April 9th,
1999 – Despite that fax, Nicoletta contacted Brian and asked him to
help Terri Robson set up a meeting of the Patrons with the War Child
Trustees. Brian was there with Tom Stoppard; Terri Robson represented
Pavarotti. Tim Spencer was there as chairman of the Board of
Trustees. Brian informed the meeting that he had a letter signed by
Pavarotti, Tom, Brent Hansen and himself. It expressed lack of
confidence in War Child London.
It was agreed
that Bill be ‘retired’, that a new Chief Executive be appointed
and that all Pavarotti projects be placed under the control of non-UK
War Child offices which were War Child Italy, Netherlands and Canada.
Bill and the
London office ignored all this. The Trustees were already fed up with
Bill’s actions and behaviour, frustrated that he would not even
attend their meetings. Most of them resigned. The old Trustees were
replaced with Kate Buckley and Laura Johnson-Graham.
May 9th, 1999
– A month later, Brian Eno wrote to Tim Spencer to let him know
that the Patrons had been informed of the resignations of ‘nearly
the entire Board’ and laid the blame on Tim’s failure ‘to
appreciate the severity of the current situation and to take the
necessary actions agreed upon between the Board and the Patrons at
our joint meeting of 9th April.’1
Bill now began
to peddle the view that the charity could dispense with its Patrons.
He told The Sunday Times, ‘I would like to phase celebrities
out of War Child completely and let the work the charity does speak
for itself. We suddenly became fashionable with all sorts of
undesirables, more interested in promoting their flagging careers
than doing anything worthwhile.’2
Pavarotti had
handed over millions to War Child. Brian not only helped plan the
Centre, but visited Mostar on numerous occasions to give workshops.
Tom Stoppard came to the opening and had helped publicise our
diabetic aid project. When Bill and I were broke, he’d sent us both
money. Brian and his wife, Anthea, had been responsible for three
fundraising events in London which had raised hundreds of thousands
of pounds for the charity.
I was
exhausted and depressed. I was proud of our achievements and felt
part of a great team in Mostar, but the Centre was now running on
empty. I was having to sack staff and cut wages. I was now at the
lowest point in my life. Anne was far away and my only support was
the young people who were shaping the Centre and its future. I had a
constant stream of visitors from the London office who seemed intent
on trying to get me to resign. ‘You need a rest, David’, ‘You
are ill’, ‘You drink too much’. One War Child visitor took
advantage of my absence in Sarajevo and went through my office files
to try and ‘dig the dirt’ on me.
I did my best
to keep the Centre going and started chasing funding possibilities. I
even went to Strasbourg to visit the European Development Fund. On
this visit I passed through London for a few days and had to work
from home because I had been frozen out of the War Child office.
These were pre- email days and I had no fax. I had to pretend that I
was still in Mostar and gave out my contact details there. I could
hardly tell the EU that I was working from home as an ‘exile’
from my own NGO. Under such difficult circumstances, and working from
my attic bedroom, I am proud to say that I managed to secure a grant
for the PMC.
October 10th,
1999 – I resigned as Director and returned to London. I’d been
told that moves were under way to remove me altogether from the
charity. My administrator, Amela Saric, was appointed in my place and
one of her first acts was to write to the charity’s Trustees to
defend me. In her letter she offered to come to London and speak to
them.3 She was wasting her time.
October 22nd,
1999 – The only communication that followed was not a reply to
Amela, but a letter to me from Kate Buckley, the new Chair of
Trustees and a partner at the large city lawyers, Allen and Overy.
She invited me to attend a Trustee Meeting on November 1st to
‘explore your future role within the charity’.
November 1st,
1999 – At that meeting, exploration was not on the agenda. Kate
announced that, in her view, I should be sacked. Meanwhile, the
Trustees had advertised and recruited a new CEO, Raymond Chevalier.
Bill had resigned as War Child Director, but still remained working
for the charity. I had a meeting with Raymond and, afterwards, wrote
him a letter expressing my frustrations.4 I needn’t have bothered
since Raymond was in the post for less than two months. He wrote to
the Trustees from Thailand to inform them he’d resigned.
January 30th,
2000 – A Sunday meeting with Brian and he showed me the draft of a
letter he was writing which he wanted the other Patrons to sign. In
it, he expressed frustration that no fundamental changes had taken
place, that funding for the PMC was in danger, and that there was
‘resistance within War Child to support the Pavarotti projects and
to produce answers to serious financial questions’.5
One of these
questions related to the £140,000 royalties from the song ‘Miss
Sarajevo’. On behalf of the artists, U2’s record company had
asked for this to be sent directly to the PMC.6 The Centre never
received this money.
