Overwhelming support for WikiLeaks at Debates Tuesday, 25 January 2011 02:21

DOHA: WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website, received an overwhelming support from a predominantly Arab audience at the Doha Debates yesterday.

The motion “This House believes the world is better off with Wikileaks” was carried with 74 percent of the audience voting in favour. Twenty six percent voted against the motion.

Arguments for the motion focused on the right of the people to know the truth when governments try to hide it and lie to the world. The other side argued that WikiLeaks had undermined national security and made the functioning of governments more difficult.

Speaking for the motion, Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran and currently an Associate fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, said WikiLeaks would force governments to take wise decisions.

“Accountability is essential. We need good policies and sensible actions from governments. Transparency tends to produce good results,” said Dalton.

He, however, added that journalists should not conspire to steal confidential information. Allegations against Julian Assange are exaggerated. He didn’t steal the cables. WikiLeaks has not yet revealed many secrets. It is a matter of trust.

Carl Ford, a former US State Department intelligence chief and now adjunct professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, who spoke against the motion, said that WikiLeaks had endangered trust, which is a major aspect of diplomacy.

The revelations of WikiLeaks could be counterproductive since they would force governments to tighten up and watch people more closely.

“If the governments tell the truth we don’t need WikiLeaks. The government don’t do that. So we need WikiLeaks,” said Carne Ross, former British diplomat who quit government service over the Iraq war, who joined Dalton to support the motion.

“All governments are vulnerable to WikiLeaks. This will make them more responsible. What they do in private should match up with what they say in public,” said Ross. He described WikiLeaks as a “crude but necessary response” to the lies being told by the governments to their people.

Speaking against the motion, Scott Gilmore who heads the Peace Dividend Trust – a non-profit humanitarian organisation- called WikiLeaks a “form of terrorism” that has endangered national security and forced governments to change their behaviour. “Diplomacy is not a Facebook,” commented Gilmore replying to a question from the audience about people’s right to information.

He alleged that WikiLeaks was targeting governments that are more transparent and were not revealing secrets about totalitarian governments.

Responding to Gilmore, Ross said WikiLeaks had become a threat to oppressive governments. It talks about several authoritarian governments that the US has been dealing with and the US itself. The assumption that governments should maintain privacy for security seasons should change.

“This trust does not come automatically. People must give this to the governments… The relationship between government and the people should change. We should demand more transparency from the governments. And the world can be better off with WikiLeaks,” said Ross.   THE PENINSULA

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