09/02/2018 Newsnight

He was a 68-year-old man

using an Oxfam villa to invite young

women to use for sex in a country

that had just been through

a devastating earthquake.

What bit of that was

normal or acceptable?

It is not normal or acceptable,

that is what we said at the time

and I will say now.

Tonight...

The government exists has no

tolerance.

How rife is it within the charity

and the sector at large?

As the Prime Minister orders a full

and urgent investigation,

we'll ask what went wrong.

Also tonight...

As Syria's war rumbles on,

Newsnight receives fresh footage

that suggests the Assad regime has

returned to chemical warfare.

It looks like significant chemical

weapons attack, without shadow of a

doubt.

And this could well be Sarin?

It could well be.

Raising the Black Flag.

America's bad boy meets

Newsnight's bad boy.

Henry Rollins meets John Sweeney.

We're as terrified as you are.

Um...

Do you fancy an arm wrestle?

Good evening.

In the last few minutes and

apartment but International

Development has announced it is

reviewing work with Oxfam after The

Times revealed documents which

suggested the charity had covered up

a sexual exploitation charity in

Haiti. Three charity workers

including the Country Director

resigned and Paul Morgan dismissed

after an investigation uncovered

various examples of inappropriate

behaviour, including the use of

positives, bullying and intimidation

at the height of the relief effort

following a devastating earthquake

in 2011.

Today the former chief executive

of Oxfam told this programme

she was aware of other,

earlier cases of sexual exploitation

by staff members whilst

she was in charge of the charity.

Tonight, questions are being asked

about why Oxfam failed to warn other

aid agencies of the behaviour,

as Oxfam admitted it could not

guarantee the former employees had

not taken up other jobs among

vulnerable people in disaster

zones around the world.

The 2010 earthquake in

Port-au-Prince killed 220,000 people

and left another 1.5

million homeless.

The international relief rescue

was huge and at its very

centre, the renowned British charity

and household name, Oxfam.

Today an investigation

by The Times revealed

that amidst the devastation and

trauma of the quake-ravaged country,

members of the charity's staff

were engaged in sexual exploitation,

bullying and intimidation, as well

as the downloading of pornography.

Oxfam was made aware

of what it called

a culture of impunity

at the

time and allowed three men

to resign, sacking four others for

gross misconduct.

The press release issued

at the time made no mention

of sexual misconduct

but the confidential report stated

it could not rule out

the possibility that

the prostitutes were under age.

One of the men allowed

to resign without

disciplinary action was the country

director, Roland Van Hauwermeiren,

who admitted using prostitutes

at the villa rented for him by Oxfam

with charitable funds.

The chief executive

at the time, Barbara

Stocking, offered him

a dignified exit,

including a month's pay,

to

avoid repercussions

on the charity's work and staff.

Oxfam's mission statement

champions helping

marginalised women

to claim their rights

and empowering people

to

create a secure future.

So why were the men

involved never publicly

disciplined?

Why did the charity allow

this perception of a

cover-up?

And how can taxpayers be sure that

money is being spent by

organisations with thorough

oversight of the actions of their

staff?

Before we came on air,

I talked to Barbara Stocking,

Oxfam's former CEO.

She stood down from

the role in 2013.

I asked her why she hadn't

investigated the people involved.

The first moment I heard

back in 2011 we sent

an investigation team.

Also, it's not true that it

wasn't transparent.

We put a press release out

when the investigation

team was investigating.

We put a press release

out after that as well.

Hang on a second.

The Charity Commission said they're

still awaiting the full report

and the man at the centre of this,

your country director,

Roland van Hauwermeiren,

was not even fired.

Let's take one at a time.

The Charity Commission said

at the time, because we informed

them about it, reported to them

about it, and they said

that there were no regulatory

concerns about it.

That's what happened at the time.

We also actually told DfID.

Why do they say then that they're

still awaiting the full report?

They're still awaiting

that report from you.