February 10th,
2000 – Kate Buckley called a Trustee meeting, and they were
presented with Brian’s letter, now co-signed by Luciano Pavarotti,
Sir Tom Stoppard, David Bowie, Juliet Stevenson and Brent Hansen.
There were four trustees present: Kate, Laura Johnson-Graham, John
Gaydon and Anthea Eno. John and Anthea argued for respecting the
wishes of the Patrons.7
As Chair, Kate
Buckley said that I should be sacked, and that they had no other
choice than 1) to organise a split in defence of the London office or
2) to close the charity down altogether. Three days later, Anthea
resigned.8
February 23rd,
2000 – the Trustees met again and John Gaydon argued for the
closure of the London office since the Trustees were unwilling to
consider the terms as set out in the Patrons’ letter to them.
Once again,
Kate argued for my sacking. At this point, John resigned. Kate
introduced a new Trustee, Peter Collins, and these three, Kate, Laura
and Peter went on to agree the termination of my contract.
Brian Eno,
Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Stoppard, Juliet Stevenson, David Bowie and
Brent Hansen were informed that their letter had been ignored and
that I had been sacked. Their resignations followed. A few days later
I received a letter from Juliet Stevenson:
‘Well,
what a terrible story this is, really. An eye-opener for me. I feel
for you so much – thinking back to the early days of the charity
and all that you placed at its service, and your passion and drive
... The work stands, and that is the important thing ... I do feel,
incidentally, that this story should be revealed at some point,
though I am aware of the potential hazards ... Best wishes, Juliet.’
I would be
interested to know whether in legal/ethical terms a new Trustee,
knowing nothing of the history of the charity and never having met
me, was justified in voting for my redundancy. It seems to me to go
against the laws of natural justice. Judges and juries without sight
of, or sound from, the accused.
When I
broached this in a phone call with Kate, she said that Peter Collins
had abstained. I pointed out that his presence in the room allowed
the meeting to be quorate and, therefore, his abstention was
equivalent to a positive vote for my sacking.
February 29th,
2000 – I received my formal redundancy letter.9 Kate apologised for
taking so much time to write to me, but said she had wanted to hear
whether Raymond thought there was a role for me in War Child. Her
opinion that I should be made redundant was strengthened, she argued
curiously, by Anthea’s resignation as a Trustee and the reduced
role of the Patrons. In addition, it was ‘clear’ that I had a
strained relationship with the War Child office and that I should
have sought ‘authority’ for taking the trip to meet with
Pavarotti in New York.10
I was
frustrated and angry. I had been sacked and my concerns had been
ignored. I had had to leave the PMC, which was now in crisis. I had
been told that I had no role in War Child by people who knew nothing
about me or what I had achieved.
To add insult
to injury, I had just found out that Bill and I had been given the
‘Men of the Year Award’ by the World Awards organisation in
Vienna.11 The first I knew of it was when a friend sent me a photo of
a smiling Bill accepting the award in Vienna’s Yard Castle from the
President of World Awards, Mikhail Gorbachev.
I rang them
and asked why I’d not been invited to Vienna with Bill. They told
me that the War Child office had said I was ‘unavailable’.
Dorothy Byrne
of Channel 4 TV introduced me to David Hencke at the Guardian.
He, together with Channel 4 News, set about a joint investigation
into War Child.
January 10th,
2001 – After months of work, the Guardian’s front-page
article appeared under the title, ‘Stars Quit Charity in Corruption
Scandal’. The opening words, ‘Luciano Pavarotti has walked out of
the high-profile overseas aid charity, War Child UK, with five other
celebrity patrons after discovering that its co-founder had taken a
bribe from contractors building a prestigious music centre named
after him in Bosnia.’12
This was
accompanied by an editorial which was critical of the Charity
Commission’s role.13 That night, as the lead story on Channel 4
news, Jon Snow interviewed the new Chair of Trustees, Rosie Boycott.
She broke down in tears when asked for her opinion about the problems
at War Child.
She only had
herself to blame. One of the Trustees who had resigned was Berry
Ritchie, ex-editor of the ‘Prufrock’ column in the Sunday
Times. He had phoned Rosie when he heard that she had agreed to
become a Trustee and would be the new Chair. She had been dismissive
of his warnings that she was about to land herself in a bed of
thorns.
I am often
asked whether the War Child saga has left its scars. Of course it
has, but I know there is a law applying to whistleblowers that
requires a formula. It goes like this. The whistleblower discovers
wrongdoing in an organisation. He/she is faced with ostracism, claims
that they are ill and need to rest. If that tactic isn’t
successful, they are informed they should retire and when that is not
possible, sacked. The wrongdoers will then hide behind conventions
and legalities to prevent information leaks. Finally, the
whistleblower will achieve minor reforms, the wrongdoers will be
exposed, but it will be too late. The wrong has been done, the
wronged have been sacked, and the wrongdoers have quietly manoeuvred
themselves back into positions of influence.
