University of London INSTITUTE OF COMMONWEALTH STUDIES Witness Seminar - The heartbeat of a modern Commonwealth? The Commonwealth Secretariat 1965-2013 Monday, June 24, 2013 Marlborough House Pall Mall, London VOICE FILE NAME: COHP Witness Seminar Key: AB: Amitav Banerji AE: Antony Ellman EL: Edwin Laurent GB: Gurudas Bailur JK: Joel Kibazo KY: Kayode Samuel MB: Madhuri Bose MG: Max Gaylard MM: Muhammad Muda MS: Michael Sinclair PMA: Peter Marshall PMU: Philip Murphy PR: Patsy Robertson PS: Purna Sen PW: Peter Williams RB: Richard Bourne RJ: Rupert Jones-Perry RU: Richard Uku SC: Stephen Chan SG: Simon Gimson SMA: Stephen Matlin SMO: Stuart Mole SO: Sue Onslow VK: Vijay Krishnarayan VS: Veronica Sutherland s.l. = sounds like 1 PMU: I’d like to welcome you, very warmly, to this Witness Seminar, ‘The heartbeat of the modern Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Secretariat 1965 – 2013’. My name is Philip Murphy, and I’m the Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The seminar forms part of a much larger, on-going project to produce an oral history of the modern Commonwealth; by ‘modern Commonwealth’, we mean since the creation of the Secretariat in 1965. A significant part of this project is obviously to capture the impressions of senior politicians and diplomats from across the Commonwealth, focusing in particular on whether they felt that the Commonwealth made a significant contribution to international diplomacy. This of course is partly about perception, but perceptions, as we all know, matter. At the same time, as we began to think about the project and as we began to pursue it, it became clear to us that we also needed to talk to a range of people who had been associated on a day-to-day basis with the work of the Secretariat itself. The idea of this Witness Seminar began to form in our minds, very much in terms of a collective interview which would be recorded, transcribed and included on our project website as one of our major interviews. This is what we are doing today. The fact that we came to this idea slightly late in the day has practical implications. We didn’t budget for this in our original proposal so our witnesses today have had to come here under their own steam, so-to-speak. We are particularly grateful to them and to you all for doing that. We were delighted by the very enthusiastic reception that we got when we proposed this Witness Seminar. There will be a fuller set of thanks later on, but let me just begin by thanking a few people in particular. Of course, thanks to the Secretary- General and his staff here for making available this wonderful room which we hope will help to jog memories today. Thanks to Cheryl Dorall and her colleagues in the Commonwealth Association for their help and support in putting this programme together. I’d like to thank Stuart Mole who helped develop this programme and really gave it cohesion when we started thinking about it. And then my colleagues at the Institute who have put in an awful amount of time and effort: Mason and Rob Kenyon will be helping out today and you will probably have met them already. My colleague, Sue Onslow is the principle researcher on the Commonwealth Oral History Project and has already made a terrific start. We’re less than a year into the interviewing programme, but the material that has already been gathered has been extremely impressive and Sue has worked very hard in putting this programme together today. I’d also like to thank in particular our colleague Vanessa Rockel whom most of you will have been in contact with, and who has been extraordinarily hard-working and efficient in getting us to the point we are this morning. Thanks to them all but thanks also, very warmly, to you all. We really appreciate you coming here and being with us. So, without further ado, I’d just like to hand over to Sue who will make some housekeeping points. SO: Thank you very much indeed, Philip and welcome to you all. I’m Dr Sue Onslow. As Philip has outlined, I’m the principal researcher on this Oral History Project and it gives me great pleasure indeed to see so many former Commonwealth Secretariat officials and representatives here. As part of my project, as Philip has pointed out, it became glaringly apparent that I needed to capture the internal dynamics of the Secretariat, and its relationship to the world outside as a critical part of this oral history of the Commonwealth. I’d like to reiterate our thanks to the Secretary General and his office, Simon Gimson, and Leti Gannon for her help in the organisational details; and particularly to Vanessa and to Stuart in the framing of this meeting. I would also like to thank the chairs of each of these sessions who have kindly agreed to direct 2 these informal discussions between former colleagues and partners. The sessions are outlined on the programme which you have in front of you. The chair will introduce the witnesses who will then make their informal presentations; there will be an opportunity for response and then discussion will be open to the wider audience. If you would like to pose a question, in true Commonwealth-style, please could you up-end your nameplate - not like Pierre Trudeau who once of course put his CANADA nameplate upside down because he wished to protest! I do hope I don’t see any of that today. So, if you would like to speak or pose a question, please could put your nameplate perpendicular. If you could introduce yourself when you speak, not forgetting to press the red button on your microphone stand in front of you, we will be very grateful. Also, if you could please remember to turn off your mobile telephones. They have an appalling habit of interfering with recording equipment. On other housekeeping arrangements – we will be breaking for coffee. As you will see in the programme, there are also five-minute interchanges between sessions. This is to allow a certain shuffling of the seating plan because we have tried to put the chairs and the speakers in the middle of the table, but also to seat those who will then be changing seats, close by. So, if you could just excuse this five-minute game of musical chairs in between the sessions. Without further ado, I would like to hand over to Mr Joel Kibazo to chair the session on the Office of the Secretary General. 3 Session 1 – The Office of the Secretary General JK: Thank you. Thank you very much, Sue. Good morning to all of you. My name is Joel Kibazo and I was Director here of the Communications and Public Affairs Department, also known as the Information Department of the Secretariat. As Sue said, each of us will try and introduce ourselves. Let’s not forget that recordings are being made so it will be very helpful if you introduce yourself as you speak. Just to start straight away, the question for us is how effective, really, has the Office of the Secretary General been since the creation of the Secretariat in 1965? We know that it operates and it was charged with operating very much on an informal basis or getting things done through the informal basis. Sometimes, of course, formal channels had to be used, but has that worked? At the heart of it, in many ways is what’s at the heart of the way that the Secretariat has tried to work for many years. All of us are colleagues and I think I know most people that are around the table. So, this is really an informal conversation, trying to draw some of those aspects out, so not really to be shy. The conversation is on the record. It’s not Chatham House Rules, so you know. Please be aware of that but at the very least, let’s try and see if we could get to the heart of the issue in terms of how things have worked, both from Stuart and from Simon who are the two people who are going to be speaking in this particular session, after which Professor Stephen Chan will come in as a respondent and respond to some of the key things that will be made. From then on we can engage in a discussion. As you have been advised by Sue, please use the nameplates in the way most of us who have been in this room will know how their nameplates are used. I don’t know whether we should start with Stuart, or Simon now Stuart is here. I thought I heard one of the most amazing train stories. I’ve heard of “leaves on the line” but “cows on the line” is something that I haven’t heard before! But there we are. So, without further ado, Stuart, now that you’re amongst us, please be the one to start and we are grateful that you are here, in spite of all those cows. So 5-10 minutes and then we’ll get to Simon. Thank you. SMO: If I could just begin with a short anecdote. In 1983 I was working in the UK Parliament and when it was clear that the SDP/ Liberal Alliance wasn’t going to sweep to power, I was looking for other employment. I got my boss, David Steel, to write a host of letters to interesting people including Sonny Ramphal and my knowledge of the Commonwealth at that stage was really confined to my admiration for Sonny Ramphal.