To the Secretary Read online

  The United States was not the only country dealing with Icelandic ire. The embassy reported that Icelandic officials were “infuriated” with Britain after a nasty spat over the fate of unsecured deposits in Ice-Save accounts. These high-interest savings accounts had attracted large numbers of depositors from the UK and the Netherlands, but Iceland was no longer able to guarantee the deposits. “The British apparently invoked anti-terrorism laws created in the aftermath of 9/11 to freeze Icelandic assets in the U.K. Relations are under strain following U.K. Chancellor Darling’s announcement that he seized the U.K. assets of Icelandic banks, and the media reported that the PM Brown wants to sue the Icelandic government to refund British depositors.” 93

  It would be hard to overstate Iceland’s wrath. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs external trade director told the embassy that if Britain had pulled a stunt like this with France, “a war would have broken out by now.” The Iceland media created an online petition, “Icelanders are not Terrorists,” which collected more than eighty thousand photos and signatures—about 25 percent of the population—to send to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.94 Things got even nastier a week later when Iceland Central Bank governor Davíð Oddsson opened his meeting with U.S. Treasury officials by comparing Gordon Brown’s actions to Mussolini’s.95 Graffiti around Reykjavik depicted Brown with a Hitler mustache.

  The embassy busily laid conduits for more communication. By October 20, it reported that the Iceland foreign minister would be calling Secretary of State Clinton to ask for a U.S. contribution of $10 billion as part of the foreign loans needed to get through the crisis. On October 24, the embassy reported that the Icelandic Central Bank had gone to the New York Fed asking for a $1 billion loan or a currency swap.

  Icelanders themselves were not always on the same page. Oddsson, a Thatcherite free marketeer who privatized many of Iceland’s state-run industries during his earlier stint as prime minister, was rumored to be behind the Russian loan. He fought hard against an IMF deal (and stubbornly defended the krona and resisted EU membership), but the embassy reported that bankers and private sector businesspeople were imploring their embassy contacts to convince the Icelandic government to take the IMF loan. (In fact, an agreement was reached on October 27.) The embassy commented, “The Government of Iceland is obviously struggling with problems of coordination and turf in dealing with the financial crisis. Away for the first couple of weeks of the turmoil (due to brain surgery) the Foreign Minister is attempting to reassert her normal role in foreign affairs. The Central Bank, however, is guarding its perceived prerogatives closely—and, judging from the events of the last few weeks, unwisely.96

  Iceland’s strategic location may have been its strongest card. The idea of a Russian loan got the attention of the international community, with reporters asking uncomfortable questions about what Iceland had offered in exchange—landing or refueling rights at Keflavik, or special exploration rights to gas and petroleum fields? The embassy became suspicious after things went quiet and wondered if the Russian loan offer had ever existed. Officers asked around, noting that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other official sources had no knowledge of any loan discussions with Russia. One senior MFA source blamed the whole business on “Central Bank shenanigans,” saying not even the prime minister had known about any loan discussions at first. Officers hypothesized that Iceland was less interesting to Russia after it failed in its bid to gain a nonpermanent UN Security Council seat in October 2008 or that Russia’s own financial difficulties had become a factor. Or that perhaps

  Moscow was never serious about the loan and offered it only as a public relations stunt to boost Russia’s image and discomfit the West. (If so, this tactic has not worked all that well: Icelandic polls taken in October 2006 and October 2008 show the same 39 percent of the population favorably disposed towards Russia, though the negatives in 2008 are slightly higher.) . . . In public officials insist the deal is still on the table, in private sources tell us the deal is on the back burner and they want it to stay there . . . [Icelanders] don’t like the Russian presence in the North Atlantic and don’t want to encourage it.97

  The embassy also lobbied on Iceland’s behalf, making the case that the United States should lend $1 billion of $4 billion required to conclude the proposed IMF loan. The embassy played the Russian card, arguing that Iceland was important to U.S. security; that it was well positioned in the High North, where melting Arctic ice meant increased competition for gas, petroleum, and trade routes; and above all, that it was a friend of the United States. This cable in particular showed that it was impossible to live and work alongside Icelanders and remain unaffected by their plight. The embassy made an unusually emotional appeal.

  Iceland is reaching out with increasing desperation to any available source of help as it confronts one of the most trying crises in its history. Assistance from the U.S. at this crucial time would be a prudent investment in our own national security and economic well-being. The Icelanders take fierce pride in their flawless history of paying back their debts. Whatever the financial turmoil and uncertainty of the moment, it’s a good bet that this economy of highly-educated, imaginative, and sophisticated people will take off again. And when it does, and when the competition in the High North really gets underway, it may be more important than we can yet suppose to have the Icelanders remember us as the kind of friend who stands by in fair weather and foul.98

  Iceland did take off again. The country repaid the IMF loan early, became a talked-about success story, and by 2014 even climbed back up on the UNDP index to fourteenth place (but not to its prior rank in 2007 of first place). Unemployment eased to 3.5 percent and growth reached nearly 3 percent. Nonetheless, repeated attempts to get an IceSave bill to refund overseas depositors through Parliament or public referenda provoked virulent public resistance, ultimately leading to the prime minister’s populist remarks mentioned above.