I don't know because I'm not

still there but at the time

there was no question that they had

said, they were happy

that the trustees were taking this

seriously and dealing with it.

They were happy that a man hadn't

even been fired for having

exploitative sex with prostitutes

in a disaster strewn

country like Haiti?

Well, let me talk about

that, that's the second

point of the question.

The reason, you go

in, you investigate.

The first thing they did was talk

to the country director.

At that time he confessed to, well,

his own behaviour at least,

we were very concerned if I remember

right that we thought

there were more people in this

and we wanted to make sure

we could investigate and get

all of that out which is why,

because he'd already said,

I'll resign, I'll go,

that we said we would do that.

And that took...

What?!

So your country director had

admitted to exploitative sexual

behaviour, predatory behaviour

with young women, prostitutes,

in a country he was meant to be

helping and you just thought fine?

No, of course not.

You thought we'll let him go

and you paid him an extra month.

Because we wanted him

there because what we were afraid

of was that there were more people

there and we didn't immediately want

that exposed and we wanted to make

sure we could get in and also make

sure there was not any

bullying of the people.

So you used somebody

who was basically an offender

to help you with the investigation?

He was an offender because he

had used prostitutes.

He was a 68-year-old man

using an Oxfam villa to invite young

women to use for sex in a country

that had just been through

a devastating earthquake.

What bit of that was

normal or acceptable?

It's not normal or acceptable,

that's what we said at the time

and I will say now.

That was completely unacceptable

which is why we did

the investigation and why,

out of nine people that

were investigated...

You literally carried

on paying him...

For one month.

Yeah, because you cut

a deal with him.

Why would you cut a deal?

Because we wanted to make sure

that we could get the whole lot

of them dealt with and out

of the way when it became clear

there was a group of men

who were doing this.

Do you know where he works now?

Do you know where the three others

that were fired work?

Of course I wouldn't,

I'm not in Oxfam, I haven't been

in Oxfam for five years.

He was 68, I doubt if he's

worked at all, frankly.

There were three others,

we don't know where they are.

We would never...

Well, they have gone and have

to make their own lives,

we would never give them any

reference or anything whatsoever.

Hang on a second, we don't even know

who those people are,

they have not been identified.

For all you know they could be

working in another aid agency,

they could be working with young

women again or with children.

What we did quite a lot at that time

with all the agencies,

and being clear, all the agencies,

not in Haiti only but in countries

where there were emergencies,

where there were conflicts,

we will all working and working

together to try to make sure that

actually nobody that we knew was not

responsible who had that sort

of behaviour, would actually come

into any other aid agencies.

That had to be done.

Actually there are

personnel issues...

I'm confused.

Do you actually know

where these people are now?

I don't know...

Do you know that

they're not working?

I would not know because I've been

out of Oxfam for five years,

you would have to ask

somebody else that.

But isn't it extraordinary that

you knew about all of this for seven

years and yet it has only come

to light, the kind of allegations...

No, not at all.

As I said, we went in

and we investigated fully.

Out of nine people that

were investigated, only

two were exonerated.

You don't think there's any improper

behaviour on the part of Oxfam,

just to clarify that?

I don't think so.

You may have done something

different in the past but these

are very difficult circumstances.

What do you mean?

What I mean is, we investigated...

What I would expect

an organisation to do is...

As you know, these sorts of things

are around in all sorts

of parts of the world.

What to expect the agency to do

is to investigate fully and then

to actually deal with those people

and actually stop them

working and get them out

and all the rest of it.

That, you know...

Get them out quietly,

carry on paying them if need be, do

a deal which is what we know about.

No, no, no, we dismissed four

of those as well out of that.

Do you know what, your mission

statement is championing

equal rights for women.

Absolutely.

Helping marginalised

women claim their rights.

Yes, yes.

So why wouldn't your first instinct

be to say, this is shocking,

we are rooting it out,

we're telling the world

that we've done this.

