Think before you speak: The walls have ears, diplomats told
Some top embassies in Islamabad have asked their staff “to be very watchful of what they say and who they say [it] to”. According to a diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, some embassies have verbally instructed their staff and warned them to be careful of what they say, particularly while interacting with American diplomats.
“The diplomatic community in Islamabad now has a totally new perception of the Americans. Although WikiLeaks has not revealed anything great, it was an eye-opener for us all,” another Western diplomat told The Express Tribune, on condition of anonymity.
“I have not received any written notice or official instruction, but now we may not trust them (Americans) the way we used to,” said another diplomat. “There were a lot of things that we used to talk about, consciously or unconsciously, during candid conversations with the diplomatic community.”
According to a government official, diplomats are required to report back to their countries and it was unfortunate for Americans that their secrets had been revealed to the world. However, Pakistan being a “sensitive” posting, most of the diplomats agreed that they can land in trouble because of such leaks.
Speaking to The Express Tribune, US embassy’s spokesperson Alberto Rodriguez said that relationships are built over time and what has happened is ‘discomforting and unfortunate’. However, he refused to comment on whether diplomats had been instructed to be wary of Americans. “Those diplomats, if any, who have been instructed, should be asked this question,” he said. Rodriguez also confirmed that the US government had notified the Pakistani leadership about WikiLeaks in advance.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Abdul Basit said that Pakistan’s foreign ministry has not sent out any such instructions to its missions across the world. “The Foreign Office has full confidence in its diplomats [who are] selected and posted abroad,” he said.
US officials see drop in international cooperation
Some foreign governments are reducing engagement with US diplomats and other officials after the release of WikiLeaks documents, US officials said on Tuesday in a sign of potential lasting damage caused by the huge public dump of classified cables.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly vowed that the WikiLeaks releases will not derail key US relationships despite the embarrassing revelations of candid US assessments of foreign governments and leaders.
But officials at both the State Department and the Pentagon said on Wednesday that some foreign governments were already pulling back.
“We have gotten indications that there is at least some change in how individuals and governments cooperate with us, and share information,” Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesperson, said.
Lapan renewed concerns that the would-be informants or established intelligence sources might not be coming forward out of fear that they could be exposed, or that governments might become more “circumspect with the information they share.”
“It’s hard to quantify. But again we do get a sense that there has been some pulling back because of these revelations,” Lapan said.
State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said there were no plans for a large-scale reshuffle of US diplomatic personnel who may have been compromised by the WikiLeaks documents.
But he conceded that in some cases foreign governments were approaching US diplomatic contacts with new skepticism.
“We do recognize that, on a country-by-country basis, there could well be some impacts,” Crowley told a news briefing.
The US assessment of WikiLeaks-related damage came as the group’s founder Julian Assange was arrested in Britain on allegations of sex crimes in Sweden.
Crowley declined to comment on what he said was a legal matter, but dismissed suggestions that WikiLeaks had somehow stumbled upon “a vast global conspiracy centered on the United States.” (With additional input from Reuters)
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2010.
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