Charity orders external review into security practices.
Illustration by Simon Bridgland for POLITICO
BY MATEI ROSCA
POLITICO
July 8, 2021
LONDON — Global Witness, the high-profile investigative NGO, stands accused of failing to protect people who risk their lives to help expose injustice and corruption, following the murder of one of its sources in Afghanistan.
The source was kidnapped and killed by militants linked to the Islamic State in Afghanistan after his identity was compromised by the charity, which has built an international reputation for holding governments and corporations to account for more than 25 years.
The killing demonstrates the dangers for those who provide information to international organizations in volatile parts of the world. But multiple former employees and associates of Global Witness say that in this case, the charity did not take those risks seriously enough, leaving the source vulnerable to intimidation and deadly violence.
Following the Afghanistan case — which occurred in August 2017, but has not been reported previously — the charity pulled out of the country in 2018 after paying at least $10,000 to the victim’s family to help them relocate, according to a former employee. Global Witness confirmed a payoff had been made but would not specify the amount.
“It is a matter of enormous regret and deep sadness to us that any harm should ever come to one of our sources, simply because they had the courage to speak to us. Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of the man who was killed,” Global Witness communications director Amy Richards said.
“Following the killing, we conducted a thorough review to understand the events that had led up to this and learn lessons from what had happened,” Richards said. “Changes to our processes were made in the weeks and months following this brutal killing, and we are again reviewing the procedures and training programs in place to ensure we are doing all we can to keep sources, partners and our staff secure.”
But there are indications that the charity was not transparent about the incident. The organization informed staff about the case only after POLITICO began asking about it.
A 76-page report by Global Witness on its Afghanistan investigation into the exploitation of talc mines by the Islamic State group made no mention of the killing. A dedication on the inside of the front cover reads: “With sincere thanks to all those whose help made this report possible.”
In June this year, following inquiries by POLITICO, Global Witness opened a tender for a security “partner” to review its source security policies and make recommendations for improvement.
The review “will look across our new strategic campaigning priorities and make recommendations on how we best work with partners, sources and information networks, as well as set out any additional training requirements for our staff,” according to Richards.
Secret information
Founded in 1994, Global Witness is an influential international charity specializing in investigating environmental crime, human rights abuse and corruption. With more than 100 staff, and offices in London, Washington and Brussels, it has made a name for itself as a swashbuckling NGO that goes where others cannot, to blow the lid off conspiracies in some of the world’s most violent and corrupt countries. Its reports gather secret information from anonymous sources, covert filming, satellites and drone footage.
The charity has links to British politics, particularly the Labour Party. One of the party’s former MEPs, Arlene McCarthy, is on its Advisory Council. Richards, the communications director, is a former Labour political adviser. The former campaign director on the now-disbanded Afghanistan team, Nick Donovan, is a veteran Labour activist who ran for the party’s National Executive Committee in 2017 while employed at Global Witness.
In June, Alok Sharma, the COP26 climate conference president and Conservative Cabinet minister, delivered the keynote speech at the charity’s Time for a Climate Revolution event.
Richards said, “Global Witness has no ties to any political party.”
The charity says it is careful to protect people on the ground who help it to gather intelligence. On its website (until the page was removed in June), Global Witness said that many of its reports “start with tip-offs from anonymous sources, who take risks to share information with us. We are always vigilant in protecting their identities to keep them safe.”
But interviews with three ex-employees and contractors, as well as two of the charity’s former sources, paint a different picture.
Global Witness had a burgeoning Afghanistan bureau in 2017. It regularly published reports of natural-resources exploitation and pillaging by ruthless groups — some of them linked to Islamist extremists. But a former employee said there was little oversight of the charity’s operations in the country or the precautions staff took.
The charity habitually failed to observe established procedures around working with confidential sources in Afghanistan, according to the former employee, who wished to remain anonymous, claiming one staff member was known as “Captain Chaos” among colleagues.
Covert meeting
The death of Global Witness’ source at the hands of the extremists happened after the charity arranged a meeting with the man to gather information, according to two ex-employees. Instead of holding that meeting alone, a second Global Witness source was also present. The two sources did not have prior knowledge of each other. The second person later told the local Islamic State faction what the first source had said to Global Witness about the talc-mining business, prompting the group to exact deadly revenge, according to one of the ex-employees.
POLITICO attempted to contact the individual at Global Witness involved in the source meeting via email, phone calls and text messages, but did not receive a response. The person left the NGO after the killing. While the charity accepts that it was responsible for bringing the two people together, it disputes the timeline of events, although it declined to explain what happened on the record.
Donovan, the former campaign director of the charity’s Afghanistan team, initially declined to comment, citing source confidentiality, and later did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
One of the former employees said they found out about the killing “in the most casual way” from colleagues at Global Witness.
“I was shocked and I became obsessed with source protection after that. I brought it up many times with superiors but they did nothing,” the person said, referring both to the killing and the general practices around source protection at the charity.
