TWO FACED BRUCE

Whatever may be the gaps between his ideas and their execution, Prime Minister Bruce Golding is an eloquent speaker, with a sharp, analytical mind and the capacity to get to the kernel of issues.

Indeed, this newspaper, on many matters, would be willing and proud to have Mr Golding as its advocate, certain that he would grasp, and articulate with clarity, the issues that often confront media, such as tensions between when the public’s right to know in support of democracy trumps conventions of privacy and the right of the State to maintain secrets.

In fact, in the current situation, in which Mr Golding has criticised The Gleaner for publishing stories based on leaked US diplomatic cables provided by WikiLeaks, we can think of no better champion of this newspaper’s case than Mr Golding himself.

Here is Mr Golding’s argument in our defence:

“I was accused of using information which I knew to be illegally obtained. You get information in all kinds of ways.

“When you get that information and that information tells you that something wrong has taken place, something that could corrupt the political process in this country, what do you do with it? What is this side saying?

“Let me make it clear that if information comes to me that I consider to be information that requires the public to be made aware in protection of my democracy, you coulda preach till you drop down, I going to be calling press conference after press conference!”

As much as it seems so, Prime Minister Golding was not really speaking in support of The Gleaner’s decision to publish the WikiLeaks cables, which we did not purloin and which WikiLeaks would publish anyway.

Mr Golding, then the opposition leader, spoke those words in October 2006 in the House of Representatives, in support of a no-confidence motion that his party brought against the then People’s National Party (PNP) government over the Trafigura scandal.

Trafigura Beheer is a Dutch company that traded oil on Jamaica’s behalf. The organisation made what, ostensibly, was a donation of J$31 million to the PNP to support its annual conference the previous month. Mr Golding smelled kickbacks, or at least an inducement to the party for the Government to provide more contracts.

unseemly influence

The money was passed through an account at FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB) controlled by Mr Colin Campbell, who was, at the time, the general secretary of the PNP, as well as the information minister.

An employee of the bank – who, sadly, has since died – as well as FCIB, was sued by Mr Campbell for breach of confidence. The employee was accused not only of passing information about the account at her bank, but using her position to get information about an account Mr Campbell operated at another.

The case was eventually settled out of court, generously in Mr Campbell’s favour.

Mr Golding was aware of the potential consequence of the leak to the bank, but insisted that a larger principle was at play: providing the public with information as part of a process which he deemed was in defence of Jamaica’s democracy.

Mr Golding was, of course, right that Mr Campbell, as party and government official, couldn’t at a whim shed one skin for the other.