I only managed
to get exposure because I had powerful people behind me, the front
page of a national newspaper and the lead story on Channel 4 News.
Looking back,
without Bill my life would have been different and not necessarily
better. I could not have made the BBC Arena film and would
never have started War Child. He was responsible for giving me the
confidence to continue with the charity when it all seemed hopeless.
I was grateful to him for making numerous journeys to Sarajevo and
Mostar. He was a braver man than me.
I still remain
puzzled as to what drove him. Was it altruism derailed by a moment’s
lapse? I know that he wrestled with his conscience. Just before I
left for Mostar in 1997, we went for a drink. With tears in his eyes,
he told me he was proud of me. I never asked him why. It was a
curious moment and out of character. What roles did others play in
influencing his decisions? On this I have only conjecture, rumour and
hearsay.
I recently
watched a documentary on the relationship between German film
director Werner Herzog and the actor Klaus Kinski. Kinski was subject
to violent mood swings which came close at times to murderous intent.
At the other extreme, he was affable, humorous, generous, even
loveable.
When Herzog
was making Aguirre, Wrath of God in the Peruvian jungle,
Kinski exploded and threatened to walk off the set. Herzog drew a
gun, telling him that it contained nine bullets. Eight for Kinski and
the last one for himself. The actor stayed.
Bill was my
Kinski. It used to amuse me how often he used the first person when
talking with people about the setting up of War Child, even when I
was present.14 As recently as a 2010 interview with Ed Vulliamy in
the Observer, Bill said of the founding of War Child, ‘I
wanted to come up with something that didn’t sound like your
established charity.’15
Over the
years, I got to feel like Trotsky, airbrushed out of the story.
As with most
of us, Bill had good and bad in him in equal measure. It’s a pity
that he has to take the brunt of my criticisms because there were
others close to him who did not have that equal measure. I have a
self-imposed D-Notice which prevents me from saying more about them.
NOTES
1 Brian Eno’s
letter to the Trustees: ‘Dear Mr Spencer, On Friday, 7 May 1999,
the Patrons of War Child were informed of the resignation of nearly
the entire Board of Trustees of War Child UK. At the Trustee meeting
of 5 May, Trustee Ed Morris resigned, followed by Keith Turner. We
understand that Andy MacDonald also wishes to resign, but is barred
legally from doing so as no trustee board can exist with only one
member. These resignations effectively leave War Child UK without a
functioning Board of Trustees. We believe that this incredible and
utterly avoidable calamity is the direct result of your failure, as
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, to appreciate the severity of the
current situation and to take the necessary actions agreed upon
between the Board and the Patrons at our joint meeting of 9 April.
You had been informed at some time before that meeting of Nicoletta
Mantovani’s letter of 7 March to Bill Leeson requesting an
explanation of two extremely serious issues involving War Child UK’s
management: 1) Generally, the 1996 incident concerning the
construction of the Pavarotti Music Centre, in which Bill Leeson and
Mike Terry allegedly were involved in financial irregularities with
the Bosnian firm Hydrogradjna; and, specifically, 2) An accounting of
the $500,000 disbursed to War Child UK for the Pavarotti &
Friends Liberian Children’s Village, construction of which has yet
to begin. At the joint 9 April meeting the Trustees and Patrons
present agreed on the following measures: the immediate dissolution
of War Child UK’s Management Committee; the retirement of Bill
Leeson; the appointment of a new War Child UK Chief Executive; the
immediate handover of the Pavarotti- funded projects to Nicoletta
Mantovani, with administrative control thereof assigned to War Child
Netherlands (the Pavarotti Music Centre); War Child Italy (the
Pavarotti & Friends Liberian Children’s Village); and War Child
USA (the Pavarotti and Friends Guatemala project). Despite this joint
agreement, the only change undertaken thus far is the unexplained
firing of John Carmichael, who it was agreed at the 9 April meeting
would assist War Child Italy in its implementation of the Liberia
project. As far as we know, no other action has been taken. As a
direct result of your inaction, War Child UK is left without a
functioning Board of Trustees. The faith of the Patrons in War Child
UK has been finally exhausted. Because we have always taken our
positions as Patrons of War Child seriously, we feel now obliged to
fulfil our responsibilities by ensuring the proper resolution of the
present crisis. Due to your apparent lack of a similar sense of
responsibility, coupled with the disintegration of the Trustee Board,
we support the reporting of the situation as it now exists to the
Charity Commission on Tuesday, 11 May. This will raise the question
why you, as Chair, failed to resolve the situation, and the reason
for the resignations of your fellow Trustees. We would like to be
able to report to the Commission that some progress, however minor or
belated, has been made toward remedying War Child UK’s untenable
position. While time is quite short, we recommend that the following
actions be taken by the remaining Board of you and Andy MacDonald ...
