President Obama meets with President Nazarbayev at the nuclear non-proliferation summit in Washington April 2011.
As part of our undercover filming, journalists from the Bureau met with Ivo Ilac Gabara, President of GBR Gabara, the European arm of BGR Group which advertises itself as specialising in ‘pan European government relations.’
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With professional experience as a journalist, lobbyist and spokesman and with 12 years PR experience, his pitch for the fictitious Uzbek contract was enlightening.
Mr Gabara drew heavily on his experience representing the government of Kazakhstan, explaining he had engineered a meeting between US President Obama and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazabayev at a Washington nuclear non-proliferation summit in April 2011.
‘President Nazarbayev was the most visible head of state in Washington at that summit,’ he said. ‘Out of 45 heads of state [Obama] met only five on a bilateral basis. Nazarbayev was one of those – not by mistake.’
Mr Gabara later told the Bureau: ‘What I meant by that was that many people had worked hard to make this happen.’
He also spoke of a proposed media campaign engineered to smooth over the non-appearance of the pop artist Sting at a concert in the Kazakh capital Astana.
Sting pulled out of the engagement following a briefing by Amnesty International.
Gabara said he had proposed an online social media campaign featuring Kazakh children, designed to balance Amnesty’s accusations and generate positive print media coverage.
He later told the Bureau the idea was rejected by the Kazakh government.