We did do.

We did do.

As I said, we put out

a press release about

when the investigation went in...

So you're saying nothing new,

nothing new today, nothing

new about the story at all?

Only things that come

in that we have no idea

where they come from but at the time

but at the time...

Do you think you treated your

country director in the right way,

letting him resign before

he was fired, paying him off,

yes, only for a month

but still letting him do

a deal on his own terms?

I don't know, I might now, seven

years later and with hindsight,

do something different

but at the time that seemed

like the right thing to do to make

sure that this whole thing got

closed down as fast

as we could possibly do it.

Was this the first time you ever

heard of exploitative sexual

behaviour going on at Oxfam?

No.

No, because, no, I can only think

of one or two that come to mind

but basically we had already agreed

that any sign that anybody

was doing this and there

would be an investigation.

That investigation was noted

and went to our trustee

board once a quarter.

From 2011...

But before that.

Before that you knew

that there was sexual

exploitative behaviour?

Sexual exploitation was going on,

I can't say it is going on,

was going on, we knew

in a lot of places...

With Oxfam staff.

With some Oxfam staff who had been

investigated over...

I was there 12 years,

I can think of probably one,

formerly, that I know of that

absolutely was dismissed.

Wouldn't it have been so simple

to send out a really clear signal

by getting your country director

fired and investigated by police

instead of allowing him to do a deal

that might allow for more cases

to come up?

We took legal advice in Haiti

and it was made quite clear

that the police would not be

interested in this.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Dame Barbara Stocking. The

government is reviewing its work for

Oxfam in light of these allegations

and in a statement, said it

acknowledged hundreds of Oxfam staff

had done no wrong but added the way

this appalling abuse of vulnerable

people was dealt with raises serious

questions that Oxfam must answer.

There is more on their story in The

Times tomorrow.

As you heard in that interview,

Dame Barbara couldn't say for sure

that the dismissed staff hadn't gone

on to work for other

aid organisations.

The Times has discovered that

the man at the heart of the story -

country director Roland van

Hauwermeiren - did work

elsewhere afterwards,

in a senior role for a French

charity at a project in Bangladesh.

The bosses of that organisation have

even said they received positive

references about Mr van

Hauwermeiren from Oxfam.

Full details are in

the Times tomorrow.

Well joining me now from Nottingham

is the MP Andrew Mitchell -

he was the Development Secretary

at the time of the problems

Oxfam had in Haiti.

And with me in the studio

is Anthony Stewart, chair

of the Haiti Support Group,

which works to improve

the life of people in Haiti.

I'll start with Anthony, there is a

lot to unpack from what Dame Barbara

said, first of all that she was

aware of cases of sexual

exploitation by Oxfam staff, even

before the 2011 allegations. Was the

way Oxfam behaved in 2011 with what

they discovered the right one?

When

it comes to my reaction for the

interview and the statements in 2011

and today, they are very keen on

talking about something that

happened in the past and they didn't

particularly want to talk about

again today. And they want to keep

that in the past but in Haiti there

is a saying, the giver of the blow

forgets but the bearer of the scars

never does. I feel that to respond

to these allegations by removing the

people in question tends to

highlight it as an isolated incident

but it is not. We do not know for

certain that there are other cases

involved with Oxfam but what we do

know is that in Haiti and around the

world there are multiple cases, too

many cases, of exploitation,

economic bisexual, in the aid

organisation...

Not just Oxfam,

right across the sector?

I am, I am

loathe to say that there must be

more because we don't have the

evidence. Regarding Oxfam. What I

can say with this is the manner in

which Oxfam have responded to it

suggests, does not suggest a

commitment to retain that the

problem as a whole, rather they

wished to leave this in Haiti and in

the past. For example, the Dame

Barbara Stocking suggestion that

they did not help the authorities...

That suggests also a lack of respect

for Haiti and the rule of law in

Haiti.