so that they can be notified to the Commission at the meeting of 11
May: 1) The appointment of three neutral Trustees, recommended by the
Patrons, with no affiliation whatsoever to the War Child UK
Management Committee, so that their impartiality vis-a-vis the
management of War Child UK is guaranteed; 2) Written confirmation
that the course of action decided upon at the joint Patron/Trustee
meeting of 9 April has been implemented, or, at the least, initiated;
on completion of 1 and 2, the resignation of yourself as Chair and
Trustee. We believe that the carrying out of the above would enable
the Patrons to indicate to the Commission on Tuesday that some
progress has been made toward resolving War Child UK’s internal
crisis, progress mitigating against the need for the Commission to
intervene as it determines legally necessary. Nothing short of these
three steps will begin to restore the faith of the Patrons in War
Child UK, and prevent us from taking whatever steps are necessary to
protect our good names. We anticipate your immediate response. Brian
Eno on behalf of (most of) the Patrons.’
2 Bill Leeson,
quoted in The Sunday Times, December 10th, 2000: ‘Bill
Leeson, co-founder of the charity War Child which was set up in 1993
to help victims of the war in Bosnia, is trying to cut celebrities
out of the loop. “I would like to phase celebrities out of War
Child completely and let the work the charity does speak for itself,”
he says. Leeson, more than anyone, knows the benefits that celebrity
endorsement can bring: when he first wanted to raise money, “the
situation was an emergency and I used celebrities mercilessly”. The
result was a compilation CD, Help, which climbed high in the
charts thanks to contributions from Blur, Oasis and the Manic Street
Preachers. But then Leeson found the charity was becoming more famous
for its celebrity endorsers than its work and he had to reassess
things. “We suddenly became fashionable and all sorts of
undesirables, more interested in promoting their flagging careers
than doing anything worthwhile, tried and failed to jump on the
bandwagon.”’
3 Letter from
Amela Saric , Director of the PMC to War Child Trustees, October 9th,
1999. ‘I am writing to you for the first time as PMC Director, but
I find it really necessary. Last few weeks I was in contact with
David Wilson hoping that he will be one of the crucial internationals
willing to help Pavarotti Centre in the future. But from that contact
I realised that he is too depressed by problems with War Child and
with the fact that he has to work from home and not to be welcome in
the organisation he founded. The fact that he may be made redundant
would be wrong and disaster for the PMC. As you all know, he was the
PMC Director for the first two years and most of the successes and
good reputation of PMC we have to thank him for. He found enough
strength and courage to stay with Bosnians, leave very quiet and
secure position in War Child and fight for the Centre in the middle
of a divided city. Pavarotti Centre became the oasis of peace, place
for the children and young people of Bosnia mostly thanks to his
vision and hard work. The only independent centre from all kinds of
politic games. He was brave enough to fight against some local
politicians who wanted to destroy us, to destroy the idea that the
Centre is for all people in Bosnia without regard to their names,
nationality or confession. He was brave enough to give a chance to
young people to have a job, responsibility and hope to find a way to
become normal human beings. And this is not just my or PMC staff
opinion. He has respect of local people and politicians, important
people in OHR, UN, OSCE, BiH politicians. His speeches are still
remembered in Mostar and BiH and he was given a lot of media
attention and strongly respected in my country. Even Croatian press
was nice about him. Most of the international journalists that
visited us in the last few weeks asked me what is happening with him,
is he still in War Child, what is his future role? He is the best
ambassador for us and without him the PMC future is in doubt and we
will lose our best supporter and friend. And at the end he was the
only member of War Child London who cared about this project. I still
believe that through good and continued work of PMC as one of the
biggest projects of War Child, War Child can benefit. We are the best
example of War Child success for possible donors of future War Child
projects. I write this letter as Director of PMC supported by people
working here. We are very willing that one of us come to London and
speaks with you directly if you find it necessary.’
4 Letter to
Raymond Chevalier, December 19th, 1999: ‘I don’t know how bad the
financial side is at War Child, but I am pretty certain that they
have been dipping into PMC monies (the underspend and the “Miss
Sarajevo” income). The PMC will grind to a halt in February without
at least the underspend being sent down ... I realise how delicate
the situation is for you, but the fact is that, as a founder of War
Child, I am unable to work from the London office because of the
susceptibilities of others who should be the ones in exile and not
me. It is deeply frustrating and depressing and prevents me from
getting on with my work. People are beginning to ask me why, when I
am in London, I communicate all the time from a home address. I
should be writing on War Child letterheads to MEPs and the
Directorate General X at the EU to get monies to the PMC which are
owed. I should be setting up meetings at DFID for future funding,
reapplying to the UK Lottery and so on. I cannot do this and it is an
absurd situation.’
