INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 73 New Series, 5 January 1998 Editor Olivier Schmidt (email intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr; web http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence) RECENT EXCLUSIVE REPORTS IN INTELLIGENCE SLOVAKIA - REACHING WEST WHILE SLIDING EAST (N. 51) SOUTH AFRICA - EXECUTIVE OUTCOMES OR DIAMONDS ARE A GRUNT'S BEST FRIEND (N. 55) BULGARIA - A FIERY "FAR-WEST" FORTNIGHT IN SOFIA (N. 63) GREAT BRITAIN/SAUDI ARABIA - JONATHAN AITKEN "TWISTS SLOWLY IN THE WIND" (N. 64) --------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 73, 5 January 1998 FRONT PAGE SPECIAL REPORT ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT & COVERT ACTION - A Natural History of the Wilderness of Mirrors - The Secret History of a Revolution, by Kevin Dowling p.1 PEOPLE GREAT BRITAIN - KEVIN DOWLING p.2 AGENDA COMING EVENTS THROUGH 15 FEBRUARY 1998 p.3 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD "INTELLIGENCE" - COMPLETE KEYWORD, NAME & TITLE INDEX FOR 1997 p.4 --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 73, 5 January 1998, p. 1 FRONT PAGE SPECIAL REPORT ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT & COVERT ACTION - A Natural History of the Wilderness of Mirrors - The Secret History of a Revolution by Kevin Dowling INTRODUCTION Zimbabwe, which hosted the latest Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Conference of the Parties in June 1997, had never reconciled itself to the outright loss of its right to profit from selling ivory, and it seized the opportunity to plead with delegates to reverse what President Robert Mugabwe described in his opening address as an act of "ecological colonialism." Mr. Justice Mark Kumleben's findings, concerning the use of the international environmental movement as cover for covert action, though the public knew little or nothing of these findings, were circulated among the delegates. The evidence they contained had the desired effect. Despite vociferous US opposition, 77 nations voted to allow the southern African countries to resume a limited and strictly supervised trade in ivory in 18 months' time. Even the 13 members of the European Union (Ireland does not subscribe to CITES), not normally to be outdone by Washington in the political homage they pay to nature, felt it prudent to abstain when the issue came to a vote. When the result was announced, the African delegates danced through the congress hall singing the liberation anthem, "Ishe Komberera Africa" (God Bless Africa!), watched by stony-faced delegates from America and Europe. For millions of kind-hearted people in Britain, Europe and North America, the decision to resume the international trade in ivory was not only cruel but incomprehensible. If this special report helps to explain why it was taken, then perhaps I may have done them, and Africa, a service. WORLD CONSERVATION'S "ESTATE" By 1989, what the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) calls the World Conservation Estate had come to include some 8,500 national parks and other "strictly protected" areas covering almost 8,000,000 square kilometers of land in 169 territories. This green archipelago of national parks, national forests, national monuments and national landscapes occupied more land than India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Iran and Burma put together. When a further 40,000 less fiercely-guarded areas were included in the reckoning, the area taken up by the World Conservation Estate more than doubled. By 1989, it had already extended across some ten per cent of the earth's land surface. Since 1989, vast new areas have been added. Developing countries are routinely required to proclaim new Wildland Management Areas in return for Western aid or loans. In effect, the poorer their economic performance has been, the more land they have had to take out of useful production. In Tanzania, for example, 40 percent of the national territory is now enclosed within strictly-protected zones. To the eyes of a previous age, the huge areas of land the former colonial powers have required the developing world to set aside for nature would look more like an empire than a mere "estate". It may, in fact, be useful to regard the World Conservation Estate as a new and unprecedented form of empire, a virtually real one. The holdings of the World Conservation Estate were put together by a committee, or rather by a series of committees, and not by some charismatic warlord. That method of accumulating power in an age when public culture emphasizes democratic values has obvious advantages. If a virtually real empire's geography cannot be conveniently drawn on a map, then no one can really know where its confines lie. If the bureaucrats who created it omitted to select an emperor from among themselves, or to establish a capitol, or to design a flag to fly over their dominions, then that, too, is likely to make it harder for those who suspect their motives to anticipate their ambitions. And if their empire happens to lie outside any conventional definition of established power, then they can always, as of course they do, deny that it is there. There is, however, no doubt that the World Conservation Estate actually is there; nor that the international environmental movement which created it plays an important role in the formulation of public policy worldwide. Al Gore, vice- president of the United States, is both a committed environmentalist and heir-apparent to the White House. World investment in conservation was said to be running at $12 billion a year by 1995. The figure, which took no account of either the human cost or the lost opportunity costs of setting aside an area twice the size of Australia for "nature", does indicate the existence of a sizable conservation industry. This industry, with a turnover larger than most transnationals, does not post its results on the business pages. It, too, is only virtually real, and is marketed not as an industry, but as a moral crusade. If "the scientific management of nature", described