Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1740
- 1759)
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 1998
MS ANN
GRANT and MR
CRAIG MURRAY
1740. I think the Resolution was passed
in the United Nations just prior to the Commonwealth Heads of
Government and probably the Order in Council was done subsequently,
but what would he have been told? After all, he gave us the benefit
of his views very kindly in May, so what would the Prime Minister
have known or who would have told him when, why and what?
(Ms Grant) So far as I am aware, there was no
oral briefing. As you can imagine for a Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting, there would have been a briefing on each of
the Heads of State he might have been likely to meet, so the briefing
would have, of necessity, been extremely short and would have
been bullet points based on the key issues, which would indeed,
as you say, have been our role in securing a UN Security Council
Resolution, our assistance to the Kabbah Government both before
and during his exile and our hopes for the future, and the work
that was being done in the workshop was against the day when President
Kabbah would return.
1741. And the relationship with Nigeria
presumably would have featured because that in itself was a matter
of some consequence or importance at that Conference, was it not?
(Ms Grant) Indeed and there would have been a
separate brief on Nigeria and those issues.
1742. So who would have prepared that briefing?
(Ms Grant) That would have been prepared as a
tailor-made briefing for the Prime Minister in my Department.
1743. And, to the best that you can recollect,
would that have referred to the sanctions being against the Junta
or would it have been silent as to its scope?
(Ms Grant) I do not recall if sanctions were featured
or if we were just describing the Resolution.
1744. On the 24th April, I think, there
was this letter from the solicitors, or thereabouts, and then
in May we had the view of the Prime Minister given on television
about this whole matter. Were you still in this Department in
that period? What briefings would have gone to Number 10 or would
Number 10 have approached your Department about this matter after,
if I can say, the balloon went up or when the Foreign Secretary's
attention was drawn to the letter from the Sandline solicitors?
(Ms Grant) After the balloon went up, as you say,
in fact the matters relating to Sandline and Sierra Leone were
handled quite separately from my Department. Mr Dales, who was
then in the job I am doing now, chose another officer quite unrelated
to my Department to handle all enquiries and queries to do with
Sandline and from that time on, we did not provide what would
be perhaps the normal briefing on Sierra Leone because officials
from my Department had been named in the letter.
1745. In the period from the coup to when
you did not have responsibility for this, to your knowledge, was
there ever an occasion when Number 10 was proactive in this matter,
and proactive in the sense of asking either for information outside
of the brief, to which I referred earlier, for the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting, so either were they proactive in
asking for information and/or giving a view? By "Number 10",
I mean Number 10 and it could be somebody in Number 10 or obviously
it could be the Prime Minister himself, though I assume that would
not be the case, but I guess Number 10 is a separate government
department and I am not sure of the terminology, so would Number
10 have ever got engaged at all in this matter, as I say, either
requesting substantive advice and/or giving a view or advice or
direction?
(Ms Grant) As far as I can recall, we had no specific
request for a briefing on Sierra Leone except in the context of
the Edinburgh Meeting, but I would have to check that again. If
the Prime Minister wants a briefing, it is usually done pretty
quickly by the desk and checked by the deputy in the normal way.
I might not have seen it.
(Mr Murray) I just wanted to add something to
the last answer which is that following the attack by ECOMOG on
5th February, there were a number of Cabinet Office meetings on
how we responded to that and action we took at the United Nations.
The minutes from those meetings on our policy way forward did
reach the Prime Minister and we did on certainly one and, I believe,
two occasions have Prime Ministerial endorsement of the policy
we were taking through the spring of this year.
Mr Rowlands
1746. If that is the case, you were briefing
after the counter-coup or the ECOMOG coup, whatever you like to
call it. Was the Minister of State immediately briefed on all
of it as well and the policy implications?
(Ms Grant) Yes, indeed.
1747. After? In February when—6th,
7th or 8th February or some time immediately after the 5th February?
(Mr Murray) Yes, I think the Minister of State
was briefed orally on several occasions between 5th February and
mid-February and then after we were of course thrown rather by
the scale of the ECOMOG attack on the 5th February and we were
dealing particularly with the immediate humanitarian concerns
for one and the considered policy response came in the minute
from me of 16th February to Mr Lloyd. We had had contact orally
before that, but that was the setting down in writing of how we
reacted to this new turn of events.
1748. I am sorry, but I had not focused
on this and I am glad Mr Mackinlay has raised it. You have just
drawn to our attention this briefing, but in that briefing of
February 16th was there no mention of Sandline or no mention of
any of these other issues?
(Mr Murray) Not at all, no. It was dealing with
the—as far as we were aware, Sandline had gone by the board.
When they were talking about a contract for training and things
for the Kamajors, the fighting was in fact being done by the Nigerians
with very little Kamajor support at that stage and all Sandline's
plans seemed to have been happily overtaken.
1749. So there was not a footnote of any
kind to the briefing, saying, "By the way, all the business
that we have been trying to grapple with has—
(Mr Murray) No, this was all dealing with the
policy, particularly the international law implications of how
we dealt in the United Nations and also how we responded to the
humanitarian crisis, so, as I say, it was dealing with the substance
of policy and it was not concerned with Sandline.