She did not believe that the

police would be able to act, she saw

a country in the middle of an

earthquake and fundamental chaos. If

she thought she did not want to put

people off from giving, and the best

way was to show the perpetrators out

quietly, do you have any empathy or

understanding of that way of acting

for a charity to protect its main

efforts?

At this moment I would like to point

out, as has been pointed out, a lot

of work goes on by Oxfam and other

charities is absolutely vital in

places like Haiti and elsewhere but

in terms of those who did earnestly,

be it the individual donor or

states, would perhaps rather that

charities such as Oxfam were honest

and I think pushing it under the

carpet suggests that there might be

an unwillingness to look their

responsibility in the face, and in

cases such as in aid work...

I'm

going to stop you there to bring in

Andrew Mitchell who has been

listening patiently. That is the

sense, shoving under the carpet and

trying to make it go quiet rather

than explaining what happened?

This

is a shudderingly awful tale,

parable on every single level. --

terrible. And eclipse of the fact

that Oxfam is one of the most

brilliant humanitarian organisations

in the world. There are thousands

and thousands of very brave people

who work for Oxfam who will be

utterly distraught and horrified by

these stories today, recently I was

in Yemen where Oxfam as an

organisation has probably kept alive

5000 desperate people.

Do you think

DfID is wrong in terms of whether

money goes.

They must be sure that

there is zero tolerance for this

sort of thing and certain there was

public confidence that there is zero

tolerance. It is important that DfID

carries out that task so it can say

to the taxpayer and the public, we

know this money is really well spent

and the only way to do that is to

ensure you have a totally

transparent exercise now.

Were you

ever made aware of this kind of

sexual exploitation amongst charity

workers, at Oxfam when you were

Secretary of State?

I don't know

whether I knew about this particular

case, I can't be sure, but there

were cases, particularly involving

the United Nations, where this sort

of thing had happened. And in such

cases I was always very concerned to

ensure that the proper procedures

were followed and that if the police

needed to be called in, if there

were regulatory issues, they were

all thoroughly dealt with. On this

particular case I cannot remember at

this remove whether or not I knew

about it.

You don't recall

specifically hearing Oxfam?

No, I

don't, but that doesn't mean it did

not come up because there were, as I

say, similar cases with United

Nations peacekeeping soldiers which

was every bit as horrific because of

the protection issues involved. And

on those occasions I certainly did

everything I could as a minister to

ensure they were properly

investigated and the people who had

behaved badly were brought to

account.

You remembered the UN, you

would have remembered Oxfam or other

British charities if they had come

up?

I think I probably would but I

don't want to suggest in any way

that Oxfam hid it from the

department or from me at that time.

I just can't remember and the point

I want to make is that in this

terrible tale we must not forget

that Oxfam is one of the most

brilliant of the British NGOs and

charities which performed

life-saving work all around the

world in the most desperate places,

utterly brilliantly.

If taxpayers or

donors, supporters of Oxfam, are

watching this tonight, they know

that DfID is reconsidering, what

would you urge them to do or think?

I would urge them to allow DfID to

conduct its enquiries, to bring

total transparency to this and to

listen to what they said. I am

certain that DfID will discover that

if there were serious shortcomings

in Oxfam's approach, those have been

properly dealt with and addressed so

people can have confidence for the

future work of Oxfam but above all I

would want to draw their attention

to the utterly brilliant track

record of the organisation in the

past and not allow this terrible

episode two: the brilliant work that

Oxfam is doing all around the world.

Thank you very much for joining us.

This programme has received

some horrifying footage

which suggests that a nerve agent,

possibly Sarin, has been used

against civilians in rebel-held

Saraqib in north west Syria.

The short film, shot last Sunday

by hospital staff there,

shows several people lying

on the ground, some

deeply traumatised and

struggling to breathe.

Seven are later thought to have

died, including four young children.

The exact cause of their suffering

has not yet been verified

but the footage comes in a week

when UN investigators announced

that they are looking into multiple

reports that the Syrian forces have

used chlorine in attacks on at least

two rebel-held towns.