5 Brian Eno’s
draft letter, January 30th, 2000: ‘Dear Trustees of War Child UK,
As you know, for the past year we, as the patrons of War Child, have
been waiting to hear that the troubles that blighted the charity were
behind us. We made some suggestions concerning the London office and
we were glad to hear that a new CEO had been found. We have now been
informed that Raymond Chevalier, hired as Chief Executive by the
Trustees in November to, we presume, implement reforms and seek
answers, has suddenly resigned. We have now also heard that funding
for the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar is uncertain, and that a
crisis at the PMC looms. It appears that there is a resistance within
War Child UK to support the Pavarotti projects and to produce answers
to serious financial questions. As our professional reputations are
linked to War Child, and because we still believe in the vision of
War Child as it once was and can be again, we believe it imperative
that the following be implemented immediately: We propose the
immediate appointment of an interim Chief Executive Officer, to work
with the remaining co-founder of War Child, David Wilson, toward the
restructuring of War Child UK. Because the current state of crisis
does not provide adequate time to go through the process of
applications and headhunting, we propose the appointment of a
previous candidate for the CEO position, as interim CEO. This
appointment should be for six months, reviewable by the Trustees at
the end of that period in consultation with the Patrons. During that
time, the Trustees may wish to conduct another application process,
which may include consideration of the interim appointee. We urge
that the Trustees provide the interim appointee with a narrow and
focused remit: namely, to retain a completely independent
professional auditor, whose role it will be (with facilitation from
David Wilson) to examine every aspect of War Child UK’s finances
and make a complete report to the Trustees and Patrons as soon as
possible. During this examination, we believe the interim appointee
should carefully administer and control incoming and outgoing funds,
with weekly reports to the Trustees on all financial and programme
activities. All existing programmes and employees should be closely
scrutinised for financial – and results – effectiveness, and no
additional initiatives or appointments should be made during this
interim period without the full agreement of the Trustees, in
consultation with the Patrons. During this time, David Wilson should
work with the interim appointee to resolve the funding and morale
crisis at the PMC. This person should also work with the Patrons,
Trustees, and other relevant War Child offices to ameliorate this
crisis and work toward short- and long-term support for all of the
Pavarotti projects. We, the undersigned patrons, wish to maintain our
status as War Child patrons, but feel unable to do so unless the
above urgent actions are taken ... We await your earliest response.’
6 Letter to
War Child from James White, Finance Director, Universal Records,
August 19th, 1999: ‘I am pleased to be able to present War Child
two cheques, the first for £133,259, representing the balance of
monies due for worldwide royalties due on the “Miss Sarajevo”
single and the same song on the Passengers album. The second
for £7,961 (after deduction of Gift Aid) for the profits on the UK
single release. This represents accounting up to 31/12/98. Future
accounting will be dealt with directly by our royalties department;
Andy Harwood is the contact. Recently I spoke with the
representatives of the artists involved and was asked to convey their
wish that these monies be passed directly to the Pavarotti Music
Centre in Mostar. Please don’t hesitate to call if you require
further information.’
7 Note on War
Child Trustees: Twelve Trustees resigned as a direct result of the
crisis in War Child: (as of Feb 2001) Sylvester McCoy (actor); Tim
Spencer (lawyer) first resignation; Khawar Qureshi QC, Chair
(barrister); Berry Ritchie (journalist); Liz Huhne (Justice of the
Peace); Ed Morris (charity adviser); Keith Turner (accountant); Tim
Spencer, Chair (lawyer) second resignation; Andy Macdonald (record
producer); Anthea Norman-Taylor (music publisher); John Gaydon (music
promoter); Kate Buckley (lawyer).
8 Anthea
Norman-Taylor’s letter of resignation from Trustees, February 13th,
2000: ‘Dear All, After our meeting on Thursday, Kate summarised the
situation to me again by saying the choices are to either split it up
or wind it up. I have thought long and hard about this as I am sure
we all have. I would like to reiterate what I have been trying to say
for a year, which is not either of the above options. The Patrons and
the music business were attracted to War Child because of its aim to
think long-term about children in war zones, not to just deliver aid,
as so many charities do already. The concept of the Pavarotti Music
Centre epitomised that aim ... to provide a ‘safe haven’ from
ethnic conflicts through the medium of music making. An ancillary
part of this is music therapy. Although it cost a lot to build and
run, the building was actually given (not sold) by the city
authorities because they were convinced this was a valuable addition
to the town and might help it heal the divide. I know I need not say
more about the Centre because I know you all support its existence.