  One of the stranger aspects of the Icelandic crisis was the role of serious illness. As the embassy reported, in October 2008 Foreign Minister Ingibjörg Gísladóttir was away in New York, being treated for a brain tumor. In addition, her deputy, Gretar Mar Sigurdsson, was suffering from colon cancer. And Prime Minister Geir Haarde told the nation on January 23, 2009, that he would resign for treatment for esophageal cancer. That’s a lot of leadership distracted by life-threatening illnesses.

  Icelanders who felt spurned by foreigners might have been glad to see nature come unexpectedly to their aid. One of Iceland’s many volcanos, Eyjafjallajökull, began rumbling on March 20. By April 14 it sent up a massive cloud of ash that covered much of northern Europe and disrupted air traffic for weeks. No doubt many in Iceland found the symbolism satisfyingly appropriate.

  CRISIS DIPLOMACY

  Diplomats rarely get the luxury of working to a schedule. The more fragile the country, the more likely long-term work plans will be interrupted by major events. These four crises give an indication of the range of problems the U.S. government and its diplomats confront at any one time. They do not happen sequentially. While the embassy staff in Port-au-Prince was consumed with the earthquake, their colleagues in Washington were providing diplomatic backup but simultaneously dealing with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention problems elsewhere.

  In Haiti, the reporting characterized the enormity of the challenges and portrayed an embassy at its heroic best, well supported by Washington in the early weeks of what became a prolonged crisis. In Burma, the embassy leveraged chaos from a natural disaster to support a small political opening for the dissident community and became instrumental in urging a new administration in Washington to review its policy toward the country. In Honduras, the embassy saw its role as highly principled, standing firm against a coup no matter the consequences, despite navigating around congressional ideological haymakers with different views. And in Iceland, the embassy’s traditional work of connecting foreign government officials with the right people in Washington suddenly became a crucially i
mportant effort that helped Iceland find its path toward financial recovery.

  Chapter 4

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  TRAVEL:

  To the Ends of the Earth

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  Several tribes practice Donyi Polo, a religion worshipping the sun and the moon, whereas others practice animism. Missionaries have made few inroads here. Polygamy is permitted and practiced by some tribal elites. Two of the tribes exist in a master-slave relationship.

  —U.S. Consulate Calcutta

  January 18, 2005

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  THE LAGOS OFFICER WAS HAVING A ROUGH TRIP. HE had set off to assess tourism prospects for seekers of Picathartes oreas, the gray-necked rockfowl that is one of Africa’s most prized birds, in the company of a Discovery Channel producer, the owners of a birding tour company, a naturalist, and a BBC correspondent who reported on the group’s odyssey through a small corner of southeastern Nigeria. The officer described a trek over barely passable clay track and rickety bridges with holes so large that the team had to carefully position wood planks so their vehicles would not tumble into the streams below. Things got worse when they reached the Okomu National Park access road, which was an obstacle course of disabled vehicles. Even the BBC’s 4x4 was stuck for hours.

  “The lodge was a shock,” the officer wrote. “It looked derelict inside: shabby walls, peeling linoleum, black mold on the doors and ceiling, and furniture likely banned by some international convention. The potentially picturesque thatched hut built as a dining area needed some serious attention and cleaning (termite tubes climbed untended up wood surfaces to the roof).”

  The bird-viewing canopy platforms offered great views, but the intrepid diplomat had to climb one hundred and thirty feet up the side of a tree to reach one, a physical feat for which, he wrote tongue in check, the post danger differential rate was inadequate.

  Going home was no better. “The Benin/Lagos expressway was a complete showstopper. The divided highway is always a horror show . . . The constant problem of shakedowns by police at the country’s ubiquitous roadblocks is beyond annoying.” When the group finally returned to civilization, they stopped at a casino in Lagos. “We found a dozen waiters asleep on the kitchen floor and the croupiers asleep with their heads on the green baize.” 1

  This is why people join the foreign service. They hope for the moment when they can truly feel far from home. Anyone who has ever sat on the Beltway, Interstate 95, or the Ventura Freeway might well fantasize about driving a 4x4 across Africa. The travails only serve to make the eventual arrival more meaningful. The officer who made this trip will dine out on this story for the rest of his life.

  One of the least celebrated facts about the WikiLeaks cables are the tales of life beyond the capitals. Foreign service officers can easily fill their days with the routine matters of diplomacy, as witnessed by the reams of dutiful cables on démarches delivered, scene setters for VIP visitors, and congressionally mandated reporting. But for many officers, the same yearnings that led them into the foreign service also tempt them to leave the comforts and confines of the capital. They know that while globalization ensures they’ll find the same stores in Gainesville and Guatemala, another world awaits on the back roads.