A former contractor with Global Witness said that she had raised concerns about the charity’s safety procedures regarding sources and local freelancers. She also claims management did nothing about it.
In a previous incident, the former contractor said that a confidential informant and his family had to be moved out of Liberia, West Africa, on short notice out of concern for his safety after he took part in the charity’s work on links between Charles Taylor’s regime and the timber industry in 2003.
Richards, the Global Witness communications director, said it was correct that the organization paid to have a source moved out of Liberia but denied this was linked to the person’s work with the charity. It was “instead linked to campaigning by the organisation the person headed up, compounded by the ongoing war in the country, widely recognised as one of the most violent of the 21st century,” she said in an email.
Source protection
The former contractor says the organization did not sufficiently consider the risks faced by local informants. “We didn’t give as much thought as we should have to source protection or what it meant for local people to be associated with Global Witness after the investigations came out,” said the former contractor, requesting anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement signed with the charity.
“There were a number of occasions where GW [Global Witness] had to pay to get local associates out of the country or region before the release of a big report, so they recognized that there is a risk for local people. But attention was much more focused on avoiding getting sued for libel and promoting the Global Witness brand than on properly protecting those they worked with in high-risk countries,” the ex-contractor said.
“GW employees stay in posh hotels with iron gates and security guards when they travel to high-risk foreign countries, but it’s a different story for people from those places who do important work for GW.”
Global Witness has been reluctant to speak openly about the Afghanistan incident. When POLITICO made inquiries in January, a spokesperson initially said the organization was not aware of the killing.
But in internal emails from early 2020 seen by POLITICO, chief executive Mike Davis said the Afghanistan “incident is a very sensitive one with potential ramifications for people in-country and some of those Global Witness has worked with over the years if we don’t handle it very carefully. For that reason, we took a view some time back that we’d share some of the main lessons with incoming campaign leaders who are going to be responsible for comparable investigative work at Global Witness. We aren’t in a position to share more widely, however.”
Staff were only informed about the case during a call on February 2, 2021, and donors were also told around that time. Richards said the charity’s initial silence on the matter stemmed from a desire to avoid attacks from the murderers directed at Global Witness sources and their families in Afghanistan.
Open Society Foundations, one of Global Witness’ funders, said the charity had been keeping it “informed about this horrific incident.”
“We welcome GW’s decision to open an independent review into what happened, and would expect them to use its findings to further strengthen their already robust security and operational protocols,” said a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations.
July 8, 2021
LONDON — Global Witness, the high-profile investigative NGO, stands accused of failing to protect people who risk their lives to help expose injustice and corruption, following the murder of one of its sources in Afghanistan.
The source was kidnapped and killed by militants linked to the Islamic State in Afghanistan after his identity was compromised by the charity, which has built an international reputation for holding governments and corporations to account for more than 25 years.
The killing demonstrates the dangers for those who provide information to international organizations in volatile parts of the world. But multiple former employees and associates of Global Witness say that in this case, the charity did not take those risks seriously enough, leaving the source vulnerable to intimidation and deadly violence.
Following the Afghanistan case — which occurred in August 2017, but has not been reported previously — the charity pulled out of the country in 2018 after paying at least $10,000 to the victim’s family to help them relocate, according to a former employee. Global Witness confirmed a payoff had been made but would not specify the amount.
“It is a matter of enormous regret and deep sadness to us that any harm should ever come to one of our sources, simply because they had the courage to speak to us. Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of the man who was killed,” Global Witness communications director Amy Richards said.
“Following the killing, we conducted a thorough review to understand the events that had led up to this and learn lessons from what had happened,” Richards said. “Changes to our processes were made in the weeks and months following this brutal killing, and we are again reviewing the procedures and training programs in place to ensure we are doing all we can to keep sources, partners and our staff secure.”
But there are indications that the charity was not transparent about the incident. The organization informed staff about the case only after POLITICO began asking about it.
A 76-page report by Global Witness on its Afghanistan investigation into the exploitation of talc mines by the Islamic State group made no mention of the killing. A dedication on the inside of the front cover reads: “With sincere thanks to all those whose help made this report possible.”
In June this year, following inquiries by POLITICO, Global Witness opened a tender for a security “partner” to review its source security policies and make recommendations for improvement.
The review “will look across our new strategic campaigning priorities and make recommendations on how we best work with partners, sources and information networks, as well as set out any additional training requirements for our staff,” according to Richards.
Secret information
Founded in 1994, Global Witness is an influential international charity specializing in investigating environmental crime, human rights abuse and corruption. With more than 100 staff, and offices in London, Washington and Brussels, it has made a name for itself as a swashbuckling NGO that goes where others cannot, to blow the lid off conspiracies in some of the world’s most violent and corrupt countries. Its reports gather secret information from anonymous sources, covert filming, satellites and drone footage.
