The March of Folly – 14. The uses and instruments of disinformation

I was sent recently a link to a bizarre article headlined ‘Retired MI5 Agent Confesses On Deathbed: “I Killed Princess Diana”’. It appeared on a site called ‘YourNewsWire.com’ and was supposed to be written by someone called Baxter Dmitry – about whom there seems to be some controversy, in that there are claims that he is the same person as writes under other names too.

The article itself is not very plausible, though it is accompanied by a splendid photograph of an old man in a hospital bed. And another website called ‘www.snopes.com’ claimed ‘There was no truth to the story, which originated with YourNewsWire, a fake news site. As is often the case with fake news, the article lacked critical details such as when and where the confession occurred or how the purported assassination took place, and no other credible news outlet (or even tabloid) reported the story.’

This last is not quite true in that the ‘Daily Star’, a tabloid founded to match the ‘Daily Mirror’ and ‘The Sun’, did report the story though it claimed that the story was found to be fake. But it gave no reason for this last assertion save stating that Snopes had said so.

All this is of a piece with the manner in which news is manufactured, not just for sensation and denigration of individuals, but for political purposes. We are all now aware of the lies that Tony Blair perpetrated so that he could support George Bush over the Iraq war. We are aware of the way in which Gaddafi was vilified with false allegations that he was planning a bloodbath in Libya, a pack of lies that was used by the West to perpetrate its own continuing bloodbath all over the Islamic world. We know of the false claims about Assad using chemical weapons some years back, when the UN made it clear that the likelihood was that these weapons had been used by the rebels the West was then backing.

More recently there was another allegation against Assad which led to Trump bombing Syria – even though now it is clear that it is the rebels who have access to chemical weapons, as a very recent article on the BBC makes clear. Quentin Sommerville records notes by a fighter in which ‘in the munitions section and in his own handwriting, he lists “chemical munitions” as a weapon. There’s been much debate over whether IS has used chemical weapons in Mosul. Here at least, we know they are trained and prepared to use them.’

But there has been no demand for accountability with regard to the public lies that have created so much mayhem in the world.

The March of Folly – 13. Personalization and the pursuit of perks

In the more than a month that passed two years ago between my resigning as State Minister of Higher Education and crossing over to the opposition, I realized how utterly Ranil despised the concepts of good governance that had been a cornerstone of President Sirisena’s manifesto. The failure to amend Standing Orders as promised, the omission of Ministry Secretaries from the purview of the Public Service Commission, the frivolous way in which the Cabinet was appointed and functions distributed, all indicated that he thought it best to muddle along, so long as he was doing the muddling.

But the concepts he brought to bear were also deeply destructive, as I saw in particular with regard to the issue that prompted my resignation. Both he and Kabir Hashim lied like Trojans throughout the problem period, but I detected a difference in the way they thought truth of little importance. Hashim tended to lie about the future, in that he obviously thought any commitment he made a trifling matter, and did nothing to live up to promises (or perhaps he believed that commitments were not promises, and what had to be honoured was the sort of commitment made in the course of bargaining to Rauff Hakeem and Rishard Bathiudeen to win them over, as declared by the leader of his party).

With regard to what happened however I think he was more reliable than Ranil. Hashim told me on several occasions that he had asked the UGC Chairman to resign because of pressures he could not withstand (though here too his letter contained an untruth in that he claimed he made the request on the instructions of the President, which the President denied absolutely).

That there were pressures I knew because I had been sent the minutes of the meeting with FUTA conducted by the Prime Minister, which made it clear that Ranil would do what FUTA wanted. This I should note was in the honeymoon period with Ranjith Devasiri, who was thereafter sacked himself from the Board of the NIE (though to his credit it should be said that that apparently was because he was trying, albeit in his usual blundering way where his personal interests are not involved, to limit abuses there).

Ranil however lied in telling me that the dismissal was nothing to do with pressures, it was in accordance with a principal he claimed he had laid down, that all appointees should accept their appointments from the government in power. What this meant was that he was determined that all those in authority should see themselves as political creatures. Indeed he went so far as to say that, after the UGC was got rid of, I could reappoint whom I wanted (though Hashim I think it was introduced the limitation that I should make these appointments from lists in the Prime Minister’s office). What was important was that those in positions of authority should owe their position to this government rather than the previous one.

The March of Folly – 12. Kabir Hashim’s selfish sense of dignity

I must confess to a sense of déjà vu in reading about the disappointment Kabir Hashim has expressed about the recent changes in Ministries. Two articles on the subject present very different perspectives, which together suggest that he is being the classic spoilt child, upset about his own powers and dignity – since he ‘cannot suffer the ‘indignity’ of an emaciated Ministry’. Typically, he lies like a Trojan about his situation, claiming indeed that, when Sirisena’s first Cabinet was appointed, ‘Ranil Wickremesinghe thought that he could be more useful in Skills Development’.

That Kabir Hashim tells lies with no shame has been clear to me, from the time he demanded that Kshanika Himburuwegama resign as Chairman of the UGC with the claim that the President had instructed this. Sirisena assured me that he had done nothing of the sort, but he did nothing to undo the damage that had been done.

Contrary to his current grand claim about why he was given Skills Development, Hashim told me when he was made Cabinet Minister that he knew I was the expert on education, and he would leave everything to me – since in any case, as both Chairman and Secretary then of the party, he had to concentrate on the forthcoming election. And in fact making him Cabinet Minister of Higher Education was an afterthought, since initially he had only been made Minister of Highways – which was of course where he could work on the election, given the manner in which his Prime Minister awarded contracts for unsolicited bids at much higher rates than those paid during the Rajapaksa days.

Hashim was made Minister of Higher Education – along then with Highways, a ludicrous combination that still continues, with an even more incompetent though perhaps less deceitful Minister in charge – after Chandrika Kumaratunga threatened me when I refused to summarily dismiss Kshanika Himburuwegama as she demanded. She told me to wait and see who would be put on top of me, a metaphor that accords with her assumption that government is about power rather than productivity.

Initially Hashim pledged not to interfere, but soon enough he started pushing the envelope, beginning with trying to collect evidence against S B Dissanayake. I suspect that was not his idea, but rather thrust upon him by Chandrika and possibly Ranil, given their technique of trying to ensure submission by threatening prosecution. Of course, once S B joined the government, he was let off scot free, and typically the first thing Kabir did after I resigned was requisition some of the 14 vehicles S B had used (of which I had returned 12 to the pool).