Saturday, September 24, 2011

Tardy, Dissembling & Dishonest

.

The Ultimate Estimation

of any Leader,

any Government

is in the the long-term story and response of any one historically-implicated individual who comes to be vulnerable to that Leader's leadership, his/her actual abilities, policies, discretions or indiscretions;

a person whose life
is somehow, historically delivered
into the ultimate hands of his Government, the Government of the time,
whether either of them likes it or not,
and a person who then so hopes for a good leader
and for a real and effective government
of whom 'he or her'
is by misadventure found to be
in desperate need.


Under the Leadership
of Kevin Rudd
,

and under
his underling, foreign minister, Stephen Smith,


Such a historically-caught individual
was Nigel Brennan,

a journalist
who was kidnapped,
and then disappeared into primitive custody,
taken hostage for a ransom demanded

by his desperate and piratical
Somali keepers...





Kevin Rudd failed to help Nigel Brennan,

the one Australia in Absolute need of his leader's ability

and in real need

of his Government effectiveness

and potency.



NEWS TO HAND - years after the event.

September 2011


FROM - The Age Newspaper

Kidnap victim blasts government ransom policy

by Dan Oakes

September 23, 2011




AUSTRALIAN kidnap victim Nigel Brennan has savaged the federal government's 'no ransom' policy, describing it as irrational, senseless and morally indefensible.

Mr Brennan, who spent 462 days as a captive in Somalia alongside Canadian Amanda Lindhout, has also accused former foreign minister Stephen Smith of being ''tardy, dissembling and eventually blatantly dishonest'' in his dealings with Mr Brennan's family.

The government stuck to its oft-stated policy by refusing to pay a ransom to Mr Brennan's kidnappers, but the Brennan family said they were not advised that they had the option of turning to a private firm to secure Mr Brennan's release.

''As a released hostage, it is blindingly clear to me the Australian Government's current 'No Ransom, No Negotiation' policy must be changed,'' Mr Brennan writes.

''To do nothing, as is the Australian government's policy now, is to condemn the next Australian hostage to death.

That cannot be a rational, sensible or morally defensible Australian government policy.

''By offering the kidnappers no hope of receiving any payment for keeping the kidnapped person alive and returning them home safely, the kidnappers have no incentive to do so.''

Mr Brennan said the government's policy had already led to the deaths of Australians David Wilson and Kellie Wilkinson in Cambodia in 1994.

There have already been two internal inquiries carried out by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade into the handling of Mr Brennan's case, one of them by respected former diplomat John McCarthy.

Mr Brennan is also strongly critical of Mr Smith and former prime minister Kevin Rudd, both of whom he said refused to respond to his family's letters and phone calls.

''[Mr] Smith was tardy, dissembling and eventually blatantly dishonest to my family in regards to the official Australian-Canadian Government strategy, which was in play in late December 2008,'' Mr Brennan writes.

Mr Brennan was eventually released in 2009 after his family and donors - including the Greens leader Bob Brown and the entrepreneur Dick Smith - paid $1.3 million for his release, which was eventually secured with the help of a private hostage negotiation firm.

The Greens triggered the inquiry in July after criticism by the Brennan family over the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's handling of the case; at one stage Mr Brennan called the department from captivity but the call went to voicemail because it was a public holiday.

The government stuck to its oft-stated policy by refusing to pay a ransom to Mr Brennan's kidnappers, but the Brennan family said they were not advised that they had the option of turning to a private firm to secure Mr Brennan's release.

''As a released hostage, it is blindingly clear to me the Australian Government's current 'No Ransom, No Negotiation' policy must be changed,'' Mr Brennan writes.
''To do nothing, as is the Australian government's policy now, is to condemn the next Australian hostage to death. That cannot be a rational, sensible or morally defensible Australian government policy.

''By offering the kidnappers no hope of receiving any payment for keeping the kidnapped person alive and returning them home safely, the kidnappers have no incentive to do so.''

Mr Brennan said the government's policy had already led to the deaths of Australians David Wilson and Kellie Wilkinson in Cambodia in 1994.

There have already been two internal inquiries carried out by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade into the handling of Mr Brennan's case, one of them by respected former diplomat John McCarthy.

Mr Brennan is also strongly critical of Mr Smith and former prime minister Kevin Rudd, both of whom he said refused to respond to his family's letters and phone calls.

''[Mr] Smith was tardy, dissembling and eventually blatantly dishonest to my family in regards to the official Australian-Canadian Government strategy, which was in play in late December 2008,'' Mr Brennan writes.

Mr Brennan made a number of suggestions in his submission, including keeping the families of kidnap victims better informed, setting up a ''specialist multi-agency government task force'', involving private sector negotiators from the start and protecting families who pay ransoms from prosecution..."





On Rudd's Watch

the Australian Government

became

more
:

- impersonal

- about talk that action

- propagandistic rather than governmental

- hidden behind a smokescreen of rhetoric

- close - in many (unconfided) confidences - claimed 'as commercial in confidence' and in which the people did not have a share

- secretive and fearful

- distant from the people

- alienated from people in real need

- generalising rather than particular

- personally ineffectual

- impotent - do-nothing policy

- vain of appearance

- nacissistic of policy

- and dissembling,

dissembling,

dissembling
.

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