British royal family member Prince Andrew launched attacks on the French, journalists and anti-corruption investigators in what is described as an “astonishing” meeting in Kyrgyzstan.
He is painted as arrogant and rude in a cable from Washington ambassador to Kyrgystan Tatiana Gfoeller, released today by whistleblowers Wikileaks.
The 2008 cable is an account of a two-hour meeting between the Prince and British and Canadian business leaders in the mountainous Central Asian state.
In what the ambassador describes as “astonishing” candour for a meeting in a public hotel, the Prince repeatedly compares corruption in the Kyrgyz Republic to business practice in France.
He is quoted saying that corrupt culture will only be changed by the will of the people, “just like you have to cure yourself of anorexia”
“They themselves have to have a change of heart. Just like you have to cure yourself of anorexia. No one else can do it for you,” he is quoted as saying.
The Prince also displayed “almost neuralgic patriotism” at any comparison between the United States and Britain, the cable states.
It quotes a “snapped” reply to a British business leader who said the two powers’ level of investment in the region was similar.
“No surprise there. The Americans don’t understand geography. Never have. In the UK, we have the best geography teachers in the world!”
That patriotism is matched by disdain for anti-corruption investigators and journalists who the Prince sees as limiting British business interests, the cable says.
It shows him railing at British anti-corruption investigators, who he saw as almost scuttling a deal with Saudi Arabia through their “idiocy”.
Ambassador Gfoeller also describes him lambasting journalists “presumably from the National Guardian” who “poke their noses in everywhere”.
She goes on to describe his worries about growing Russian influence in the region and his belief that there was a return to the ‘Great Game’ in the region.
The ‘Great Game’ was a tense 19th century stand-off between Britian and Russia over Russia’s expansionist policies in European buffer states.
It is not the first time Prince Andrew has raised controversy with his overseas exploits, the Guardian reports.
He is known to have an excellent relationship with President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, who was described in a leaked 2009 cable as presiding over a corrupt state sector, it reports.
By Hayden Donnell
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