in the "World Conservation Strategy" report, were to be viewed simply as one of the new service industries which have arisen since the end of the Second World War, then its failure to deliver the goods, which it ostensibly exists to sell, would seem obvious to all, and there might well be demands that its performance be improved, if necessary under a new management regime. Where, after all, are the pandas, the tigers, the elephants, the rhinos, the bears -- or even the common zebras - - of yesteryear? What happened to what used to be called the jungle? Or to all the fish that used to swim in the sea? But the conservation industry is not judged, as other industries are, on its results. On the one hand, it has been spectacularly successful in acquiring, within the space of a mere fifty years, control over more land than the old British Raj ever ruled; truly an astonishing achievement, but one which its marketing managers never emphasize. On the other hand, the industry is apparently helpless to prevent a loss of natural diversity which the same managers claim is currently running at the incredible rate of 200,000 irreplaceable species of life a year. If such estimates were even approximately correct, then the earth would currently be experiencing an extinction spasm comparable to that which separated whole geological ages during the prehistoric past. Far from expecting to be blamed for allowing such a horrendous situation to develop, the industry is able to use such scares to generate further income and accumulate more power for itself. How, from within a totalitarian consensus which sees nothing odd in such a situation, may we begin to account for, or truly describe, the World Conservation Estate? It actually represents the physical gains made by what E. Max Nicholson called "the environmental revolution," a revolution which began with the capture, by a cabal of environmental zealots who happened to be imperial insiders, of the British government's bureaucratic machine during the period of post-war reconstruction which followed the defeat of Nazi Germany. "I tell you never to trust the state," Nicholson would later cheerfully advise the youthful environmentalists who followed him around on the lecture circuit. "And remember I speak to you as a representative of the state!" If he were to be believed, then he was not to be trusted. If his apparent candor tempted his listeners to trust him anyway, then he might later say that he had given them fair warning that their trust would be misplaced. Pedagogues have been teasing the innocent with variations on the Liar's Paradox for two millennia. YELLOWSTONE PARK AS A TEMPLATE There was a time, following the nineteenth-century reform of the Imperial Civil Service by Sir George Trevelyan, when British public servants were positively encouraged to be trustworthy. However, this requirement of the gentleman's ethic had long since been abandoned when, in 1939, Nicholson was called in by the newly-formed Ministry of Information (MOI) to advise on ways of spreading war propaganda among the civilian population. As Kenneth Clarke put it: "We need the best bounders we can get!" Nicholson's previous collaboration with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5) was presumably thought to qualify him for the job. The papers left by the Morale Committee and the Home Morale Advisory Committee of the MOI are scattered and fragmentary, and later efforts to persuade the members of these committees to talk about their work met with little success. Several of those contacted claimed to have been ashamed of it. "The propagandists' preoccupation with class distanced them from the public (...) The propaganda was framed as if for an alien people." Nicholson's contributions included the assertion that the English masses "had never consciously fought for an ideal." The Oxford-educated Anglo-Irishman recommended that the profanum vulgus should only be approached in colloquial and humorous terms, since they would become suspicious if lofty sentiment and reasoned argument were used. In his semi- autobiographical account, "The Environmental Revolution - A Handbook for the New Masters of the Earth", Nicholson, among many other things, a principal architect of both IUCN-World Conservation Union and the World Wildlife Fund/Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) complex of nature trusts, tells us that the extraordinary success of the crusade which he did so much to launch defies rational analysis. (..) --------------------------------------------- PEOPLE Intelligence, N. 73, 5 January 1998, p. 2 GREAT BRITAIN - KEVIN DOWLING The author of this issue's Special Report - "Environmental Movement & Covert Action", is Kevin Dowling, a British freelance journalist who has worked for national and international newspapers and magazines since 1970, and as a television producer since 1987. He covered the war in Northern Ireland from 1970 to 1974, and then worked in France until 1980. He reported on British affairs for the "Daily Mail" over the next seven years. He first went to Africa in 1989, and has often returned there. Dowling would welcome any information readers of "Intelligence" might have concerning the penetration of the environmental movement by covert and special operations forces. He can be contacted at . --------------------------------------------- AGENDA Intelligence, N. 73, 5 January 1998, p. 3 COMING EVENTS THROUGH 15 FEBRUARY 1998 In the interest of efficiency, "Intelligence" lists all coming events in each issue as a single article in the section "Agenda". Additional information concerning these events, including contact information, is available at 33 (0)1 40 51 85 19 (tel/fax) or intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr (email). Events are listed only once according to date, and are not repeated in subsequent issues. To post a paid advertisement describing an event in greater detail, interested organizers should contact "Intelligence" for additional information. On 12-16 January in Washington, noted American and international