfinders in ten days and so far not a grain of rice has reached them. Back in the village there is an impromptu outbreak of singing and dancing. A row of chairs has been set out. We can’t just run away. A speech is called for. ‘We are trying to help,’ I say. ‘I know your lives are hard. Please be patient.’ More applause, ululating, singing. Then back into our air-conditioned Land Cruisers and away we go. As we were leaving, I overheard a woman say, ‘They think we don’t understand, but we do.’

  On the way back our helicopter collides with a large bird. There is an ominous judder and then a single feather drifts in through the open porthole.

  Sunday, 28 November

  Monrovia

  Breakfast with my host, US Ambassador John Blaney, in his conservatory. Outside a storm rages. Waves pounding the beach, the palm trees swaying.

  Ambassador Blaney is a lonely man. His wife and daughters are in southern California, forbidden even to visit him in this dangerous place. So he lives alone, save for three servants, in this fortified mansion overlooking the limitless ocean. When he goes to bed at night he seals off the bedroom corridor behind a reinforced steel door. If he retires before us, he leaves out a copy of the Oxford Pocket Russian dictionary to indicate that we should slide the bolts. If the dictionary is not there, we leave the door unbolted.

  Everyone is afraid of upsetting the African Union, being accused of neo-colonialism or racism, Blaney tells us. ‘The fact is that this is a failed state. There aren’t any functioning institutions to plug into. We’ve got to abandon our domestic hang-ups. Stop thinking 20th-century liberal thoughts. We got to do what helps people. What works. And by the way, this is only the beginning of the 21st century. We’re going to see lots more failed states. So why don’t we sit down and think about it?’ My sentiments precisely.

  Monday, 29 November

  Charles Taylor’s ghost is everywhere in Monrovia. It is 18 months since he was ushered off the premises by a trio of West African presidents to the applause of a relieved and (at the time) grateful international community, not to mention a certain amount of relief among the citizens of Liberia, or most of them. In an ideal world he would have been delivered to the Special Court in Sierra Leone, where a cell (‘the presidential suite’) awaits him, to account for his crimes in that country. But west Africa is not an ideal world. Far from it. So instead ex-President Taylor enjoys a comfortable exile in Calabar, Nigeria, courtesy of his reluctant host President Obasanjo, who, having given his word that Taylor would have safe passage out of the country, feels obliged to stick by it.

  As long as there is a possibility that he may one day return, a lot of people are going to keep their options open. It is unlikely that he will take a chance while there are 14,500 UN soldiers in the country, but they won’t be there for ever. And if by chance he did arrive one morning at J. J. Roberts International Airport there is absolutely nothing the UN could do. Its mandate does not include a power of arrest.

  We have time on our hands so we drive to the Ducor Palace Hotel, maybe 20 storeys of steel and (once upon a time) glass, dominating the city. From the terrace, fine views along the coast to the port. Here, in another age, the elite of west Africa cavorted. Not any more. Today the Ducor Palace is a vision of hell. A glimpse of what the Park Lane Hilton would look like after the end of the world. Not that it is empty. On the contrary, every room is taken. The destitute are crowded into every nook and cranny. The windows have gone and so have every fixture and fitting that matters – tiles, toilets, taps; not that it matters because there is no water or electricity anyway. At one end of the terrace a ragged child is sifting through several hundred cubic feet of garbage; we pick our way gingerly around the dollops of human excreta.

  Tuesday, 30 November

  Home to a new crisis. David Blunkett is ensnared in a messy row over access to a child he fathered with someone else’s wife; also, tricky questions about the use of travel warrants, official cars and indefinite leave to remain for a Philippino nanny. Touch and go whether he can survive.

  To Number 10 for a reception. Cherie radiant; The Man tired, tense, dehydrated, eyes wandering. Blunkett was there, too, looking lonely.

  Wednesday, 1 December

  Humphry Wakefield has been leaving me frantic messages all week. The walled garden at Chillingham has finally come on the market. Guide price £500,000 for the Estate House and £145,000 for the garden, although he expects it to go for much more. I will start work immediately.

