War of the Monitors

The British Helsinki Human Rights Group draws fire for having friends in strange places by Jeremy Druker 15 February 1999 By late last fall, Slovaks knew what to expect from their state television (STV): loyalty to the government and condemnation of the West's charges of backsliding on democracy. The evening of 23 August was no different. After commenting on the "exaggerated" charges against Slovakia, an STV guest credited Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar with intelligence and toughness, saying, "I think that his picture abroad, which is in fact created by a small group of journalists, is in sharp contradiction with his behavior."

The speaker was Mark Almond, an Oxford academic, writer, and chairman of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG). Over the next few weeks--as parliamentary elections approached--Almond and fellow members of that election and human-rights monitoring group would become frequent figures on STV. They would appear more than two dozen times, criticizing what they called double standards practiced by election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); allegedly politicized nonprofit organizations in the service of foreign donors and the opposition; and foreign media, which they said unfairly pigeonholed Meciar as an autocrat.

Over the last few years, the BHHRG has become one of the most controversial nonprofits in Central and Eastern Europe--while keeping very quiet about the sources of its funding. In Slovakia--as well as in other countries, including Albania and Belarus--the BHHRG has been pitted against the OSCE and the IHF, confusing those who don't know that the various groups not only don't cooperate but despise one another. (See box, "Clashing Over Europe's Strong-men.") The IHF and the OSCE, among others, accuse the BHHRG of approaching elections with a pre-determined political agenda, of conducting political campaigning rather than human-rights monitoring, and of being used for propaganda purposes by undemocratic governments--all charges countermade by the BHHRG.

The BHHRG began like many nonprofits: a group of concerned citizens with impressive credentials decided to take action because they believed others weren't doing enough. A 1992 appeal to potential funders says the group was established at the beginning of that year "to help promote an understanding of Great Britain's obligations under the so-called human-rights basket of the Helsinki process but also to provide information about the human rights situation in the other countries which have joined Great Britain in signing the Helsinki agreement." (See box, "Perpetuating the Legacy of the Helsinki Final Act.")

The founding members--"all involved in helping dissidents in the former Soviet bloc before 1989," according to the appeal--were Christine Stone, a lawyer and journalist; Jessica Douglas-Home, a writer; Noel Malcolm, a respected Balkans historian who was then foreign editor of The Spectator; John Laughland, a political-science teacher in Paris; and Almond, a lecturer in modern history and frequent contributor of opinions and letters to the British press. (The five founding members became the group's trustees when it registered with the British Charity Commission in 1994.) The appeal also provided an illustrious list of patrons, including well-known human-rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson; writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Irina Ratushinskaya, a Soviet-era dissident writer; Richard Harries, the bishop of Oxford; and several lords and members of parliament. The group is run out of Stone's three-story, red-brick Victorian house in Oxford. There is no identifying plaque for the BHHRG outside the house.


CONSERVATIVE EUROSKEPTICS

While the patrons and members form a disparate group, BHHRG leaders appear united in their conservative views and a Euroskepticism that questions the interference of international organizations, such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe, in the affairs of individual states. In a 1997 review of a book by Laughland, which condemns the idea of European integration, Almond railed against "the powerful Euro-suits in Brussels" and said Europeans "do not feel the need to submerge their identities in one, post-national whole." Along those lines, the group's funding appeal backed the role of nonprofit organizations in building democracy because "foreign governments cannot provide this sort of help without seeming to infringe on the sovereignty or dignity of an independent state." Elsewhere, Almond often refers to a vast network of "interrelated and interfunded NGOs" who receive funding from the European Union and individual state governments, making them "to some extent likely to conform to the paymaster."

The central figures in the BHHRG also seem bound by a fierce anti-communism that runs through many of their reports and articles on the region (available on its web site, http://www.bhhrg.org)--which often cast strongmen such as Meciar, Belarus's Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and Albania's Sali Berisha as fighters against a resurgence of old-style Marxism.

In March 1997, BHHRG member Anthony Daniels wrote an opinion piece for the Sunday Telegraph, a British newspaper. In that article, entitled "The Media Back the Communists as Usual," he wrote that two British journalists, Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, were "supporters of the former Stalinist regime of the late Enver Hoxha." Vickers and Pettifer sued the Sunday Telegraph, obtaining an out-of-court settlement of 10,000 pounds ($16,525) each and a printed apology in the paper.

