David Beresford (journalist)

David Beresford is an award-winning British journalist for the Guardian newspaper. He is also the author of Ten Men Dead, a book about the Irish hunger strike in the Maze prison near Lisburn, County Down. He was the Guardian's Irish correspondent at the time and has since become their Johannesburg correspondent.^[1]

"Richard-Richard" Goldstone Controversy

In 1994, Mr. Beresford wrote in the Guardian that Justice Richard Goldstone ran a “much vaunted" judicial commission of inquiry that “failed dismally,” and that was a “rubbish bin” used by the South African government. He discussed Goldstone’s “disturbing” practice by which he acted with “overt political ’sensitivity’,” including his being “at pains to involve the politically distinguished in the conduct of his inquiry”; and of harboring such ambition to succeed Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s post as UN Secretary-General, that Goldstone’s legal colleagues gave him the nickname of “Richard-Richard.” ^[2]

In a 1999 interview in which he responded to South African President F.W. de Klerk’s reference to the “Richard-Richard” nickname, Goldstone claimed that it was all a figment of the journalist’s imagination, concocted for a satiric piece and then later included in The Guardian:

It’s quite amusing, the ‘Richard Richard’ story was an invention of the chap from the Mail & Guardian, David Beresford. He concocted that as a sort of humorous thing in one of his satirical columns. As far as I’m aware that’s where it began and ended and it had a funny sequel because soon after it was printed he called me about something to do with the commission and I returned his call and he wasn’t there and I left a message to say, “Please tell him that Richard Richard called.” He so enjoyed that he referred to it in an article which appeared in The Guardian.^[3]

However, an examination of Beresford's original July 9, 1994 article in the Guardian ("GOLDSTONE TO TAKE WAR CRIMES JOB," Pg. 13) reveals that Beresford’s original reference to the nickname was not a satiric piece.^[4]

Publications

Beresford, D. (1987) Ten Men Dead: Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, HarperCollins.

See also

Irish hunger strike

Notes

1. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2007/jun/02/david.beresford
2. ^ David Beresford, "IN PRETORIA’S CESSPIT," The Guardian (London) March 21, 1994, reproduced at GlobalPost [1]
3. ^ 1999 Interview With Justice Richard Goldstone, Website for Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Dialogue,[2]
4. ^ David Beresford, "GOLDSTONE TO TAKE WAR CRIMES JOB," The Guardian (London), July 9, 1994, Pg. 13, reproduced at GlobalPost [3]

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