  Sunday, 5 December

  This morning’s news is that Blunkett’s ex has asked to testify against him at the official inquiry into the nanny’s visa. Until now I thought he would survive, but this could prove fatal.

  Tuesday, 7 December

  Jack took me aside after the morning briefing and asked, ‘Where is this Blunkett business going?’ Like everyone else, he has been supportive of David, but was annoyed to discover (courtesy of the Daily Mail) that Blunkett has been slagging him off behind his back. Yesterday David rang to offer an apology, which Jack graciously accepted while at the same time reminding him that this was not a first offence: three years ago JP had complained in Cabinet about David’s bad-mouthing of colleagues. Jack quoted the so-called Rumsfeld Rules: ‘Never criticise a successor or a predecessor. You do not walk in their shoes.’

  Wednesday, 8 December

  A call to the Heritage Lottery Fund to get its act together regarding Chillingham. Alas, it is all very complicated. Before HLF can lift a finger it needs access, education, conservation and sustainability plans etc, all of which will take months, which we don’t have. Can’t they just buy it and sort out the details later? Apparently not. There is a fund for emergencies, but it is only for Titians, medieval manuscripts and the like; not 18th-century walled gardens.

  Monday, 13 December

  An interesting valedictory from Our Man in Mauritius, who complains that ‘a doctrinaire over-emphasis on strategic priorities, resource management and performance has paradoxically become a straitjacket that reduces flexibility, constrains our bilateral relations and thereby lowers our standing.’ He goes on:

  Perpetual re-examination, renaming and reprioritisation take their toll. Too much of our effort has gone into managing and studying ourselves with the result that the tools of our trade have rusted and bilateral relations have been downgraded. Substance is giving way to process. Correctness has become the enemy of another vital ingredient of diplomacy – a sense of humour. It is difficult these days to raise a smile in London.

  The last gasp of the old guard; or does he have a point?

  Tuesday, 14 December

  On the bus this morning, thinking: this time last year everything was still in its natural place. If I dialled Chelmsford 71509, a familiar voice would answer. Dad was still shuffling between the drinks cabinet and the sofa in the living room, reading the Telegraph from cover to cover, making daily visits to the King’s Head. Mum still out and about, back and forth between the kitchen and her seat by the French windows. Only a few more days of normality left.

  To Number 10 for
a meeting about the detentions at Belmarsh.

  Dramatis personae, arrayed along one side of the Cabinet table, include the Attorney General, the Home Secretary, the Noble Lord Grocott, Eliza Manningham-Buller, Charlie Falconer. On the other side: The Man, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan and a functionary taking notes.

  The Attorney General outlines the options. His starting point is that we should obey the forthcoming Lords’ judgment, which is expected to go against the government. Alternatively, we could amend the law – ‘the difficulty is we don’t know what to put in its place.’

  ‘It will be a big thing, if we don’t accept the judgment,’ the Attorney General said.

  To which Charlie Falconer added, ‘If they go against us on whether or not there is an emergency, we’re fucked.’

  A chandelier swayed gently. ‘Fucked’ is not a word often heard in the Cabinet Room – especially not from the Lord Chancellor. The Man’s eyebrow tweaked. Someone said, ‘Excise that from the record.’

  The Man was tapping the table. ‘We can’t have a lot of people going on TV saying, “It’s disgraceful; this is how they treat Muslims.” We can’t have that. We have to be clear: these people are held on suspicion of involvement in terrorism and we can’t take the risk of releasing them.’

  That, for now, is the line, though how long it can be held is anyone’s guess. As we were leaving Ms Manningham-Buller said to me, ‘The Americans would be very upset if we let them go; they want some of them.’

  Wednesday, 15 December

  The Blunkett crisis refuses to die. I ran into John Williams, who said, ‘Jack is so angry that I’m afraid he’ll say something publicly and lose the high ground.’ Later, just after six, as I was making my way to the Foreign Office Christmas party in the Locarno Room, it was announced that Blunkett had resigned. Whereupon up popped Jack and paid a dignified little tribute. A professional to his fingertips.