Some chemical weapons experts

believe there have been as many

as ten such attacks.

We should warn you that

Mike Thomson's report contains

extremely distressing and graphic

images from the start.

Images we don't broadcast lightly

but which those hospital staff

wanted to be shown.

You can see, he's having great

difficulty in breathing.

British doctor David Nott,

who has worked extensively in Syria

during the current conflict,

shows me a shocking video he has

been sent by a doctor

he helped train in rebel-held

Saraqib in Idlib.

The gruesome symptoms in front

of us, filmed last Sunday,

seem to indicate some kind of highly

toxic chemical attack.

To try to find out more,

we called the doctor

at the hospital in Saraqib who sent

David Nott the video.

Fearing reprisals against his

family, he did not want to be

filmed, but told me by phone

about the symptoms he saw.

Could they breath?

What do you think caused this?

What has happened to the children?

The doctor went on to tell me that

all the patients smelt strongly

of chlorine but David Nott believes

there has to be something even

more toxic involved,

most probably a nerve agent

such as sarin.

A lot of these patients that we saw

weren't breathing and with chlorine

you tend to hyperventilate,

you tend to try to breath and breath

to try and cough up all this amount

of fluid that is on the lung

but here I didn't see that.

I saw lots of patience in severe

respiratory distress and also

respiratory arrest as well and also

cardiac arrest, which is not really

seen in hyper chlorine attacks.

-- lots of patients.

In April last year, more than 80

people died in Khan Sheikhoun

in a chemical attack

using nerve agents.

Declaring that a red

line had been crossed,

US President Donald Trump ordered

a strike on the Syrian air force

base which had launched the assault.

To prevent and deter the spread

and use of deadly chemical weapons.

Some now believe that chlorine may

have been used in last week's

attacks on Saraqib to help avoid

such retaliation by

disguising the use of sarin.

First of all, the sarin is used

which does the real damage and then,

seconds or minutes later,

chlorine is dropped

which masks the sarin.

What the regime have found very

successfully from their assault

on Aleppo in December 2016,

is that if you put

gas on the ground,

that sinks into these cellars

because it's heavier than air,

it then forces the civilians,

who don't have gas masks to protect

them, up into the streets

where they are then susceptible

to bombs and bullets.

Surgeon David Nott, who has worked

in many different war zones,

still finds it hard to watch

the video he was sent

by doctors in Saraqib.

To see young children dying

in front of you with severe

respiratory problems was really

horrible to watch.

There's people on all fronts

who will say this is mocked up,

this is not real, but I can

guarantee you cannot fake

a three-year-old child to lie

on the floor and pretend that he's

dying of respiratory failure.

You cannot do that.

The use of chemical weapons

on Saraqib has yet to be officially

verified though the UN says

they have received many similar,

credible-sounding claims from other

doctors elsewhere in Syria

after a fortnight of

intensive air strikes.

But spokesman Jan Egeland says

he doesn't doubt how much the people

of Syria are suffering.

My heart is bleeding

really for the civilian

population I feel I failed.

I think the UN member

states have failed.

The international community has

failed the Syrian civilian

population in their hour of greatest

need but of course it's not

too late to save those

who have survived so far.

Maybe, but time is fast running out

and many on the ground worry that

even if the Saraqib deaths

are proved to have been caused

by sarin, the outside world

will continue to sit on its hands.

Mike Thomson reporting on that

footage that hospital staff sent

into Newsnight.

Punk rock music brought

Henry Rollins to the world,

but these days the former Black Flag

and Rollins Band singer spends

all his performance time

talking, not singing.

Rollins hasn't fronted a band

since about 2006, choosing instead

spoken word performances.

So what does a punk of the past make

of how those who come

behind him are channelling

their anger these days?

And as a self-confessed rich,

white and well-educated man,

what has he got left

to be angry about?