But Pavarotti, Nicoletta and the many people in the music business
who helped this happen are now being told by War Child that that
project was an aberration, that in fact all War Child wants to do is
send money to existing ‘in the field’ NGOs to provide immediate
aid with food, clothing, medicine etc. You must be able to understand
that this is deeply upsetting to Pavarotti (and the other Patrons)
when so much time and thought and money has gone into researching
other long-term projects to help children of war zones in other parts
of the world. And as you know, he was also justifiably very concerned
about the lack of financial controls over his other projects when
being handled by War Child London. It is clear that the London office
was/is being run by a management team who do not want to work with
Pavarotti’s projects. I am astounded that Kate listens to the
London office’s “expertise” on the subject, rather than the
people who have actually been there and been involved (i.e. Nicoletta
Mantovani, Johnny Carmichael, Tom Ehr and David Wilson). But that
seems to be where we are. It is a difference of vision, I guess. The
London office, with Kate’s support, are saying they want to go
their own way. They suggest Pavarotti and those who think differently
to them split off, basically that there be a divorce. My preference
would be not to split and not to fold, but to have all the offices
working together. But this just cannot happen with people who are
against the Pavarotti projects running the London office. Kate seems
to believe that our priority is to make David Wilson redundant. That
would certainly make the London office happy. But this would not help
the situation in that the other offices (certainly Italy, USA and
Canada) cannot work with the London office because it is staffed by
people antagonistic to their aims. As you know, I was in favour of
David going back into the London office, but not as CEO. I had
imagined a situation where we could have a London office being run by
a new CEO and David working for a new body, War Child International
say, which took care of long-term projects involved in healing
through cultural exchange etc., i.e. to co-ordinate with the
Pavarotti projects and hopefully a whole lot of new ones. David has
many ideas on this front; he is a creative and hard-working person. I
had thought then maybe we should wind it up ... that it was a total
impasse. However, I know there are lots of ghastly implications and
that lawyers and accountants would descend like vultures (sorry
Kate), quite apart from the press. I cannot vote to wind it up, but
neither can I vote to split it up. I cannot justify to myself or to
the supporters I have brought in from the music business that War
Child London would be a charity worth supporting. Their little
projects from safe-play areas to diabetic medicine or food deliveries
are being handled already by other charities. I would rather money
went directly to GOAL, for example, to help the Sudanese situation. I
cannot explain why the money has to first go to a London office where
ridiculous overheads are maintained and deducted, then on to another
charity. I find it especially galling that the public are then misled
by press stories implying War Child are directly involved in creative
projects for children of war. Furthermore, I see the staff are saying
they have not had their pay rises. I have no alternative but to
tender my resignation herewith and to inform the Patrons that I am
doing so, giving my reasons as above. In any event the Patrons who
signed the letter to the Trustees of February 10 will step down as
Patrons since their views have been ignored. No doubt the London
office will be delighted by both these moves and no doubt Bill Leeson
and Bob Close, who are in close contact with the London staff, will
feel vindicated. This is what they wanted all along. I am sorry to
leave you all with such a situation, but as you know, I have put a
tremendous amount of time and energy into War Child. However, I can
no longer justify that devotion. With best wishes, Anthea
Norman-Taylor.’
9 My
redundancy letter, February 29th, 2000: ‘Dear David, I am writing
following recent discussions amongst the Trustees. The Trustees have
considered your report of November 1999. We apologise that it has
taken some time to respond to this. The Trustees wished to have the
view of Raymond, as Chief Executive at the time, on this report. That
is why you received no immediate response to it from the Trustees.
Raymond reported at a meeting of the Trustees in January and said
that he did not believe that the report identified any sustainable
role for you and that the charity could not justify creating roles
given its present financial condition. That view is shared by the
current Trustees and, moreover since the date of your report, it
seems that the Patrons will have a reduced role in the light of
Anthea’s resignation as Trustee, Brian’s resignation as a Patron
and Anthea’s indication that many of the other Patrons will also
resign. Moreover it is clear that relations between you and the staff
in the office are strained. In the circumstances, and in the light of
the present financial uncertainty of War Child, the Trustees have
decided that they cannot identify any post to offer you at the
present time and have accordingly concluded that it is not
appropriate to continue to employ you. I am writing therefore to give
you notice of termination of your employment by reason of redundancy.
You are entitled to a week’s notice for every year that you have
worked. I believe that you have worked seven full years and on that
basis give you notice that your contract will end on 19 April, 2000.
