Senior executives at Bell Pottinger told undercover reporters that they were so influential that they had written a key speech given by the Sri Lankan President to the United Nations.
During the address by President Mahinda Rajapaksa last year,
which the company said was used in preference to one prepared by
the Sri Lankan foreign ministry, the President suggested rules
governing the humanitarian conduct of war should be re-examined. He
also described his troops' action against Tamil Tiger separatists
as humanitarian.
President Rajapaksa also claimed in the speech that a Commission
established by the government to look into the last years of the
civil war, was giving "full expression to the principles of
accountability". The Commission has been heavily criticised by
human rights groups including Amnesty International because it does
not have a mandate to hold individuals to account for war
crimes.
"We had a team working in the President's office. We wrote the
President's speech to the UN last year which was very well
received... it went a long way to taking the country where it
needed to go," David Wilson, the chairman of Bell Pottinger Public
Relations, said during the meeting with undercover reporters.
But during the meeting Mr Wilson seemed to agree with Amnesty,
describing the Commission as having a "fundamental flaw in its
remit in investigating what has gone on in the past, to try to bury
the past".
The company also attended a meeting of Tamil dissidents in
London, the British Tamils Forum (BTF) said. Days before President
Rajapaksa's arrival in London in December 2010, Tim Ryan, the
chairman of Bell Pottinger International, and a colleague attended
an open political meeting in Harrow organised by the BTF and the
Nava Sama Samaja [New Social Equality] Party.
Gobi Ratnam, a Tamil journalist who chaired the event said the
pair stood out as the only white people present. They said they
were from Bell Pottinger. "They said they wanted to listen to our
problems, to learn and help the Sri Lankan people," Mr Ratnam said.
"A lot of people were talking to them."
Dr Wickremabahu Karunaratne, the Sinhalese general secretary of
the NSS Party who ran for president in 2010, gave a speech at the
meeting in which he called for Tamil forces to join a new alliance
of opposition members and breakaway groups to challenge the
government – comments that were widely reported.
There is no suggestion that Bell Pottinger did anything illegal
in its dealings with the Sri Lankan government.
Part of Bell Pottinger's remit was to influence the foreign
media in favour of the Sri Lankan government.
The firm sub-contracted its work in the United States to the
firm Qorvis, which placed an article by President Rajapaksa in the
Philadelphia Inquirer in December 2009 entitled "How Sri Lanka
Defeated Terrorism". In the piece the President suggested Sri Lanka
had provided a "workable model" for defeating terrorism, from which
the international community could gain "valuable insight".
In February 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a piece that
discussed the "peaceful" election which returned Rajapaksa to
power, and prompted several letters complaining of government
violence against its critics.
Bell Pottinger has been less successful at placing such articles
in the UK press. the government's opinions. In December 2009 the
firm reportedly pitched a piece to The Guardian which it declined
to publish.
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We wrote Sri Lankan President's civil war speech, say lobbyists
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Vicious dictatorship which Bell Pottinger was prepared to do
business with
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Oliver Wright: Vested interests are entitled to argue their case,
but it must be in the open
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still there's no action
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Leading article: Evidence of a lobbying industry out of control
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