WikiLeaks cables: You ask, we search
We asked last week what we should look for among the leaked US embassy cables. Following last night's story on the Madeleine McCann investigation, here is a further instalment of user-suggested research – on the 2012 Olympics, Roman Polanski and the Dutch far right
• @AuMoulinVert asked for Olympics 2012
French presidential hopeful, Ségolène Royal, told US diplomats French arrogance was partly to blame for Paris's lost bid to host the 2012 Olympic games. The games were awarded to London after a closely contested vote that saw both Tony Blair then French president Jacques Chirac fly to Singapore in July 2005 to make their case to delegates.
A confidential cable dated 17 February 2006 from the US ambassador to Paris concerning a recent meeting with Royal said she had suggested, he wrote, a need "to find France's place in the world" with the French government showing less arrogance in how it speaks to the world. The latter factor, she suggested, had played a role in the defeat of France's 2012 Olympics candidacy, he wrote.
Royal, who has recently announced that she would like to stand again as the Socialist candidate in the upcoming 2012 French presidential elections was meeting Craig Stapleton, US ambassador to France, before the 2007 polls, which she lost to Nicolas Sarkozy from the centre-right UMP.
Her criticisms of French government conduct were made to a backdrop of a deep malaise affecting the country, as it experienced political instability, high unemployment and having also lost the contest to host the 2008 Olympics to Beijing.
Reports at the time said Chirac had said of the British bid: "We can't trust people who have such bad food. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food." Jason Rodrigues
• @Abracarioca asked for anything on Roman Polanski from the Bern or Paris embassies
A secret October 2009 cable from Bern written, by the US ambassador Donald Beyer, reports that the September 2009 arrest of the director at Zurich airport on charges of fleeing sentencing for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles was viewed by the Swiss foreign minister, MichelineCalmy-Rey, "as putting a dent in Switzerland's international image", the ambassador to Bern wrote.
He added: "Nevertheless, she has limited her criticism to remarking that the arrest lacked 'finesse', and surely is aware that Swiss public opinion favours Polanski's extradition to the United States." A Swiss court refused the extradition request in July 2010.
The Polanksi case also crops up in a classified cable sent in February 2010 from the US embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, where US ambassador Richard Hoagland reports on a meeting between Richard Holbrooke, the US's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Kazakh foreign minister, Kanat Saudabayev.
When Holbrooke raised the imprisonment of human rights activist Yevgeniy Zhovtis, Saudabayev said that the "only legitimate way out" for Zhovtis would be via presidential pardon, Hoagland wrote.
"Attempting to draw a parallel, Saudabayev added that he admired the 'persistence' of the US judicial system in its persistent attempts to get film director Roman Polanski, "even though he was forgiven by the victim," he wrote, adding: "Holbrooke took strong exception, noting that Polanski fled justice, escaped the law, and has been living free despite his conviction by a US court." Ben Quinn
• @mancbkk asked for mention of the Thai royals in connection with the 2006 coup
The Queen of Thailand encouraged the 2006 ousting of former prime minister and Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra, US dispatches from October 2008 allege.
Queen Sirikit was indirectly "responsible for the 2006 coup d'etat", according to Samak Sundaravej, one of Thaksin's successors as prime minister from January to September 2008, according to US diplomats. Samak also claimed, the cable writers add, that Sirikit had a hand in the "ongoing turmoil generated by PAD protests", a reference to the mass protests by the royalist People's Alliance for Democracy which have contributed to the downfall of several Thaksin-associated governments since 2006.
Sirikit is the wife of King Bhumibol, the world's longest-serving current monarch. As a member of the royal family she is in theory expected to be politically neutral.
The cable appears to add to rumours of the scale of Sirikit's political involvement. While the queen had long been suspected of favouring the PAD, the only significant evidence of her support came when she attended the October 2008 funeral of a PAD protestor, Angkhana Radappanyawut.
Samak alleged the queen "operated through privy council president Prem Tinsulanonda who, along with others presenting themselves as royalists, worked with the PAD and other agitators", according to a report by US ambassador Eric John, within a cable from October 2008.
There is no mention in the cables of any coup involvement by King Bhumibol himself. But an earlier dispatch written in the week following the coup states Bhumibol called the leaders of the coup to his palace for a meeting the evening after Thaksin was ousted and was "happy, smiling throughout".
A subsequent cable also claims Bhumibol explicitly ordered Anuphong Paochinda, commander-in-chief of the Thai armed forces, not to launch a coup in November 2008 against the then prime minister Somchai Wongsawat. Bhumibol also expressed irritation at PAD protests, the cable alleges.
Further reports on Thailand from the leaked cables will be published by the Guardian later in the week.
Patrick Kingsley
• @WallyHoest asked for Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a far-right Dutch MP most notorious for his 2008 anti-Qur'an film, Fitna – which juxtaposed verses from the Qur'an besides images of the 9/11 attacks. One cable reveals that the Dutch government had been discussing strategies for what to do if one of its citizens carried out such a provocative act "since the Danish cartoon crisis" of 2005, a foreign ministry official told US diplomats. A security committee had been meeting "intensively" since October 2007, when the Dutch government first learned of Wilders's plans.
Violence was feared against Dutch interests abroad, and contingency plans were made for disorder in the Netherlands' four largest cities, though the same official said it was thought "Wilders fatigue" might blunt reactions at home. He said the justice, foreign and interior ministers had met with Wilders to caution him against the film, but the Dutch government believed it "critical to avoid the appearance [it] would try to censor the film".
There was no date for the release of Fitna but in the run-up to it being put on a video-sharing website in March 2008, the US embassy in The Hague sent the state department updates on when the film might emerge. In January 2008, the state department sent an advisory marked as "secret" to all consular and diplomatic posts warning of anti-Dutch demonstrations and the possibility the film could "generate anti-European/anti-western protests". It gave the diplomatic and consular posts a pre-cleared message to issue to US citizens in the event of demonstrations.
Wilders was evidently of some interest to US diplomats. His first mentions in the cables come after he was expelled from the centre-right VVD in 2004 and speculate that he might use the EU constitution referendum to build a political base. A later briefing on Dutch politics for Barack Obama notes Wilders's new Freedom party was the Netherlands's fastest growing and describes him as "no friend of the US", especially in his opposition to Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan. It says the "golden-pompadoured, maverick parliamentarian Geert Wilders, anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom party remains a thorn in the coalition's side, capitalising on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims."
Simon Jeffery
• @robertotail asked for Omar Khadr
The Canadian government said its Washington-backed decision not to seek the repatriation of Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, (15 when US forces captured him in Afghanistan) made it "politically impossible" for the country to take in the Uighur former detainees the US was unable to return to China. The cables show strong US interest in Canadian reaction to Khadr's case – Ottawa's appeal against a court ruling that would force it to ask for Khadr's repatriation is well documented, and the director of Canada's intelligence agency is reported expressing his belief that the release of DVD footage of Khadr's interrogation, in which he is shown crying, would lead to "knee-jerk anti-Americanism" and "paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty". Simon Jeffery
• To make further suggestions, tweet @GdnCables with as many specifics as possible (names, dates, embassies). Twitter refuseniks can email newseditor@guardian.co.uk but please keep it short.
All suggestions are logged and prioritised for investigation. We will publish more tomorrow and over the next few days