You are also entitled to a redundancy payment. This is calculated at
£345 for each year of service. The Trustees do not require you to
work during your notice period. Accordingly, I enclose a cheque for
£5,470.42, being your pay during your notice period and your
redundancy payment. There is an outstanding issue in relation to your
claim to expenses. The Trustees have considered these and given the
uncertainty of your position since September have exceptionally
decided to pay the majority of these expenses even though many of
them were unauthorised. The Trustees are not prepared to sanction the
trip to the United States. Authority for expenditure of this size
should have been sought before it was incurred. Accordingly I enclose
a cheque for £621.73 in relation to these expenses. With regard to
property and papers belonging to the charity we should be grateful if
you could return these to the offices of War Child. If you have any
information in relation to the Music Centre or otherwise that you
believe should be known to the charity, please forward this to the
office as well. Yours sincerely, Kate Buckley, Chair of Trustees.’
10. I prepared
a letter in reply to Kate which I never sent. In it, I wanted to ask
why value was given to Raymond’s opinion when he had been in post
for such a short time and seemed to have fled to Thailand. I wanted
to remind her that the Patrons and most of the Trustees had resigned
in support of me and that the new Trustees had never met me. That it
could not be the case that relationships between myself and the War
Child office staff had been ‘strained’ since 1997 when I’d been
in Mostar; most of them had never met me. That the argument that my
trip to meet Pavarotti in New York should have been sanctioned was
ridiculous. Was I supposed to have contacted Bill and asked for his
permission to take a flight to report on his misdoings? I wrote a
report to the Charity Commission, but they, and the War Child
lawyers, refused to read it or see me. Their grounds were that they
could only deal with the Trustees and that I was no longer employed
by War Child and therefore had no official position. Catch 22.
11
http://wikepedia.qwika.com/de2en/World_Award
12 Guardian
articles on War Child: ‘Stars Quit Charity in Corruption
Scandal’, David Hencke, January 10th, 2010. ‘It Seemed Close to
Deceitful that Our Money Hadn’t Gone Where It Ought to’,
Interview with Brian Eno, January 10th, 2010. ‘Charity Returns
£41,000’, David Hencke, Guardian, January 17th, 2001.
13 ‘The
Commission Has Been Too Slow to Act’, Guardian editorial,
January 10th, 2001. ‘War Child UK, the charity set up to help
victims of the Bosnian war, is in serious trouble. Luciano Pavarotti
and five other celebrity patrons have walked out of the high-profile
overseas aid charity. Eleven trustees have resigned. A joint
investigation by the Guardian and Channel 4 News shows that
Bill Leeson, one of its co-founders, and Mike Terry, a consultant,
took a bribe from contractors building a Bosnian music therapy
centre, named after the Italian tenor. Though it was later repaid by
the charity, the two men are still involved with the charity. There
is also grave concern about high administrative expenses, poor
accounting, inadequate management structures. A spokesman for Mr
Pavarotti said yesterday that he did not want to be associated with
anything corrupt. He had asked about a Liberian children’s project,
but had had to wait for a year before he could get the accounts to
discover that administration had absorbed much of the expenditure. As
a result, he personally directed that all future money from him for
former War Child UK projects in Yugoslavia, Liberia and Guatemala
should be funded by different charities, following which, when the
Kosovo crisis broke, a $1m donation was sent to the United Nations
refugee agency. Nigel Osborne, professor of music at Edinburgh
University and former Director of Music for the centre, described the
bribe as “a catastrophic betrayal”. It was the revelation of the
bribe that prompted the patrons to act. They called for the
retirement of Mr Leeson, the dissolution of the management committee,
and the transfer of the Pavarotti project out of War Child UK’s
control. But nothing happened, leading to an exodus of patrons and
trustees. It was a sad development in a charity that won the support
of a new generation of pop stars. Many of the biggest names helped
raise money for it in the mid 1990s. Other patrons included Sir Tom
Stoppard, the playwright, and Juliet Stevenson, the actor. What
lessons can be learned? The Trustees clearly behaved responsibly.
Thwarted by the charity’s management, they wrote to the Charity
Commissioners in June 1998 about the lack of reports to Trustees and
the refusal to arrange suitable meetings. They also complained of the
“financial impropriety”. Two further letters were sent the same
year complaining about the lack of financial information, the
reluctance of Mr Leeson to cooperate, and the need for a full-time
paid trustee to fill in the gaps in their knowledge and to examine
whether Mr Leeson could be dismissed. The Chairman of the Trustees
called in an independent auditor and independent solicitors. Yet they
were still unable to budge the charity’s management. Hence the
decision of 11 Trustees to resign. The Charity Commission is
conducting a financial audit but has moved much too slowly. It is 30
months since it was alerted to serious problems in the charity and
yet it has still not produced a report or made public any
recommendations. The Commission’s procedures are notorious for
being ponderous and antiquated. John Stoker, the Chief Charity
Commissioner, is planning to upgrade its monitoring role, helped by a
two-year 40% boost to its funding that begins in April 2002. But with
a current £20m budget and a staff of 500, it should already be able
to move more quickly to deal with a serious complaint. Quite separate
from its regulatory role, the Commission needs to review the advice
it gives trustees. War Child Trustees wanted to dismiss their
unsatisfactory managers but failed. With better advice, they should
have been able to get their way.’