  It would be easy to dismiss the reporting officers as travel writer wannabes, but they bring something different than the Paul Therouxs and Rick Steveses of the world. They were already working in these countries before they set out, and after their trips into the hinterlands they returned to their embassy desks enriched. There was a policy point to these trips, ranging from human rights to religious freedom, refugees and migration, or environmental degradation. They had enviable access, through their government connections, to places that might be restricted or off limits to tourists. They also had access to people who matter—cultural, tribal, and religious leaders from chieftains to the pope.

  Diplomats who travel and write home about it unwittingly illustrate one of the great divides between officers serving abroad and their colleagues in Washington. Their cables about rural realities can challenge assumptions about what matters most. Washington’s bias as a capital city inclines those working there to seek out interlocutors in power or those who might likely come to power. These are often Western-educated “people like us” who work in ministries, parliaments, universities, or newsrooms that resemble the Washington work environment. It’s easy to see them as the logical counterparts to any foreign policy conversation.

  But Mao did not find his followers among the Mandarins. Diplomatic encounters with Turkmen truckers, Papuan separatists, and the garage bands of Tehran should widen Washington’s worldview. They seemed to have widened the views of the cable authors.

  It takes good writing to demonstrate the many ways cultural traditions trump political ideology. It takes insight to explain why tribal clashes should merit the attention of the desk-bound officer in Foggy Bottom. And it takes an imaginative foreign service officer to connect two opposite poles and answer the “so what?” factor. The delightful aspects of the WikiLeaks cables are the descriptive passages written with curiosity, empathy, and wonder. While Washington politicians obsessed over Islam, one officer actually performed the Hajj and wrote movingly about each phase of his pilgrimage. Another explained that in Thailand, Islam’s greatest challenge may come not from the West but from the much older influence of traditional seers and mystics. And in Laos, a polite query about religious freedom turned into a rant from the elders on how Christianity had made their young people lose respect for the ancestors.

  Those in the field held one unbeatable advantage over Washington—they had the time and the means to seek out remote locales that their colleagues could only read about. Their treks were purposeful and deliberate. Their cables made a contribution to the world’s understanding of inaccessible places and the people who live there. The great irony is that while Julian Assange and his team denounced the diplomats for duplicity, these cables attest to a dedicated group of individuals who undertook incredible journeys in search of understanding.

  GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN

  Airplanes cannot land everywhere. Highways become two-lane roads, dwindle to one lane, and then peter out. And where roads are poor, cars are not always the most useful vehicle. The diplomats used every means of transport from dugout canoes to snowmobiles. Occasionally, they walked.

  Here’s an officer writing about a forgotten corner of southern China: “It is not easy to get to Xilin. The nearest commercial airports, in Nanning and Kunming, are both at least nine hours away by public transport. The nearest train station is still more than a couple of hours away. From there it takes a few more hours to get to Baise.”

  And here’s a description of a January trip through Tajikistan: “The small rehabilitated airport in Garm operates only in summer, while camels are still used for transport in Jirgitol District.”

  Kathmandu consular officers warned: “Road travel on Nepal’s circuitous, narrow highways is treacherous and grueling. Although we never covered more than 200 kilometers on any day, every day’s drive involved a minimum of six hours. Along the way, we witnessed the aftermath of 20 major head-on collisions, more often than not between buses and large carriage trucks.”

  The consul general of Vladivostok wrote: “Krasniy Yar is an eleven hour drive from Vladivostok, the last four hours over a rough snow road (zimniki) cut through the woods . . . During this visit the temperature was minus 37 Celsius.”

  And finally, an intrepid trio in Suriname wrote with jaw-dropping nonchalance: “Emboffs [embassy officers] traveled four days by dugout canoe down the Tapanahoni and Marowijne rivers.”

  There is something to be said for slow travel. The abruptness of an airplane trip ill prepares travelers for the contrasts ahead. Four days by dugout canoe might be extreme, but the officers were probably more acute observers after their senses had a chance to acclimate to a different world.

  The above excerpts are
but a small sample of travel cables—sagas, really—that dwell at length on distance, time, and rural lives. The officers were perhaps unconsciously demonstrating that the feat of getting there can be an education in and of itself, even before meeting a single person. And then, when they did, the cables got even more interesting.

  NOW THAT YOU’RE HERE . . .

  Xilin, mentioned above, the westernmost county in the Guangzhou consular district, is a poor and rural part of southern China. Simple banking presented the visiting officers with their first challenge. Although there was one bank, there were no cash machines, and credit cards were not accepted. The officers presented a 50 renminbi note (worth U.S. $6.25 at the time), which was the first one the shopkeeper had ever seen. “In the end, we had no choice but to be short-changed . . . Even the small Mao bills, treated dismissively in China’s cities as disease-carrying, wallet-cluttering wastes of ink and paper, are important monetary units in Xilin.”

  Culturally, the visitors found the place still ran like an old-school Communist stronghold. “The town awakens each day to the strains of the national anthem and other patriotic songs broadcast through loudspeakers.”

  Sanitary conditions were appalling. “Even the small settlements astride the main, two-lane highway of the county were quite squalid. At one of these settlements, the restroom facilities at the local government center were described by EconPolAsst [economic-political assistant] as the worst he had seen in his life—no small feat for a Guangzhou native.”