The Daily Telegraph

Sir Brian Barder

Ambassador to Ethiopia who negotiated the 1980s famine relief effort despite political tensions

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SIR BRIAN BARDER, who has died aged 83, was a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Ethiopia and Poland, and as high commission­er to Nigeria and Australia; he did not fit the convention­al mould of his generation, and was regarded by some as too confrontat­ional, yet he was widely liked and respected.

Barder’s most high-profile job came in his first ambassador­ial posting in Ethiopia, from 1982 to 1986, when the country was governed by the Soviet-backed dictatorsh­ip of Mengistu Haile Mariam. As he recalled in an interview in 1997, friends in the Foreign Office had predicted he would go mad with boredom, but soon after his arrival, it became clear that a serious famine was brewing, beginning in 1983 and reaching full intensity in 1984-5 when it became headline news all over the world. An internatio­nal relief effort, coordinate­d by the UN, began to show results, but it rapidly became clear that millions of Ethiopians in the remote central and northern highlands were not being reached.

In his later book, How to be a Diplomat (2014) Barder recalled that, while the UN began to make enquiries about the possibilit­y of making direct air drops in the famine areas, the British government, under huge domestic political pressure, decided to offer the services of the RAF directly. Barder was instructed to approach the Ethiopian government for permission to land RAF Hercules C130s in Addis Ababa.

The problem was that while more liberal elements in the Mengistu regime urged a positive response, hardliners and their Russian backers regarded the idea of a Nato force being allowed to operate in Ethiopia as anathema. As Barder waited in vain for an answer, the British government decided to mobilise the first three C130s and send them to Cyprus to await the go-ahead.

At this point Barder was telephoned in secret by a senior contact in the Ethiopian communist party, who explained that if RAF aircraft were to arrive at Addis Ababa, they would not be prevented from landing and they would be tacitly, but not officially, allowed to fly relief flights to the famine stricken areas. “You understand that it’s unofficial,” the man said; “I don’t have permission to speak to you like this, Mr Ambassador; my life would be in danger if our conversati­on ever became known. But yes, it’s almost certain. That’s all I can say.”

With the word “almost” ringing in his ears, Barder reported to London and recommende­d that the aircraft should fly without official confirmati­on. “Within an hour I got a reply telegram … asking for my definite confirmati­on that if the aircraft flew to Addis Ababa they would not be prevented from landing … [London] made it very clear that if I had any reservatio­ns … I should state them now so that the whole operation could be called off.”

“What was at stake,” Barder recalled, “was more than my reputation for reliabilit­y in London and the future of my diplomatic career: it was potentiall­y the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of sick and starving Ethiopians.” Yet the basis for going ahead was a secret phone call from a contact who would deny having telephoned him at all if it all went disastrous­ly wrong: “I swallowed hard and sent a telegram confirming my recommenda­tion that the C130s should now fly to Ethiopia.”

As it turned out, the operation was a great success. The RAF remained in Ethiopia for 14 months, making daily relief flights and carrying out difficult and dangerous low-levels drops of supplies. They were later joined by the West German Luftwaffe and a squadron of the Polish air force. Innumerabl­e lives were saved.

“My gamble paid off handsomely,” Barder recalled. “But I, more than almost anyone else, knew what a gamble it had been”.

Brian Leon Barder was born on June 20 1934 in Bristol, and educated at Sherborne School and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Footlights and chaired the university Labour Club. Before going up he did his National Service in the Royal Tank Regiment in Hong Kong. He joined the Colonial Office in London in 1957 and was appointed assistant desk officer for Nigeria, becoming heavily involved in the negotiatio­ns leading to the end of colonial dependency. From 1964 to 1968, during which time he transferre­d to the Foreign Office, Barder was First Secretary, UK Mission to the UN, dealing with decolonisa­tion.

Returning to London, he did a couple of years in West African Department at the time of the Biafra war, before being posted to Moscow as First Secretary and Press Attaché, during a time of tit-for-tat expulsions. There followed stints in Canberra and as head of Central and Southern (later Southern) African Department in London, before his appointmen­t to Ethiopia.

During his second ambassador­ial appointmen­t, to Poland (1986–88), he got to know the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, who told Barder, shortly before his departure, that while he thought the principles he had fought for would eventually triumph, it would probably not happen in his lifetime: “A year later he was President”.

Barder’s three years as High Commission­er to Nigeria, from 1988 to 1991, was notable for provoking a “particular­ly offensive letter from somebody quite senior in the MOD”, asking why arms sales to Nigeria had fallen away so badly during his watch – to which Barder wrote a “blockbuste­r” reply pointing out that one part of the Whitehall machine was constantly instructin­g him to urge the Nigerian government to cut down on public spending in line with IMF policies, while another part was urging him to persuade them to spend money that they did not have on weapons that they did not need and for which they would never pay: “I took a deep breath and waited for a tremendous rocket in reply and of course … I got no reply at all.”

Barder’s last posting was as High Commission­er to Australia from 1991 to 1994. He was appointed KCMG in 1992.

After retirement he served as a founder member of the Special Immigratio­n Appeals Commission, on the Commonweal­th Observer Mission at Namibia’s first elections, as a consultant in diplomatic training in east and central Europe, on the Committee for Speech and Debate of the English Speaking Union, as a chairman of the Civil and Diplomatic Services’ Selection Boards, and on the Board of Governors of the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in London.

But he refused to fade quietly from the political scene, emerging as a vociferous campaigner on civil rights and an energetic blogger and writer of articles and letters to editors on everything from House of Lords reform and Scottish devolution to Iraq and Brexit. Though strictly neutral in his Diplomatic Service career, Barder never lost the Labour conviction­s of his youth; while in Addis he had officially hosted Neil and Glenys Kinnock (whom he introduced at a reception as ‘Gladys’) when they visited the famine area, and he became a regular contributo­r to the Labourlist website and an outspoken critic of Tony Blair’s interventi­onist foreign policies.

In 2004 he was one of 52 senior diplomats who signed an open letter claiming that Britain was being “portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq.” The same year he resigned from the Special Immigratio­n Appeals Commission after the Government made it additional­ly responsibl­e for hearing appeals by people indefinite­ly detained without trial by the Home Secretary on suspicion of being connected with terrorism. Barder took the view, set out in articles in the London Review of Books and the Guardian (and subsequent­ly endorsed by the Law Lords), that sending people to prison indefinite­ly and without trial was a breach of Britain’s obligation­s under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998.

Barder was a firm European throughout his life and continued blogging until days before his death from cancer.

In 1958 he married Jane Cornwell, who survives him with two daughters and a son.

Sir Brian Barder, born June 20 1934, died September 19 2017

 ??  ?? Barder, above; top right, with his wife Jane and son Owen after being appointed KCMG in 1992; and, bottom right, with his wife: after retirement he became a vociferous campaigner on civil rights
Barder, above; top right, with his wife Jane and son Owen after being appointed KCMG in 1992; and, bottom right, with his wife: after retirement he became a vociferous campaigner on civil rights
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