When Diplomats Blog

The news that Jan Pronk, the UN Special Envoy for Sudan, was no longer welcome in Sudan raises important issues about the authority and wisdom of diplomats who give public expressions of their personal views. Jan Pronk’s blog is quite good, and offers frank, personal insights about the ongoing crisis in Sudan. But on October 14, 2006 Pronk got into trouble with the government of Sudan for writing this on his blog:

Sudan promptly requested Secretary General Annan to withdraw Pronk. Thus far, the UN has refused to do so, with a UN spokesman stating that Pronk “remains the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Sudan, and serves with the Secretary-General’s full confidence.” But the issue of a UN diplomat blogging obviously raises important issues. The UN spokesman has stated that Pronk’s blog only expresses his personal views and that “[t]here have been a number of discussions with Pronk regarding his blog and the expectation of all staff members to exercise proper judgment in what they write in their blogs.” And then when the spokesman was asked “whether the United Nations would establish a policy on UN officials talking to blogs about their official work” he said, that “whatever policy changes are made would be interpretations of existing staff rules…. [T]he Secretary-General has fairly liberal rules on staff being able to write and speak freely, but they need to exercise judgment.”

I have mixed feelings about the notion of a top UN diplomat blogging. On the one hand, I find it quite refreshing. It allows important diplomats–with the approval of their superiors–the opportunity to share unfiltered, detailed, and topical information to the world. Sometimes the world does not need or want an intermediary such as the BBC or the New York Times to filter what a diplomat is conveying. If you read it there is a surprising freshness to Pronk’s blog. But on the other hand, after reading the blog I would suggest that it strains credulity to say that his blog is strictly a diplomat expressing his own personal views. Nonsense. There is a sense of official condemnation by the United Nations when its top diplomat in Sudan publicly writes that Sudanese army mobilizations violate UN resolutions. If a top UN diplomat in Sudan says something of that sort, the message is not merely personal.

I would think that UN diplomats at a certain level should be free and even encouraged to blog in appropriate circumstances. To the extent the goal of the diplomat (and the organization or government he or she represents) is to convey a message to a broader public, then blogs provide a new and useful tool in the diplomatic toolbox. But the Pronk case suggests that such diplomatic postings may not be perceived as mere personal musings, UN protestations to the contrary.

But who knows, that may be the point. Perhaps the UN wanted to give Pronk freedom to speak more candidly by describing the blog as personal reflections. That insulates the organization from criticism, and yet frees the diplomat to pursue a more effective strategy of public condemnation. I would suspect that this is the true agenda. Otherwise, if it were simply a matter of personal freedom and reflection, we would see plenty of low-level diplomats blogging with minimal impact, instead of top level diplomats blogging for maximum effect.