The charity has links to British politics, particularly the Labour Party. One of the party’s former MEPs, Arlene McCarthy, is on its Advisory Council. Richards, the communications director, is a former Labour political adviser. The former campaign director on the now-disbanded Afghanistan team, Nick Donovan, is a veteran Labour activist who ran for the party’s National Executive Committee in 2017 while employed at Global Witness.
In June, Alok Sharma, the COP26 climate conference president and Conservative Cabinet minister, delivered the keynote speech at the charity’s Time for a Climate Revolution event.
Richards said, “Global Witness has no ties to any political party.”
The charity says it is careful to protect people on the ground who help it to gather intelligence. On its website (until the page was removed in June), Global Witness said that many of its reports “start with tip-offs from anonymous sources, who take risks to share information with us. We are always vigilant in protecting their identities to keep them safe.”
But interviews with three ex-employees and contractors, as well as two of the charity’s former sources, paint a different picture.
Global Witness had a burgeoning Afghanistan bureau in 2017. It regularly published reports of natural-resources exploitation and pillaging by ruthless groups — some of them linked to Islamist extremists. But a former employee said there was little oversight of the charity’s operations in the country or the precautions staff took.
The charity habitually failed to observe established procedures around working with confidential sources in Afghanistan, according to the former employee, who wished to remain anonymous, claiming one staff member was known as “Captain Chaos” among colleagues.
Covert meeting
The death of Global Witness’ source at the hands of the extremists happened after the charity arranged a meeting with the man to gather information, according to two ex-employees. Instead of holding that meeting alone, a second Global Witness source was also present. The two sources did not have prior knowledge of each other. The second person later told the local Islamic State faction what the first source had said to Global Witness about the talc-mining business, prompting the group to exact deadly revenge, according to one of the ex-employees.
POLITICO attempted to contact the individual at Global Witness involved in the source meeting via email, phone calls and text messages, but did not receive a response. The person left the NGO after the killing. While the charity accepts that it was responsible for bringing the two people together, it disputes the timeline of events, although it declined to explain what happened on the record.
Donovan, the former campaign director of the charity’s Afghanistan team, initially declined to comment, citing source confidentiality, and later did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
One of the former employees said they found out about the killing “in the most casual way” from colleagues at Global Witness.
“I was shocked and I became obsessed with source protection after that. I brought it up many times with superiors but they did nothing,” the person said, referring both to the killing and the general practices around source protection at the charity.
A former contractor with Global Witness said that she had raised concerns about the charity’s safety procedures regarding sources and local freelancers. She also claims management did nothing about it.
In a previous incident, the former contractor said that a confidential informant and his family had to be moved out of Liberia, West Africa, on short notice out of concern for his safety after he took part in the charity’s work on links between Charles Taylor’s regime and the timber industry in 2003.
Richards, the Global Witness communications director, said it was correct that the organization paid to have a source moved out of Liberia but denied this was linked to the person’s work with the charity. It was “instead linked to campaigning by the organisation the person headed up, compounded by the ongoing war in the country, widely recognised as one of the most violent of the 21st century,” she said in an email.
Source protection
The former contractor says the organization did not sufficiently consider the risks faced by local informants. “We didn’t give as much thought as we should have to source protection or what it meant for local people to be associated with Global Witness after the investigations came out,” said the former contractor, requesting anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement signed with the charity.
“There were a number of occasions where GW [Global Witness] had to pay to get local associates out of the country or region before the release of a big report, so they recognized that there is a risk for local people. But attention was much more focused on avoiding getting sued for libel and promoting the Global Witness brand than on properly protecting those they worked with in high-risk countries,” the ex-contractor said.
“GW employees stay in posh hotels with iron gates and security guards when they travel to high-risk foreign countries, but it’s a different story for people from those places who do important work for GW.”
Global Witness has been reluctant to speak openly about the Afghanistan incident. When POLITICO made inquiries in January, a spokesperson initially said the organization was not aware of the killing.
But in internal emails from early 2020 seen by POLITICO, chief executive Mike Davis said the Afghanistan “incident is a very sensitive one with potential ramifications for people in-country and some of those Global Witness has worked with over the years if we don’t handle it very carefully. For that reason, we took a view some time back that we’d share some of the main lessons with incoming campaign leaders who are going to be responsible for comparable investigative work at Global Witness. We aren’t in a position to share more widely, however.”
Staff were only informed about the case during a call on February 2, 2021, and donors were also told around that time. Richards said the charity’s initial silence on the matter stemmed from a desire to avoid attacks from the murderers directed at Global Witness sources and their families in Afghanistan.
Open Society Foundations, one of Global Witness’ funders, said the charity had been keeping it “informed about this horrific incident.”
“We welcome GW’s decision to open an independent review into what happened, and would expect them to use its findings to further strengthen their already robust security and operational protocols,” said a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations.
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