Vickers, the author of two books on Albania, says she has had numerous run-ins with the BHHRG, in both Tirana and Great Britain. "I've been called a Hoxhist, a Marxist-Leninist, and for what?" she says. "OK, I've supported the Socialist Party--I did at the time just to restore stability--but I also wrote many articles saying how corrupt the party was." She says that she once introduced herself to a BHHRG member at a reception, only to be told: "I know you. You're the Red Lady." She says the man then walked away without shaking her hand.

In the early 1990s, both before and after the group's official founding, members cooperated with other monitoring organizations. Aaron Rhodes, head of the Vienna-based IHF, says he respected the earlier work of the BHHRG and that the two groups had at one time discussed the possibility of the BHHRG joining the IHF.

The BHHRG's honeymoon with the IHF and the OSCE ended abruptly in 1996 over Albania. Kare Vollan, the Norwegian head of several OSCE election observation missions, participated in joint missions with Almond and other BHHRG members in the early 1990s and remembers having a good relationship with them. After helping to write an OSCE report critical of the 1996 election, Vollan says he met BHHRG members in the airport on the way out of Tirana and chatted with them about the polling. "After that, they came out with an extremely harsh report against us. Being personal friends, I would have expected them to at least call me up to see if they got the facts right, which they certainly did not. The report was full of incorrect information," Vollan says. For example, the BHHRG accused the Norwegian OSCE delegation of taking logistical support from the Albanian Socialist Party, which the BHHRG said marred the OSCE's objectivity. Vollan says the party invited several young members of the delegation to monitor the election--in line with Albanian law--but never helped with support. The BHHRG has, however, targeted Vollan ever since, most recently when he headed the OSCE mission to monitor last fall's parliamentary elections in Slovakia.


FROM COOPERATION TO CONFLICT

Since 1996, the IHF and the BHHRG have been sworn enemies. "Their views have been very destructive, and they've allowed themselves to be used by dictators. The result is the undermining of genuine human rights organizations, especially in Belarus," says the IHF's Rhodes. The IHF issued a disclaimer to clarify that the two organizations are not related. "They have defended Lukashenka, and Lukashenka published their report in his state newspaper," Rhodes says, adding that this undermines "struggling members of civil society who are under threat, being persecuted, being beaten." The BHHRG report, which claims the West has misread Lukashenka and exaggerated human-rights abuses, was publicized by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Belarusian state media.

Almond's response is that the BHHRG will tell the truth, even at the risk of its reports being misused by various leaders. He told Transitions that he is tired of "libelous and defamatory accusations" and has "initiated legal proceedings"--though he would not say against whom.

OSCE officials say BHHRG members have tried to attend internal OSCE observer briefings--presenting themselves as observers--and then have later attended news conferences in the roles of journalists. "If they are accredited as observers directly by the country's authorities, we have of course no say in their double role," says Vollan, "but seen from the country's point of view, it may be of less value to have observers who are presenting themselves as journalists and giving such strong opinions on the process in advance--as BHHRG members did, for example, in Slovakia."

The OSCE says it has a clear policy against allowing journalists to serve as monitors if they want to work in both capacities at the same time.

Almond sees the criticism as yet another attempt by the OSCE to quash differing views. "Since we identify ourselves before asking questions, I see nothing misleading in our activity," he says. Several people who have attended those briefings say, however, that the members of the BHHRG identify themselves only by the publication they are writing for, and not as BHHRG members. Almond responds, "Since so many other so-called NGOs are beholden for funding to either the OSCE or its member governments, if people like us did not ask questions, who would--you?"

Apparently none of the BHHRG criticism has filtered back to Great Britain, where several of the group's prominent patrons and even one trustee say they have never heard about the BHHRG's controversial reputation in Central and Eastern Europe. Frank Field and Ann Clwyd, Labour parliamentarians listed as patrons, say they are not aware of the dispute between the IHF and the BHHRG. Edward Youngman, research assistant to Clwyd, the chair of the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, says Clwyd does not even know that she is a BHHRG patron or "associated with them in any formal sense." Trustee Douglas-Home says she is surprised at the charges made by the IHF and the OSCE but notes that she does not regularly attend BHHRG meetings.


