Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/25/2003 5:39:20 PM PDT by MadIvan
This is not the first time George Galloway has been linked to allegations of handling money from a controversial foreign power. In 1998 BBC Newsnight reporter Richard Watson investigated the MP's links with the government of Pakistan, uncovering documents that revealed an astonishingly close financial relationship with the administration and calling into serious question Mr Galloway's judgment as an MP. Here, Watson recounts the investigation.
The trail of evidence linking George Galloway to the government of Pakistan began to emerge in the prime minister's private office in Islamabad. It was spring 1998 and Nawaz Sharif had recently come to power. In keeping with the cut and thrust of Pakistani politics, the new prime minister had just created an Accountability Commission to investigate allegations of corruption by the government of his predecessor, Benazir Bhutto.
We were given access to the work of the Accountability Commission as part of our research for a film for the BBC. Over three weeks my researcher Shashi Singh and I pored over thousands of documents.
It soon became clear that Mr Sharif's government was most interested in pursuing corruption allegations against Ms Bhutto's government. Senior officials were suspected of setting up inflated contracts with foreign companies for infrastructure investment programmes worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Details of secret offshore accounts in the Caribbean and Switzerland began to emerge.
But other, far more sensitive documents were also coming out of the vaults. Some described work paid for by the Pakistan Projection Fund - a secret bank account run out of London by the Pakistan High Commission that was set up to back clandestine operations to promote issues of national interest.
These documents would reveal how George Galloway was party to negotiations at the highest level with the government of Pakistan to pay for the operation of a newspaper published in London and to fund lobbying work on the issue of Kashmir. The newspaper was set up to take a pro-Bhutto line.
The first clue to the work of the Pakistan Projection Fund - and Mr Galloway's links to the government - came in the form of an unsigned letter in a file from the Foreign Office. It was marked for the attention of Pakistan's High Commissioner in London and contained details of a secret proposal to launch an English language newspaper in Britain called The Asian Voice. The unnamed author noted that "its political line would be the line of the Pakistan People's Party" (led by Ms Bhutto) and "it would energetically press the prime minister's line". Ms Bhutto initialled her agreement at the bottom of the page.
We do not know who wrote this document - or whether Mr Galloway knew about it. What we can say is that Asian Voice Ltd was a company registered in Britain to publish the weekly pro-Bhutto newspaper. And one of its directors was Mr Galloway, who, according to documents in Pakistan, also controlled a third of the shares.
Mr Galloway declared his interest in Asian Voice Ltd in the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests. But for anyone scrutinising the records the financial link with a foreign power would have remained unseen.
Documents show that the Pakistan government agreed an initial budget for the weekly newspaper of £547,000. According to a memorandum dated Jan 2, 1996 the Pakistan government proposed to "covertly sponsor" the publication, with money allocated to "the Secret Fund of the High Commissioner for Pakistan in the UK as a special grant for the project".
In early 1996 Mr Galloway recruited staff and an office was set up in Tooley Street near Tower Bridge in London. The paper was to be called East and, as agreed, the publisher was Asian Voice Ltd.
But just two weeks before the official launch disaster struck. The government of Ms Bhutto fell and with it went the source of funding. Mr Galloway now had a problem. Thousands of pounds had been sunk in launch costs and debts were running high. The new administration in Islamabad made it clear they wanted to stop the flow of money and the MP realised this could spell disaster.
In a memorandum marked "Secret" and dated Jan 26, 1997 there is an account of a meeting between the newly-appointed foreign secretary of Pakistan, Mr Galloway and Pakistan's former High Commissioner in London, the man who had covertly directed funds for the newspaper project. The memo reports that the foreign secretary made it clear that funding for the paper was to end but reassured Mr Galloway that the new president did not wish to harm the MP's position.
According to the memo, Mr Galloway thanked the president for his concern but outlined serious concerns. The memo states that Mr Galloway said that if East were to close before the general election then "his political enemies would create problems and might also call for journalistic investigation which could easily establish his involvement. Such a situation would not only ruin him politically but would also damage the Labour Party".
These are hardly the sentiments of a man comfortable with the nature of the funding for the paper. Two days after this meeting a cheque for £135,000 drawn in favour of Asian Voice Ltd was handed over to the MP. Newsnight obtained a copy of the cheque, which came with Mr Galloway's signature, apparently acknowledging receipt.
In total the documents in Pakistan suggested that more than £300,000 was paid to Asian Voice Ltd to run East. But this was not enough to stave off financial collapse. Soon Mr Galloway had to turn to Pakistan with his begging bowl. He was so desperate for money that he wrote a series of highly embarrassing begging letters to the new government, which raised serious questions about his judgment as an MP.