counter-eavesdropping specialist, James A. Ross, is organizing a one-day seminar, showing an introductory videotape, and giving hands-on Technical Surveillance Counter- Measures (TSCM) training. On 13 January in Paris, the Coface group is organizing a conference, "Risque Pays 98", analyzing risks abroad for companies in 1998. Pn 14-15 January in Camp Pendleton, California, Marine Military Expos is organizing the Marine West meeting. On 15 January in Paris, the official Fondation pour les Etudes de Defence (FED) is holding its "Culture et Strategie" seminar on the topic, "What is an Atlas?" On 29-30 January in Versailles, France, Op'Team is giving a course on "Practicing Technology Watch and Economic Intelligence". On 2-4 February in Huntington Beach, California, the Components Technology Institute is organizing an international workshop on "Electronics Components for the Commercialization of Military & Space Systems". On 2-4 February in Los Angeles, California, Aerospace Lighting Institute is giving a seminar on "Night Vision Goggles and Glass Cockpits". On 2-6 and 9-13 February in Fairfax, Virginia, the Applied Computer Security Education Program is organizing a series of courses at the George Mason University in "Information Security Principles & Practice", "Recent Developments in Information Security", "Practical Security in Networks", and "Enterprise Security - Integration With Open Systems". On 3-4 February in Paris, Euroforum is holding a training seminar on "High Volume Internet - Potential, Applications & Technical Solutions". On 5 February in Paris, the official Fondation pour les Etudes de Defence (FED) is holding its "Culture et Strategie" seminar on the topic, "Africa - Military Cooperation, Prevention & Security of the Continent". On 5-6 February in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, the British Computer Society is organizing a workshop and symposium entitled, "The Challenge of Image Retrieval". On 5-7 February in Orlando, Florida, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is giving a training seminar on "Consequences of Terrorism". On 8-12 February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Overseas Exhibitions Services is organizing the ASTEX Security Equipment and Technical Exhibition. On 9-10 February in Washington, COPEX is organizing the Contingency and Operational Procurement Exhibition (COPEX) USA". On 9-11 February in Orlando, Florida, the Association of the US Army (AUSA) is organizing the AUSA Winter Symposium. On 9-12 February in Prague, Czech Republic, ITE is organizing the "First Financial Exhibition and Conference". On 10-11 February in Arlington, Virginia, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is organizing its first "Commercial Space Transportation Forecast Conference". On 12-13 February in Brussels, the International Seminars and Symposium Center (ISSC) is organizing a seminar on "Airborne Imaging Systems for UAVs and Small Manned Aircraft". On 15-17 February in Anaheim, California, the Helicopter Association International (HAI) is organizing Heli-Expo '98. --------------------------------------------- INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD Intelligence, N. 73, 5 January 1998, p. 4 INTELLIGENCE - COMPLETE KEYWORD, NAME & TITLE INDEX FOR 1997 This complete index of "Intelligence" is a "raw data" index, meaning it indexes the exact term which appeared in text. Indexes usually include only proper names, such as "John F. Kennedy" or "Francois Mitterrand" cited in a text. Often scientific publications have both a "name" index and a "subject" index which includes terms such as "terrorism", "eavesdropping" and "money laundering". The 1997 "Intelligence" index goes even further and includes geographical names such as "Washington", "New York" and "Paris" and the titles of all articles published in 1997. Each of the almost 10,000 entries has an issue number followed by a "page" number. To avoid confusion introduced in the past, the entries have not been condensed, meaning the term "CIA" has been indexed as a single entry for each 1997 issue in which it appeared. All articles -- "full" or "brief" -- begin with one word (a country name or a topic) in capital letters followed by a dash. If it is a "full" article, the dash is followed by the title in capital letters. If it is a "brief" article, only first letters of words are capitalized as in the title of a book. When several articles have been published in 1997 on a country or topic, all the articles, "full" or "brief", are arranged in strictly alphabetic-numerical order following the country name or topic. National institutions, such as intelligence services or political parties, are listed by either abbreviation or full name but always under the name of the country to which they belong. Thus, "CIA" figures under "U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)" or "U.S.A. CIA", and "KGB" under "Russia Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB)" or "Russia KGB". We have made an effort to transliterate full names in the original language -- which cannot be transmitted easily over the Internet -- into standard American English spelling without accents (restricted ASCII format). Transliteration poses some problems for names using non-Latin alphabets and are often not standardized; the best example being "Colonel Muammar Qaddafi". We have tried to adhere to the accepted American spelling for such names. As in previous years, with more than 10,000 entries, a paper copy of this index would have been over 60 pages long even in small print with three columns per page. Keeping in mind that our readers are information and intelligence professionals, we provide the complete index on a computer disk instead of cutting it down to an affordable and acceptable length on paper. The disk has the simple ASCII version (with carriage returns at the end of each line) and is the exact copy of the version sent my email. The email version will be sent out in several separate sections and, of course, in restricted ASCII format. ---------------------------------------------