MODEST MEANS

According to the latest audit filed with the Charity Commission in London, for the two years ending 31 August 1996, the BHHRG is certainly not wealthy. Income for 1995 is listed at 13,451 pounds, and for 1996, the figure is even lower, at 9,707 pounds. The greatest expense over the two years is 3,760 pounds, spent on an observer mission to Albania. The sources of donations--8,000 pounds in 1996, and 9,995 pounds in 1995--are not provided; by law, nonprofit organizations in Britain are not required to reveal their sponsors, and many groups do not.

The audit, however, does provide one surprise, especially in light of the group's criticism of human rights groups that receive funding from government sources. In the income section, under the donations section, are listed "Contributions from H M [Her Majesty's] Government:" 3,456 pounds in 1995 from the British Foreign Office and 1,707 pounds in 1996 from the Overseas Development Agency (ODA). Since renamed the Department for International Development, the ODA is a government bureau taxed with promoting development and reducing poverty. Almond--in a 13 March 1997 letter to the editor of The Guardian--had said the BHHRG "receives no taxpayers' money" in contrast to the "government-organized (so-called) non-governmental organizations ... to be found in many OSCE member states."

A spokesman in the British Foreign Office confirms that the BHHRG had received funding in 1995 to monitor the Belarus elections but says, "We weren't particularly happy about the way they performed during that election monitoring. It was very difficult to get a full report from them on the elections." That was one of the reasons, he said, that the group did not receive any more funding from the Foreign Office. The spokesman also says ODA officials confirmed that the agency had provided a grant to the BHHRG in 1996, but they could not specify the purpose of the funding or if that was the last grant given. The officials did say, however, that they had not given the group money for several years and did not plan on doing so in the future.

A Foreign Office source elaborates: "It was very clear that they had their own agenda. They also monitored the elections in Georgia in 1995, and it would appear Almond and his people had made up their minds about the election report even before the election had taken place. People at the time were not happy with the way that they monitored the election, with the way they produced the report; they didn't set out in an impartial spirit. They will never be funded again."


FOREIGN OFFICE FUNDING

Trustees Malcolm and Douglas-Home referred funding inquiries to Almond; Malcolm would only say that "All the funding has come from serious and respectable foundations and individuals." He wasn't sure whether the BHHRG had a policy of not disclosing its donors but said that if it did, that was for an "obvious reason: they [critics] would then start to campaign [against the group] with the financial backers." Trustee Christine Stone, listed as chairwoman of the group in the founding documents, did not return several phone calls.

Almond admits the group received money from the Foreign Office but disputes any contradiction between his 1997 claim about not taking "taxpayer money" and receiving ODA funds for 1996. "You seem to be chronologically challenged. 1997 is not 1995," he said. He also says the Foreign Office money was for Azerbaijan, not Belarus, and gives his own reason for the cutoff in funding. "Clearly, the Foreign Office was not happy with our criticism of the 1995 Azeri elections as it never asked us to observe again. Apparently, it now spends a great deal more on election observing. No doubt it gets what it pays for--that's how the market works," he says. "We for our part are obliged to be neutral and so could not shape our observations and conclusions to fit any paymaster. No doubt we have lost out by not following the NGO herd, but money isn't everything."

Details on other grants are scarce, and Almond refuses to provide any additional information, suggesting only that some expenses are paid by the members themselves. The group's 1992 appeal says the Rannoch Trust gave 3,000 pounds. This trust is run by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a Tory lord and Euroskeptic who is listed as one of the group's patrons. Its activities are primarily in the United Kingdom. The BHHRG also received $17,000 in 1996 from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a California-based organization that hands out millions of dollars in grants, mostly in the areas of conservation, public health, and population control. In data provided to the New York -based Foundation Center, the Packard grant is described as "For travel to Belarus and three Transcaucasian republics."

Almond's final comments on funding came via e-mail on 15 January, shortly before he embarked with other BHHRG members on a trip to Central Asia: "Ironically, since 1989 the spectrum of opinion seems to have narrowed. The more we hear about the open society as an ideal, the more dogmatically its proponents seek to de-legitimize and drown out alternative views, not with argument but libel and intimidation from on high. Even those of us acting as simple unpaid observers trying to report truthfully what we have seen seem to enrage certain interests. ...

"I suspect that any more time spent on replying to those defaming me or the British Helsinki Human Rights Group via you will be wasted."

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Luke Allnutt contributed to the research and reporting for this article.