On May 8, 1997 Mr Galloway wrote to Mr Sharif talking of Labour's "landslide victory". The preamble over, he got to the point: "Alas I must draw your attention to a critical issue which risks gravely embarrassing Pakistan and Labour just on the threshold of the new era. As you will see from the file I undertook to keep "The East" going until the General Election to avoid the embarrassment of the paper's collapse. The Government of Pakistan - in the shape of the then Foreign Secretary - promised to pay the costs for February, March and April - totalling £150,000. None of these instalments arrived.
"Consequently I now face creditors to the tune of £141,000. Now that Parliament is back, they are literally coming through my door at Westminster demanding money.
"My dear Prime Minister, if these creditors are not paid they will take me to court on a winding-up petition. This level of debts cannot be quietly forgotten. Events thereafter would be disastrous for me - probably your best friend in the new Parliament - and would badly damage the reputation of Pakistan.
"I beg you, Sir, to please instruct the High Commission in London to honour the country's commitments. There are literally only days to spare."
On May 26, Mr Galloway once again wrote to Mr Sharif - this time on House of Commons headed paper. His tone was increasingly desperate.
"I beg you to grant me an audience with you, Sir, so we can resolve the matter," he wrote.
We showed these begging letters to parliamentarians, who expressed shock. We did not reveal who had written them to avoid them being accused of party bias - we merely said they were penned by an MP. Speaking in 1998, Shirley Williams told us: "He or she put themselves under a very strong obligation to a government which has a very clear mandate on how it wished to behave in the UK and how it wanted to be seen in the UK. And that was bound to influence the MP. The [Parliamentary] rules are inadequate to deal with this situation."
Before we broadcast our film in June 1998 we asked Mr Galloway for an interview. He declined. So we wrote to him, asking the simple question of whether Asian Voice Ltd had ever received money from the government of Pakistan. He told us our information was factually wrong but refused to elaborate. In a letter he said: "Asian Voice Ltd had business relations with a variety of companies and governments in countries friendly to, or allied with, Great Britain. Those commercial relations were conducted on the basis of confidentiality and remain confidential."
He added that the suggestion that he had put himself under an obligation to the government of Pakistan was "preposterous".
We are not saying that Mr Galloway retained money connected with the publication of East for his personal benefit. But the documents we found disclosed an astonishingly close financial relationship with a foreign power - and one that had been covert.
But this was not the only financial link the MP had with Pakistan. Other evidence emerged about lobbying activity connected to Kashmir, the region disputed by Pakistan and India.
In 1996 leaflets on behalf of a group called The National Lobby on Kashmir were issued at political rallies in Britain asking for donations to be sent to a PO Box number. We found that the box number was connected with Mr Galloway's London address.
The former editor of East, who knew nothing about her paper's funding links with Pakistan, became suspicious in the run-up to the launch of the paper while she was working from Mr Galloway's house. Speaking in 1998 she said: "I was working closely with George's researcher and I was becoming aware of some of the work he was doing. There were lots of documents, lots of chequebooks, lots of accounts for the lobby work on Kashmir."
When searching through the documents in Islamabad we came across references to the lobbying group in files held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Newsnight obtained a document, signed "George Galloway", acknowledging receipt of a cheque for £50,000 and £10,000 in cash on behalf of The National Lobby on Kashmir. The hand-written receipt stated that money was spent on leaflets, posters, an office, staff and "countless media opportunities".
Back in 1998 we showed these documents to Quentin Davies, MP, a member of the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. He refused to comment on the specific case but said: "When dealing with foreign governments or foreign political organisations, one has to be particularly cautious. This is the British Parliament; our overriding responsibility is to our own electors and we can't become beholden to some foreign government.
"The second thing is that dealing in cash is inherently suspect. Even if they are disbursing that money without receiving any benefit themselves they must keep receipts."
Mr Galloway's work with The National Lobby on Kashmir was not specifically mentioned in the Register of Members' Interests. This was not a breach of the rules. Any disclosure would have been voluntary. But once again fellow MPs would have not known that Mr Galloway was working so closely with a lobby group bankrolled by a foreign power.
There is no suggestion that Mr Galloway retained lobbying money for his own benefit. But before Newsnight broadcast the film we asked Mr Galloway to account for how the £70,000 had been spent; where it had been banked and who had been the trustee. He refused to give an interview but in a letter said: "The National Lobby on Kashmir is supporting a life and death struggle against a brutal enemy . . . it has no obligation to open itself to your inquiries and it will not do so."
His answers five years ago to the BBC about detailed documentation revealing the closeness of his financial dealings with the government of Pakistan have a striking resonance given his recent exchanges with The Daily Telegraph.
Regards, Ivan
Galloway denies new cash claims
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The hits just keep on a-comin'! I DO wish they would get around to that box marked "United States." LOL!
james carrvile...lie/slander campaign
"...galloway to sue over fresh allegations...its not true..."
he did not have sex with that woman; miss lewinsky...
How did clinton remain president after 1996? Corrupt media, corrupt elections, corrupt or stupid voters. I imagine it was much the same.
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