Today we welcome Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness.
Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide.
The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels.
They created the Blood Diamond campaign to counter the De Beers diamond cartel and multiple rebel groups in Africa that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s.
Their findings were also critical for getting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and trials for crimes against humanity.
Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans, which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid-August.
This is part two of a two part episode with Mariah Yager from SMA to cohost the discussion on DOD Integrated Influence.
Patrick Alley:
Global Witness: https://www.globalwitness.org/
Book, Terrible Humans: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/patrick-alley/terrible-humans/9781800962385/
Book, Very Bad People: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/very-bad-people-inside-story-fight-against-corruption/
Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/lUIrYBtkfl4
SMA version of the interview: SMA version of the interview: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_31july2024/
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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association
and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.
We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.
To contact the show, email us at [email protected]
or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org
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Special thanks to the Juanes Channel for the intro sample of Desde Que Despierto Hasta Que Duermo. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZCeqUVeRMU
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Transcript
00:00:03 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Welcome, Patrick, to the show.
00:00:40 JACK GAINES
This is a quick introduction, and then we'll get right into it. Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide. The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels. They created the Blood Diamond Campaign to counter the De Beers Diamond Cartel that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. Their findings were also critical in getting the U .N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and the war crimes trials for crimes against humanity. Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People, in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans. which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid -August. So, welcome, Patrick. With all the unrest in Venezuela, Ukraine, Le Levant, Africa, we live in interesting times.
00:01:36 PATRICK ALLEY
How are you? I'm good, thank you, and thank you very much for asking me to take part. It's a real privilege. I'm a child of the Cold War, and nuclear war was sort of ever -present when I was younger. We were really quite worried about it. And then the world seemed to be quite a nice place for many years. And it seems we've gone back to Cold War II, which is a bit of a worry. Yeah.
00:02:01 JACK GAINES
The reason I brought you on today is because I felt like EOD and the US government overall struggles with strategic competition. We are in action with Russia, China, the four plus one, basically, trying to figure out how to counter their foreign policy goals. And we're finding that they're... more and more using criminal groups or paramilitary groups that have criminal practices to achieve their foreign policy goals. And North and Central Africa are excellent examples with the Russians and Wagner helping to provide coups and then slowly taking over countries' management so that they can get to the mines and to the timber and then selling that to avoid Russian sanctions for the war in Ukraine. Yeah.
00:02:48 PATRICK ALLEY
In the case of Wagner, and I have to give credit to the wonderful US -based organization, The Century, but I talked to them extensively for my book, Terrible Humans, and the Central African Republic, CAR for short, and how Wagner has sort of infiltrated. And many people in this call may know this well, but it was an extremely clever and strategic operation. Obviously, we all know Wagner is sort of the deniable arm of Russian military or foreign policy. But how they wheedled their way in, the Russian resource of Sochi with the new president promising him arms, and in the end, not all of the subjects of that conversation were made public, but what obviously transpired, was the Russians did everything for that guy. So first of all, they gave him personal security through Wagner. Wagner created a troll farm, and so they started manipulating public opinion. The Russians created the ruling political party, the Mouvement de l 'accord, the United Hearts movement in Central African Republic. The national election server is based in Russia. And as they were doing all of this, they were training the army in everything from straightforward combat to torture. And then... Wagner troops were with the army and various rebel groups against other rebel groups throughout Central African Republic, not just trying to win battles, but creating terror. The motto was leave no trace. So mass rape, mass execution was the order of the day. And you're right, they also set up companies, particularly in gold. diamonds and timber. A lot of this obviously became much more relevant when Russia unreaded Ukraine and sanctions started to bite, because these valuable commodities are leaving Central African Republic, as we speak, and making their way, or the money from them making their way to Russia. And when I finished that chapter, before the book was published, Wagner arrived in Niger, and there was a coup, the president was locked up. And I thought to myself, I wonder how long it'll be before the population are waving Russian flags in the streets. And it was the next day. And you think, well, they didn't just arrive overnight. There's something in the planning.
00:05:16 JACK GAINES
Well, you met the guy that goes out there to prep for an event and passes out flags.
