My earlier posting on Craig Murray’s telegram to the FCO recording serious human rights abuses in Uzbekistan dismissed the response he won from HQ, namely that the UK would press for an ‘EU demarche’.

Why? It sounds grand and important.

Not an easy question to answer simply.

What is a ‘demarche‘? In this context a formal representation of protest/concern agreed and issued by the EU member states as a whole, and delivered on behalf of the EU to a host government by a small group of Ambassadors.

Who they are depends on who is around. Thus it might be that the country representing the EU Presidency has no bilateral Embassy in the country in question, so another Ambassador will be representing the Presidency locally and take the lead. S/he might be accompanied by the Ambassador representing the country taking over the forthcoming Presidency and eg an official from the Commission.

I never liked being part of these ‘group’ demarches and (bad boy) turned a Nelsonian Blind Eye to any instructions to do so. It always struck me as arrogant and patronising – and therefore likely to be less effective – that a group of Ambassadors appear to gang up on a host governmentto to deliver a formal protest.  Much better to attack the target in coordinated parallel bilateral sessions, with each Embassy delivering the message in the way most calculated to have Impact.

Plus, to be frank, I never liked airing my dark diplomatic arts in front of other non-British colleagues. What if during the meeting a private hint emerged of a way of moving forward which needed some frank discussion? Harder to do that in an EU group without straying from ‘instructions’ or risking exposing EU divisions and risking a silly row. 

EU demarches are therefore true ‘lowest common denominator’ diplomacy.

In this case the UK probably will have put round a telegram called a COREU to all EU member states’ Foreign Ministries summarising the Murray report, and proposing the text of a demarche.

There then may well have followed a painful round of Euro-teeth-sucking and drafting quibbling, of the form:

"The Foreign Ministry of Moronia thanks the UK for its draft Demarche on this undoubtedly important subject, but wonders whether more investigation of the case in question is needed before the European Union commits itself to the proposed course of action…Given the lack of clarity about the facts of this one case, perhaps the language in paragraph 6(b) needs to be rather less direct? May we propose instead …" 

Because consensus is needed, the draft in successive rounds of wittering tends to get diluted to suit the weediest concerns.

And, of course, if by any chance the foreign Minister of Moronia is meeting the Uzbekistan Minister in the coming weeks, Moronia may well not choose to open a row beforehand by sending in its Ambassador for a demarche of this sort.

Bottom Line: slow, bad outcomes. No real impact expected.

As Craig reports later in the book, the French Ambassador delivered the eventual demarche accompanied by Craig and two other EU colleagues "in a tour de force of Gallic insouciance", giving every impression that the exercise was purely formal and of little substance. When Craig then pointed out that in Uzbekistan 99% of trials ended in conviction and so were probably not fair, the Uzbek Foreign Minister smirked "Under our system only the guilty are accused."

In other words, this way of doing diplomatic business did not strengthen the weight of the protest, as the EU liked to think. It obviously diminished it.

What’s more, the process of lurching the EU machine into movement for hollow exercises of this nature is time-consuming and distracting.

Which, worst of all, creates in the FCO official mind a sort of pre-emptive dumbed-down British punch-pulling – "if we can not get the support of EU partners without a lot of hard work or at all, why bother?"

Is there any better way to proceed?

Alas not obviously in this case. The Uzbeks were too far away, too obnoxious and too impervious to normal diplomatic pressure. Engaging our efforts with the Americans rather than the EU might have been better. But as we shall see, Craig quickly fell out with the US Ambassador and whatever chances there might of been of using that approach dwindled away.

Why not press for a personal letter to be sent from our Foreign Minister to his.her Uzbek oppo, to express in frank terms strong British dismay at this example of Uzbek injustice?

But here too one is Nutted by Reality. A private letter makes more impact on the target Minister, but because it is private it is easier to ignore. Publishing the letter turns up the public rhetorical pressure but allows the target and local media to dismiss the whole protest as tired/toothless/’arrogant’ British post-imperial nagging.

And in the Uzbek system the Foreign Minister is probably a suave front-man with no power anyway. Even if he too is revolted by the Uzbek courts, what in practice can he do? Does he want to risk his nice job and perks for the sake of someone he has never met and who he suspects (rightly) of wanting to bring about radical changes including the ejection from office and possible trial of himself?

Er … no.

When all the diplomatic flim-flam is stripped away, it all boils down to some very fundamental propositions:

  • Can we persuade them to behave better on Human Rights merits?
  • If not, can we plus/minus others create a different cost/benefit calculation for them to mull over – either more Gain or more Pain, or combination thereof?
  • And is the effort required to make a difference in Hell-Hole (A) really worth it? Better to throw our available Human Rights time and energy at places such as Hell-Holes (B) and (C) which for one reason or the other currently look more receptive and where we have more levers to pull?

Tough, huh?

Welcome to Diplomacy.