A senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton suggested removing his name from The Clinton Centre in Enniskillen after expressing concerns about the facility.
The building on the site of the Enniskillen bombing was officially opened by the former President in 2002 in tribute to his efforts in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.
It now contains an art gallery, managed by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council and a first stop shop initiative which provides information, signposting and support to local start up and established businesses. In the past it has hired out conference and exhibition facilities. But its youth hostel, which is still in operation today, appears to have troubled close aides to the ex-President.
The Clinton Centre, Enniskillen.
In a memo drafted for Mr. Clinton, released on Monday by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Ami Desai, the Clinton Foundation’s Director of Foreign Policy, recommended in January 2012 “a thorough re-examination of your role and connection with the Centre” and a detailed review of the Centre and its operations and its funding.
“The facility has become a for-profit youth hostel, and we therefore are concerned about it continuing to bear and use your name.”
Bill Clinton on a past visit to Enniskillen. Photo: John McVitty.
The purpose of the draft memo, explained Mr. Desai, was to request Mr. Clinton’s guidance on the Clinton Centre and made a number of suggestion, including: “Pull your name entirely from the Centre and the related programmes.” This was described in the memo as “drastic action.”
Another suggestion which was not recommended was allowing Mr. Clinton’s name to continue to be used by the Centre as well as by youth exchange programmes and any other programmes the Centre would undertake.
A further suggestion described as “potentially unproductive and cumbersome” was to allow Mr. Clinton’s name to be used by the Centre but only if it reconfigured itself and abandoned the aspects “that undermine your stature, such as the youth hostel.” “This also would be accompanied by a responsibility to invest in better, more robust, more accountable management at the Centre.”
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The recommended suggestion put to Mr. Clinton was: “Pull your name from the Centre, but allow your name to be used in connection with specific programmes that align with your stature and legacy. Management of the programmes could be coordinated with your headquarters. This would distance you from the physical Centre, which in its current iteration brings little value to your legacy in the region. This option would require careful communication to the community.”
The correspondence released as a result of Wikileaks hacking the e-mails of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, came about following a funding request by Stella O’Leary, the President of Irish American Democrats.
Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in America.
Ms. O’Leary wrote to Mr. Clinton claiming it would take up to $4 million to continue and expand the work for the Centre and requested approval to fund raise in the President’s name.
“I have volunteered to organise a support group in the U.S. to help raise funds for them.”
She said The Friends of the Clinton Centre would “solicit funds” from existing Northern Ireland funding agencies, The International Fund for Ireland, the American Ireland Fund, the British Council and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, and private corporations and interested individuals.
“To sustain a programme at the Clinton Centre our goal would be to establish an endowment of between $2 and $4 million. The Centre could draw on that as we approved the programmes and in such a way that the endowment is sustained,” said Ms. O’Leary.
Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks.
Fermanagh University Partnership Board Limited (FUPB) is the governing Board that has overall responsibility and accountability for the Centre.
According to the hacked e-mail, in 2011 the Centre was receiving £7,500 per annum from the then Fermanagh District Council for use of the art gallery and a token £500 per annum from Hostelling International (HINI) in rent. In 2005 Hostelling International paid £125,000 up front a long term lease for 18 years which was used at the time to help pay off the debt left on the capital account from the construction of the Centre.
Read more: Major Clinton centre exhibition highlights work for peace
The Director of the Centre, Sean Henry, whose name is referred to in the memo to Mr. Clinton, was not aware of the concerns expressed to the ex-President when contacted by The Impartial Reporter yesterday (Wednesday).
“I was never aware of anything at all, we would be in touch with the Clinton Foundation. I am a loss to know where this has come from. At this moment in time the Centre is as active as it has always been; there’s an art gallery, a social enterprise hub and a hostel where we have a number of international students who are studying at South West College.
“The Clinton Centre is continuing, 100 per cent,” he said.
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