Dr Godman
1750. Ms Grant, I may have misinterpreted
these reports and the evidence sessions we have had, but it just
appears to me that there appears to have been a degree of ambiguity
in Mr Penfold's role as a High Commissioner or, if not ambiguity,
then a conflict. At one level he appears to have been a kind of
adviser to the President, as I mentioned earlier, in the President's
dealings with HMG and also there is his, well, hardly a relationship,
but his association with Sandline. Paragraph 5.25 of the Legg
Report, and we have discussed this, talks of his lunch engagement
with Mr Spicer who was accompanied by Mr Buckingham. I am right
in thinking that Mr Penfold was on his own?
(Ms Grant) He was.
1751. Then his visit to Sandline's offices
in the King's Road, Mr Spicer says he was accompanied by a colleague,
Mr Jeremy Stamper-Owen, but again Mr Penfold was on his own?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
1752. Is this kind of meeting or lunch or
visit to a private military company out of the ordinary? Is it
not extraordinary that someone in his position in these circumstances
should visit these mercenaries unaccompanied?
(Ms Grant) I think it is only fair to say that
Mr Penfold first made contact with Branch Energy on the advice
of the Foreign Office Department because of their considerable
interest and investments in Sierra Leone. They were considered
to be a key investor, a key UK business contact, if you like,
so that is how, if you like, and contacts are quite normal and
perfectly understandable. As I said before—
1753. They are indeed, yes.
(Ms Grant) As I said before, I think it is not
so much the contact or even the lunching or having the meeting
as what happens and what the content of those contacts is and
each of us—
1754. And what the consequences are.
(Ms Grant) —and each of us has again to
use our own judgment as to whom we see in what company and what
kind of account we make afterwards of what happened.
1755. But, as a representative of a Department
of State and dealing with mercenaries, did he not place himself
in a position of some difficulty? He had no one there from his
Department to support his record of what happened, whereas for
Sandline in each case there are two representatives there, so
allowing for this autonomy, this flexibility he is allowed in
his dealings with companies and with mercenaries, he placed himself
in a position of some difficulty, did he not?
(Ms Grant) It certainly would have been better
for him now had he been accompanied by someone else.
Mr Wilshire
1756. I just want to follow one of the points
that Mr Rowlands raised, in fairness to the FCO, to make sure
that I do see the underlying thread of what has been said in the
course of a long morning and a long afternoon. You said to Mr
Rowlands that your basic case is that you did not know until the
2nd February. Is that what I have understood you to say?
(Ms Grant) We did not know about arms.
1757. Exactly, and that you did not know
until the 2nd February and then you did not alert Ministers for
a further five weeks. That was the gist of it. The problem I think
I have is that there were four claims that the FCO did know before
the 2nd February and that the evidence I think I have heard, if
I understand it correctly, is that the first of those claims was
made at a meeting on the 23rd December which the FCO cannot remember
about, that the second of the claims was made in a letter dated
30th December which the FCO cannot find, that the third occasion,
it was made in a minute of 5th January which the FCO either did
not read or cannot remember, and that the fourth occasion that
you were told was on the 19th January at a meeting at which nobody
in the FCO took any notes. Now, Ms Grant, if you were in my position,
would you find that FCO case, at best, unconvincing and, at worst,
unbelievable?
(Ms Grant) You must be the judge of that, Mr Wilshire.
I would only go back to the 5th January minute which I think does
not mention arms.
1758. It mentions that a contract had been
entered into.
(Ms Grant) Exactly, but I think the contract was
specifically on medical and communications equipment, according
to Mr Everard's information at the time, so perhaps we could take
that out of the list.
Mr Wilshire: Well,
let me be generous to you, but there are still three claims made
that you did know before: at a meeting you cannot remember or
whoever was there cannot remember; a letter that has disappeared;
and at a meeting where no notes were taken. I just have to say
to you that I am not sure whether I am unconvinced or unable to
believe.
Sir John Stanley
1759. I have just one question, please,
Ms Grant. This is what is said in paragraph 3.9 of Legg: "Mr
Cook, the Foreign Secretary, and Mr Lloyd, the Minister of State,
have confirmed to us that they shared and approved the goal of
drying up arms supplies to all parties in Sierra Leone. However,
this aspect of the policy was not published abroad. This was partly
because of sensitivities about the possible role of ECOWAS which,
unlike HMG, had explicitly contemplated the use of force, and
about the role of Nigeria within ECOWAS and ECOMOG." Sir
Thomas Legg introduces the word "partly" to explain
the sensitivities as to why the policy was not published abroad
that the arms embargo applied to all parties. Can you tell us
please, Ms Grant, what are the sensitivities that are not disclosed
in the Legg Report?
(Ms Grant) This is Sir Thomas Legg's judgement.
I have to say it is not my view that we did not publish aspects
of the policy because of sensitivities. I think it was rather
the explanation I have given earlier which is for us the main
thrust of the policy was the squeeze on the junta even though
other parties were affected by its legal scope. So this is Sir
Thomas Legg's assessment.
|