We sent our in-house pet punk,

John Sweeney, to meet him.

In my day, punks used

to go around with safety

pins through their noses

gobbing at people.

Henry Rollins was a

classier kind of punk.

Here he is in his pomp.

My name is Henry Rollins

and this is off-road tattoo!

He also ran at one point

a mobile tattoo parlour.

It didn't catch on.

I caught up with him

in London today.

As an old school punk rocker, how do

you feel about alt-right punks?

I think, it's just my opinion,

I see how easily a young person

might be taken with an alt-right

movement because it

capitalises on anger, on hurt.

The black guy looked at me and some

guy pushed me in the schoolyard

and I'm going to get back,

and that's how they recruit.

And I think these young people

are easily manipulated.

Those who seduce them,

they know how to work anger

and ignorance and bring these people

into the fold.

Is there an anger inside you?

Yeah.

It gets worse as I get older,

but I get better at finding

places for it to go.

What do you think of your president?

He's perhaps the wrongest guy

for the job and only once in my life

have I ever look at an American

president and thought

to myself, I could do

a better job than this guy.

Let's imagine you are Donald Trump's

National Security Adviser.

Trump calls you in to

the Oval Office and says, Henry,

what are we going to do about North

Korea?

You've been there.

What's your advice?

My advice would be, Mr President,

give me your phone.

You're never going to tweet

about North Korea again.

Because what you think

is tough talk is sure

Because what you think is tough talk

is sure provocation by the time it

gets to North Korea and it's not

the way to move forward.

Here's one thing my tours by Kim,

he was pretty impressive,

for the first three days his English

is like very much out of a book.

So you are from California?

I'm like, that's right, Kim.

So it's very like,

I learned this in school.

There's this one British guy who's

offended I won't be in a photo

and every time he comes near me I'm

like, man, get away from me,

because I just can't.

And so finally Kim steps in front

of me, his voice drops

and in perfect English he says,

how does he know you?

And I realised that he had been

playing me the whole time.

Kind of just, you know,

my English, it's not so good.

His English was great.

I met him in the breakfast room,

I think he likes me.

The rocket goes up to

space the other day.

Yeah, light relief.

Playing David Bowie's music.

Yeah, how great, how classy.

How did you meet David Bowie?

I've met David Bowie one time.

I just stood at attention and went

completely still because I didn't

want to bother him.

He was like a rare bird,

like shh, there he is,

they come through once a year!

And I'm like this is all I need,

David Bowie walked by me will be

in my storybook for ever.

David Bowie is passing from my right

to my left and I'm just...

He stops, points at me and says ah!

Rollins!

I go running towards him, my right

arm coming out like a lance,

not knowing what I'll say

when I arrive and I think I said...

He...he...huagh!

Because I was all gooey

inside because I'm quite a fan.

I must have said, hello, David.

And immediately he initiates this

conversation like we had been

talking for a few minutes,

like it has already been pre-rolled.

He said, you said something very

interesting in an interview

for a magazine last month

and proceeded to quote me

multiple paragraphs

of paraphrasing me back to me.

I'm a fan who gets

recognised by other people.

But I'm mainly a fan

and so when I meet people I admire,

like musicians and stuff,

I have to be very careful

to remain articulate.

Except all I want to do is...

"God, your great!"

Because those records

mean so much to me.

I have leaned on those

records so much.

Whenever I run into a member

of The Damned, I see

Captain Sensible at some festival,

it's like, hello Henry.

I'm like, that's my name,

how do you remember me?!

And I've known him

for, like, 100 years.

Kind of, sort of.

And those people mean so much to me

but rarely can I have a cogent

conversation with these people

because I'm just in awe.

Great.

Do you fancy an arm wrestle?

No.

I don't want to have my shoulder

pulled out of joint!

Fair enough!

Sweeney and Rollins there.

That's all we have time for tonight.

Evan is here on Monday.

Goodnight.