00:05:21 PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I didn't meet him. I talked to him on Zoom. He was only involved in the Central African example, but it's a really good example. He's called Abdullah Ibrahim. And he was related by marriage to senior people in the government and indeed to the president. And when the new president came in and he was voted in and there was no reason necessarily to think he was going to be awful at that time, this guy went back in and started campaigning politically and building up cells in France, the ruling party amongst the diaspora in France. But then it started getting a bit murky and he was asked, initially to organize welcoming demonstrations so when the first armored vehicles came in from russia they were met by enthusiastic crowds and he was the guy who hired the enthusiastic crowd and bought them the baseball caps and the t -shirts and the flags to wave and gave me the numbers which are frighteningly small i can remember top of my head like 25 30 000 bought a demonstration but then he got even worse and he was asked to impersonate a rebel general, and to call on the killings of these people and those people in order so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.
00:06:38 JACK GAINES
so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.
00:06:43 PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, black ops, which by that time he felt he had no choice but to do because he was in a very bad situation. In the end, he fled and he's back in France. So basically,
00:06:53 JACK GAINES
basically, Wagner came in, they helped with the governance and security by bringing in forces and training troops. But then they got so close and in tight with leadership in the government, they were able to also dictate the policy within that government and then open up new areas for them to exploit.
00:07:11 PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think what's interesting about it is CAR is perhaps the best documented of the countries they've gone into. That's arguable, but I think it probably is. Wagner have a presence. And I was thinking, actually, just over the last day, what can you do about Wagner? And that's maybe the subject of this conversation or another, whatever you like. But one of the things I didn't think of, because it hadn't happened very often, is what happened in Mali over the last few days, where Wagner actually lost on the battlefield. And I think quite a few Wagner troops were killed. And that's not a common thing. Usually they've had the upper hand. So maybe there's another way.
00:07:57 JACK GAINES
And do you think that is more of an opposition leader frustrated with doing neocolonial control of the region? Do you think that's a reaction to that? Because I know the Tarigs are famously anti -government in most countries.
00:08:11 PATRICK ALLEY
Yes, I think they are. And I honestly don't know the answer to that question. And of course, there were links with al -Qaeda, IS, etc. So it could be any number of reasons. I think going to the point you're making, which I think is the really important one about neocolonialism, is that's exactly what Russia is doing. They were doing it in Libya and Syria way before the invasion of Ukraine. But with the invasion of Ukraine, it's become probably much more important to them, I think, because of the resources that Africa holds. So in a sense, it's straight back to the colonialism perpetrated by the British, the Belgians, the French, the Portuguese a century or more ago. It's the same thing. And it's just as brutal. And it's just as essential. And the global north wants those resources. And I think those countries that we've talked about are important in their own right from a resource perspective amongst others. But if you start looking at places like DR Congo, which possesses two -thirds of the world's cobalt, essential for the energy transition, if the same thing happens there, and I believe Russia did sign a military pact with the Congolese government over the last few months, then, you know, you've got a globally significant problem.
00:09:27 JACK GAINES
Right. And we also had talked in the past about how you and Global Witness have also mapped some of Wagner's networks for getting either the resources out or funneling money to Russia in order to avoid sanctions that are going on with Ukraine. I remember you mentioning a gold transfer in the UAE, which now has stopped, correct?
00:09:50 PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I mean, UAE, I think, is a very good point to raise because it's kind of mafia central, isn't it? It's where you want to go if you want to launder money or launder resources. So I know the US were particularly looking at the activities of a guy called Colotti, who was one of the major gold refiners in UAE, and literally billions of dollars worth of cash transactions, people actually coming off the streets with gold and walking away over a short period of time with billions of dollars for cash. But I think it goes further than that, because one of the things I mentioned in the book, and this was something I think it was CBS News tracked, is that one of the Aleutian 76 transport planes based in CAR flew into the UAE. They tracked it going there. Another Aleutian 76 flew from Russia to UAE, and those planes shared a runway for eight hours. Then they went back to where they came from. No one actually knows. what happened but my suspicions would be that resources were going out arms or whatever were coming in right in your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that
00:10:58 JACK GAINES
your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically
00:11:08 PATRICK ALLEY
that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that was that because most of the correspondent banks, and I think all of the correspondent banks, of banks in CAR are based in France, which theoretically gives the French authorities the ability to monitor transactions. And they thought, well, how are we going to get around that? And then they thought, okay, let's fly the money in by private jet, which is what they resorted to doing in the end.
00:11:37 JACK GAINES
So with Global Witness, they're on the ground where they know people and they've got connections and they're building a case. through these observati