The publication in instalments of leaked WikiLeaks diplomatic cables by selected newspapers such as the “Guardian”of the UK, the “New York Times”, “Le Monde” of France, “Der Spiegel” of Germany and “El Pais” of Spain started a year ago.
The initial documents were about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The subsequent ones were about other subjects and other countries, including Pakistan, China and Singapore.
The only interesting thing is that the cables enable us to have a look at these facts through American and not Indian eyes. One finds that American eyes could be as jaundiced as Indian eyes.
Some countries such as China and Singapore ignored the leaks with contempt without making any comments. Others such as Pakistan painstakingly avoided any impression of panic or embarrassment. They successfully created an impression of taking them on their stride. There have been very few instances of the documents causing any political or diplomatic or other bureaucratic heads to roll except the resignation of the US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual whose cable to the US State Department containing allegations regarding Mexico’s anti-drug policy came in for strong criticism from the Mexican Government. The fact of his resignation and its acceptance by the State Department on March 19 amounts to an implicit acceptance of the authenticity of this cable as leaked by WikiLeaks. After this, it would be difficult for other States, including India, to take up the position that the WikiLeaks cables are not authentic.
The Mexican development is also the only instance so far in which the leaks have had a serious impact on state-to-state relations. Otherwise, barring Mexico, practically all the countries affected by the leaks as well as the US itself have shown a certain maturity in dealing with the leaks. They have been helped in this by the advance warnings given by the US State Department to other countries about the impending leaks.
One could already discern a diminishing interest in these cables in countries which faced the initial deluge of the leaks. In those countries, one hardly speaks any longer of the leaked documents. Despite the leaks, Government business goes on, diplomacy goes on, state-to-state relationships go on as before .
Leaks may come and leaks may go, but diplomacy and statecraft will go on for ever.
“¦serious crime of bribery to influence voting in the Lok Sabha and the role Satish Sharma of the Congress (I) and one of his aides had allegedly played in it. This, if true, is a fresh piece of evidence which has come to notice now.
India was among the last countries to be hit by the Wiki deluge. It took “The Hindu” of Chennai nearly three months to work out with WikiLeaks an arrangement by which it has been allowed to have access to at least some, if not all, of the documents relating to India—— the majority of them consisting of diplomatic cables with various degrees of classification exchanged between the US Embassy in New Delhi and the State Department.
It was reported last year that WikiLeaks has about 3,000 such India-related documents in its possession. It is not known whether “The Hindu” has been allowed to have access to all of them or only some. If “The Hindu” is going to publish all of them, a leak fatigue is bound to set in—even earlier than it did in other countries.
Some of the documents published by “The Hindu” so far are of trivial importance. There was no need for it to have published them and given them over-stated importance. A typical example is the cable to the US Embassy in New Delhi asking for a personality profile on Pranab Mukherjee. There is nothing ominously significant about it. All countries have such personality profiles on leaders of other countries in their diplomatic database and keep updating them. The State Department’s cable on the subject is part of the updating exercise and there was no need for “The Hindu” to have gone to town over it.
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