14 Bill
Leeson: ‘Do-Gooders Need Not Apply’. Cheryl Dahle, May 31st, 1999
and published in June 1999 issue of Fast Company Magazine.
‘Bill Leeson, the outspoken co-founder of one of Great Britain’s
most high-profile charities, believes that you can do good works
without being a do-gooder. “I am a deal maker. I make deals to get
my story out.” Bill Leeson doesn’t have much patience for do-
gooders. Ask him to talk about most nonprofits – outfits bound by
tradition and filled with self-importance – and the hot-headed Brit
finds it hard to contain himself. “I hate the idea of charities as
holier- than-thou organizations that set themselves apart from the
world, as if they are the chosen ones that will fix things,” Leeson
complains.
“We are the
do-gooders that will sort out all of these problems. You just give us
the money. That’s a bloody crock.” Think of War Child, the
organization that Leeson co-founded six years ago to aid children in
strife-torn regions, as the anti-charity charity. It has delivered
nearly 8 million pounds ($13 million) worth of aid and services to
young people in the former Yugoslavia and in Africa – but it has a
staff of just 15, and it operates on a lean 4% overhead. Its more
ambitious projects (a music-therapy center for children in Mostar,
Bosnia, completed in 1997; a soon-to-be-completed
children’s-education center in Liberia) are decidedly unorthodox.
And no matter how obscure the countries that it’s working in may
be, War Child maintains a glamorous image in its home country, where
it hosts “eat-ins” at chic restaurants and puts on concerts
featuring Luciano Pavarotti, U2, Spice Girls, and Oasis. In short,
Leeson has created a new breed of nonprofit – one that combines
sympathy with savvy, noble ideals with self-interest, and good works
with smart business. Leeson, now 55, got his first close-up view of
war in 1993, when he traveled to Croatia to film a documentary on
artists. His experience there changed his life – not just because
of the violence that he saw, but because of the effect that the
violence had on young survivors. Walking through the streets of
Zagreb, he saw children’s drawings hanging in shop windows. “They
were just what you’d expect of children’s artwork – stick
figures drawn with brightly coloured crayons,” he says. “Except
that they were pictures of guns and corpses. It was all stuff that
these kids had seen with their own eyes. It was horrifying. I found
it terribly difficult to go back to my normal job again.” So he
didn’t. Soon after returning to London, Leeson organized a
fund-raiser. Friends encouraged him to take personal control of how
the money that he raised would be spent – instead of donating it to
a charity whose overhead (according to War Child) would take as much
as 12% off the top. Ten days later, War Child was born. From the
start, Leeson recognized that his competition was not other charities
– it was indifference and ignorance: “When people watch TV, they
see a ten minute news program with half a dozen wars, each reduced to
a 30-second sound bite. People get desensitised, and they flip the
channel.” One of the organization’s first efforts was to sponsor
a mobile bakery in Mostar. Instead of delivering rations to thousands
of people for just a day, War Child supplied fresh bread to one
village for several months. Donors who suffered from compassion
fatigue suddenly heard stories about their dollars buying warm bread
for families. War Child has also helped reforge the link between rock
music and good works – a relationship that had become decidedly
unhip to teenagers, who saw earlier efforts (such as the We Are
the World: U.S.A. for Africa recording) as cheesy. “We had a
generation of young people in the UK who felt that charity had
nothing to do with them,” Leeson says. “We wanted to show them
that charity could be cool.” War Child was able to persuade some of
the UK’s hottest bands to write songs for an album. The CD, titled
Help and produced by Brian Eno, raised £1.5 million ($2.4
million). Leeson also understands the power of the media. Starting
with his first fundraiser, a concert in London’s Royal Festival
Hall, he has always drawn impressive coverage. Part of War Child’s
media success has been the result of connections: it helps to have
friends who control the cameras. Plus, as the fighting in the Balkans
has received more and more exposure, the plight of people in Bosnia
and Croatia has gained in “popularity.” But neither of those
reasons explains how War Child has managed to get such sustained
coverage while so many other non-profits toil in obscurity. Leeson
explains it this way: “I am a deal maker. I make deals to get my
story out.” He’s not talking about bribes; he’s talking about
working with the media to generate compelling footage and dramatic
stories – a form of collaboration that is deemed taboo by many
traditional charities. “The media world and the aid world have
completely different agendas, but few nonprofits bother to try to
understand what the media agenda is about.” source: http://www.
fastcompany.com/37241/do-gooders-need-not-apply
15 Ed
Vulliamy, ‘War Child and The Bosnian War 15 Years On’, The
Observer, Sunday, July 4th, 2010
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