Africa: U.S. Sought Personal Details of Great Lakes, Sahel Leaders

29 November 2010
allAfrica.com

Cape Town — A secret diplomatic cable sent to American diplomatic missions in the name of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton last April sought personal details – including fingerprints, DNA and iris scans – of leaders in the Great Lakes region, including political, military, business and religious figures.

The cable, sent from Washington to missions in Bujumbura, Kampala, Kigali and Kinshasa, was among 220 released by the WikiLeaks website on Sunday. WikiLeaks says it plans to release more than 250,000 State Department communications in the coming months, of which more than 15,000 are classified as secret.

The cable to Great Lakes region missions outlined what it called "reporting and collection needs" for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. It was dated April 16, 2009.

Apart from seeking biometric details for "key and emerging political, military, intelligence, opposition, ethnic, religious, and business leaders", the cable – and a separate directive sent to missions in the Sahel region – directed diplomats to collect local leaders' telephone, cell phone, pager and fax numbers, internet and intranet "handles", internet e-mail addresses, web site identification URLs, credit card account numbers, frequent flyer account numbers and work schedules.

Journalists who have examined all the documents published on Sunday report that biometric data were also sought by Washington for key United Nations officials.

The Australian newspaper, owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, characterized the State Department directives as "a secret order signed by Hilary Clinton" which "directed American diplomats to act as spies around the world against friends and enemies alike." In London, The Guardian suggested that the directive "appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying."

The directive covering the Sahel is also dated April 16, 2009, and specified eight countries: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

It said a separate document – which it named as "the West Africa Littoral directive" covered the coastal countries of West Africa: Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin. This directive does not yet appear to have been published by WikiLeaks.

For full details of the types of information sought by the directives, see:

REPORTING AND COLLECTION NEEDS: AFRICAN GREAT LAKES (DROC, BURUNDI, RWANDA)

REPORTING AND COLLECTION NEEDS: WEST AFRICA SAHEL REGION

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