Thoughts from London

O Harrold there's a woolf at the door
Why Harrold, that was quite a contretemps you found yourself in, wasn't it. It was quite a trick too, a kind of Houdini act. In our childhood days there was this Indian magician named Gogia Pasha. Well we were told he was Indian probably because our knowledge of geography hardly cleared the shores of Sri Lanka, Ceylon as it was then.

It does not really matter where he came from. After all as dear old Harrold knows who cares about ethnicity as long as he and his colleagues can eradicate poverty and probably the country as well.

Anyway this Gogia Pasha really made things appear and disappear and we kids were thrilled to bits. Then at Peradeniya university there was this chap called Ronald de Alwis who pulled so many tricks that he ended up as president of the Sri Lanka Magic Circle. But he could not do what one of his predecessors as president, did. Ranapala Bodinagoda, when he was chairman of that publishing company popularly known as Lake House, used to make editors disappear. As one who believed in the impermanence of all things, I suppose, he saw nothing intrinsically wrong in playing musical chairs with the editorial seats.

Still none of them would have had that magical quality to make words disappear and reappear in a different shape and form. After days of ho ha and ha ho when more aggressive participants in our rather turbulent politics were threatening to kick Harrold all the way to Washington or wherever he came from, the world banker himself was yelling misquoted.

Not be outdone sections of the media derived a vicarious pleasure by having a go at this newspaper. Naturally everybody was keen to see how much more blood letting there would be.

So it was with much anticipation (not to mention some trepidation) that I waited for the next round. So Sunday came and there I was reading transcripts of the Peter Harrold interview.

Well the more I read the more I was confused, I should confess. After all Harrold himself had urged all and sundry to carefully review what he had said. Since the only way one could do that was by studying the transcript closely, there I was, my eyes glued to the printed page.

But the more one examines it the more confusing it becomes. Here was an interview that was presumably recorded by both the interviewer and the interviewee. Then surely the transcripts should be the same, unless of course, unknown to us here, some enterprising manufacturer has produced recorders that change words-and possibly sentences or even thoughts- as it goes along.

If such recorders had been manufactured surely we would have heard about them. For the first persons rushing to buy them would be politicians who would now find it easier to change their words than be forced to eat them.

Curiously there is a crucial difference between the Harrold remarks as carried in the bank's website, excerpts of which were carried in the media, and the recording of the same remarks reproduced in this newspaper last Sunday.

The crucial words are these. The Sunday Times reproduction of the interview recording, has Harrold referring to the LTTE-controlled areas of the country as "an unofficial state" whereas the World Bank recording (according to the published excerpts) has him saying "that's an official statement."

These two quotes differ widely. If so, both cannot, logically, be correct. Not only do some of the words differ, there are also words in one excerpt that are not in the other. One says "state" and the other "statement."

At this point it is pertinent to ask whether both recordings are clearly audible, whether there are any "grey" areas that could have led to the "misquotes" that Harrold claims were in the original story in this newspaper.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with the recording made by the interviewer, for Harrold himself now says that he is "sorry" he "did not speak more clearly."

Unfortunately his belated mea culpa does not sound very convincing. It might be recalled that when The Sunday Times story first appeared, Harrold's reaction was one of umbrage. He not only claimed he was misquoted but also said "a careful review of a recording of the interview shows" what he claimed he actually said.

That was at the beginning of the week. By the end of the week he was saying he was sorry for not speaking very clearly and that any "reasonable person could have misunderstood" him.

I pointedly asked last Sunday why he was insisting on this "careful review." Was he trying to say that this newspaper had not done so or was this some sort of verbal device to vindicate himself.

Well, now it's quite a climb down from the high ground he stood on right at the start. Why, he now says that any "reasonable person" could have misunderstood him. One would have thought that in his line of work he would be dealing with reasonable people. I don't know about his office, but at least out there in the wide world there should be reasonable people who are not easily sold on the World Bank's poverty reduction crap.

First there was SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme) and governments saps for believing in them. Now these failed policies have been magically turned into PRSPs (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers) so that developing countries themselves could be blamed for failures.

Those who have read of the protests and demonstrations that are crippling Bolivia today, know that they have their genesis in World Bank policies including the privatisation of public utilities such as water which resulted in sharply rising prices, putting water out of reach of the poor.

From failed land reform in Brazil to Argentina's financial crisis much of the troubles could be traced to the World Bank and the IMF. Bolivia's public protest is part of a turn to the political left in Latin America angered by the free market policies imposed by the West led by Washington's terrible twins.

Now there is danger that the World Bank would become even more free-market, privatisation- oriented under the possible leadership of Paul Wolfowitz, President Bush's nominee for the WB's top job. As one wolf -James Wolfensohn- exits a dangerous new wolf is at the door.

Make no mistake Mr Harrold, he does not take kindly to those who try to mollycoddle groups that the United States have outlawed as international terrorist organisations.

Only the other day the Bush administration said it will not provide aid to those they perceive as terrorist groups. So perhaps Peter Harrold should drop these references to unofficial states or official statements or whatever the next verbal construction would be, as reasonable persons like Paul Wolfowitz might well misunderstand his intentions.

Wolfowitz loves to chew up those he dislikes. See what he did to Iraqis. This wolf would love to do the same to tigers.

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