RETURN FROM BOsniA PAddy AshdOWN intERVIEWED by ADRIAN slADE 6 Journal of Liberal History 50 Spring 2006 RETURN FROM BOsniA PAddy AshdOWN intERVIEWED by ADRIAN slADE t was a cold and horri- of the newly merged party. David structures for a democratic state. ble night in Blackpool in Steel, the architect of merger, had Paddy Ashdown succeeded three January 1988. The occa- decided not to stand and David previous High Representatives, sion proved to be the Owen had chosen to do a UDI in the process becoming probably last-ever Assembly of the from it all and go off with a rump the most powerful British Liberal ILiberal Party. The next day Lib- minority of the SDP, so the field since Lloyd George. erals would vote overwhelmingly was left open for Ashdown to I had not seen him since well for merging their party with the compete for the job with Alan before he went but he agreed to SDP. After the pre-debate rally Beith, the Liberal MP for Ber- meet again shortly after his return that night, and I suppose because wick-on-Tweed. He won com- from nearly four years in Bosnia I was party president, I found fortably and remained as leader exercising his powers. He invited myself in the unlikely company for eleven years, handing over to me to the House of Lords – not, of Jo Grimond, Roy Jenkins and Charles Kennedy in 1999. incidentally, a place in which he Ludovic Kennedy. Ludo bought Then, three years later, to his feels comfortable. I asked him first us all a drink and we were chat- obvious surprise and delight, he how he was finding his return to ting about the prospects for the was appointed High Representa- British politics? future when Jo suddenly said tive in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ‘I’m delighted to be back. I to me ‘Do you know this chap an area in which he had taken should be so lucky that, at the Ashdown? I understand that we an intense interest ever since the end of a life that was already fairly may soon have our first leader Balkans trouble began again in interesting, culminating in the to have killed somebody with the early 1990s. It was an appoint- undoubted pinnacle of leading his bare hands!’ An apochryphal ment made, on the recommenda- the party I love for eleven years anecdote, of course, but Jo had tion of Tony Blair, by the Peace ‘By the way, – at the end of that most people latched on to the fact that the Implementation Council set up would say “that’s enough for one MP for Yeovil had spent his ear- under the Dayton Peace Agree- what we life” – then someone says to you: lier years as a soldier in Northern ment of 1996. This council con- did when “Go off to a country you have Ireland and then as a member sists of all the countries that grown attached to and know a bit of the Special Boat Squadron subscribed to the Dayton Agree- we got to about and help to build a state”. of the Royal Marines. Jo might ment, including Russia and Japan. As someone who has been fasci- also have added ‘… and the first It is sanctioned by the UN Secu- Bosnia was nated all my life about how you leader to speak Chinese and to rity Council and the European build states, combat racism and have been both a diplomat and a Union. The High Representative apply the nationalism, of the kind I had youth worker.’ is answerable to both bodies and Lib Dem seen in Northern Ireland, I could That was the unusual CV of also, by his actions, to the peo- not miss an opportunity like that. Jeremy John Durham ‘Paddy’ ple of Bosnia, but the agreement manifesto By the way, what we did when we Ashdown, who did indeed gives him considerable powers got there was apply the Lib Dem become the first elected leader of direction in the setting-up of of 1992.’ manifesto of 1992.’ Journal of Liberal History 50 Spring 2006 7 RETURN FROM BOSNIA: PADDY ASHDOWN INTERVIEW I suggested that, when he was ‘That said, to handle them to achieve what already led to a number of arrests Liberal Democrat leader, he could you want. Insofar as we were suc- and, he believes, a change in atti- not possibly have envisaged doing the pin- cessful a lot of it was to do with tudes. ‘But you can’t have peace that job after he had finished, and that fact, that I had those political without justice, so they must be he agreed emphatically that he nacle of skills.’ caught. I don’t think they can had not. Implementing the Lib He explained the highly com- now reverse the processes in Bos- Dem manifesto also seemed a my life was plex appointment and account- nia but until that happens, they little improbable, given the sub- undoubt- ability structure that he had had can still slow them up.’ stantial sole powers granted to to deal with, but he added: ‘By So how do the satisfactions the High Representative. I ques- edly lead- the way, if someone had said to of those years compare with the tioned whether these fitted easily me “If you are managing a peace satisfactions of leading the Liberal with being a Liberal and a demo- ing the stabilisation issue would you pre- Democrats – or were they not crat, and one who had not been fer to have around you what is comparable? And here he revealed in government before. He saw no Liberal broadly an ad hoc international his true feelings about the Palace problem with that. Demo- coalition of the willing or be run of Westminster. ‘The presumption that lies at by the UN Department of Peace- ‘Oh, they were comparable the heart of your question is that crats. It’s Keeping in New York?”, there is but they were very different. In this is an unnatural, unreasonable no doubt which I would go for. this bloody awful place called and unprecedented structure just that Unlike my colleague in Kosovo it parliament you run around like a that you should have – after a was comparatively easy for me to white mouse in a cage and won- war, an internationally managed, the day-to- make decisions and get on with der what you achieve. There were tutelage democracy. But it’s not day satis- real things.’ not many days here when I felt unnatural and unreasonable at He is a little reluctant to list his I had done anything that genu- all. It’s exactly what happened in factions principal achievements in Bos- inely affected ordinary people’s Germany. It happened in Japan. nia and Herzegovina, which he lives, whereas in Bosnia Herze- It happened in Kosovo. Quite of my job thinks are for others to decide, govina you made anything up frequently between a terrible but he didn’t dodge my question to thirty decisions a day which war and the onset of democracy in Bosnia and his answer sounds impres- genuinely did affect people. That you have a period of physical and were prob- sive. ‘I set out to try and do three said, the pinnacle of my life was mental reconstruction. Don’t things. First, to make the process undoubtedly leading the Liberal forget that Liberals were closely ably a little of building a state irreversible. Democrats. It’s just that the day- involved with the reconstruction In those four years we created a to-day satisfactions of my job of Germany through the Allied higher.’ single judiciary, a single judicial in Bosnia were probably a little Commission. That’s why Ger- code, a single customs service, a higher.’ many has devolved government single army under the control We left the Balkans and went and proportional representation. of the state, a single intelligence back to where Paddy Ashdown It’s not at all unusual for Liberals service accountable to parlia- had come from and why he had to exercise these sorts of powers ment, a single taxation service accumulated such a varied CV. and be involved in the business and a unified city of Mostar. By ‘My life has been an accident. of state-building. If this kind the time we left we could say Nothing I have done has been of job has to be done I would that the country was well on its planned. Why did I become a rather have it done by a Liberal way to democratic statehood. soldier? Because I was eighteen, any day.’ My second aim was to bring the into rough and tumble, first XV, Was it a lonely role? country to the threshold where it Victor Ludorum at the athletics ‘No, not at all. You know you could enter the European process. – I was fascinated by the romance have the international commu- That’s now beginning to happen. of it. Why did I leave the services nity behind you and you also And thirdly, to come as close as in 1970 to become a diplomat? know that you are accountable to possible to getting rid of the need Because I’d studied Chinese and them. Of course you have to fall for a High Representative. We are Malay, I had seen a wider world back a lot on your own judgment not there yet, but nearly.’ and the Foreign Office offered and I think that here the skills of And he believes that, if the me a chance to join them when a politician are more useful than EU remains true to its intention I was serving in Hong Kong.