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UN Budget Targets Africa Advisor, Oversight of Roed Larsen in
Lebanon, Permanent Contract Gone
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 23, 7:30 pm, updated 9:16 pm
-- The UN
budget
resolutions remain stalled, as the
Secretariat makes a last minute push to eliminate the Office of the
Special
Advisor on Africa. The position was already merged with
Small Island States,
but it remains in the budget. Now Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose
Migiro is
in the wings, to explain why it should disappear. Ban
Ki-moon's senior advisor Kim Won-soo
jogged down the basement hallway clutching a cell phone. Ms. Migiro's
chief
advisor stood by the elevators shaking his head. Why so much focus on
eliminating a single position? It has become for Team Ban a matter of
pride, some
say.
Another
point of pride, or of arrogance, is the Special Political Mission
headed by
Terje Roed Larsen, to implement Security Council Resolution 1559 in
Lebanon. It
too is being debated, not on the conflict of
interest of Roed Larsen receiving
substantial salary from funds from Gulf States to take (their)
position in
Lebanon, but rather on how the effectiveness of his mission is to be
measured.
Roed Larsen lives in the UN jet set fast lane, certainly not down in
the smoky
Fifth Committee basement at dawn. But these are the moments when
accountability
is possible, how ever briefly.
DSG Migiro overground on 2nd floor, basement and
closed Spox Office not shown
The UN
Staff Union mourns for the anticipated loss of the permanent contract,
which
they say alone offered protection from management's retaliation. The
contract's
defenders were more concerned with winning the 92 development posts,
it's said.
Still in play is administration of justice, whether existing cases and
promotions will be frozen until the new system belatedly kicks in in
mid 2009.
The 92 new
posts will themselves be phrased in, starting with the regional
commissions.
Former Fifth Committee denizen Alicia Barcena is ensconced down south
in ECLAC,
and will get posts. She had promised a UN Freedom of Information
policy, which
has yet to be enacted. In fact, at six p.m. earlier on an all-night
budget
session, the UN Spokesperson's Office was closed down. If they don't
even want
to explain their positions, how can they convince the member states? In
the
basement Migiro is awaited, some delegates are saying. Watch this site.
Update of 7:53 p.m. -- Egypt's
Permanent Representative strode into Conference Room 5, and then left
the basement area. Syria's Ambassador is down, speaking of Roed
Larsen.The screen in front of Conference Room 3 said that vote would be
at 3, then 4:30, then 6 and now 8, with no sign of the meeting
beginning.
Update
of 9:16 p.m. -- the time on the sign has been put back to 10 pm.
Now it's said Migiro won't come, the USG post for OSAA will stay alive,
at least on paper. Speaking of paper, here's a proposal paragraph on
Lebanon, being discussed: "OP. Requests the S-G to revise the narrative
and the logical framework of the budget of the Special Envoy of the S-G
for the implementation of SC resolution 1559 (2004) taking into account
recent developments and the concerns raised by member states, and to
submit a report thereon to the GA before the fist [sic] part of its resumed 63rd
session" -- that is, this spring...
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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