As
UN
Seeks
to Decertify Gbagbo Diplomat, Le Roy Reconfirms Mercenaries
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
21 -- After Cote d'Ivoire's UN Ambassador was
targeted in a General Assembly speech by Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon, top
UN
Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy again told Inner City Press that
Laurent Gbagbo is using mercenaries, and the ports of Abidjan have
been blockaded.
Inner
City
Press
asked Le Roy if the UN is asking other member states, like Nigeria or
others in ECOWAS, to help break the blockade, as Ban implied. Le Roy
said there is a Friday meeting of ECOWAS at which response will be
decided.
Both
Ban
and Le Roy
spoke about state media preaching hate and attacking on UN
peacekeepers. Inner City Press asked if the UN would move to shut
down the radio, as some in the UN say should have been done in Rwanda
in 1994. Le Roy answered by contrasting a speech by Gbagbo
ostensibly calling for peace with what the media is doing.
Inner
City
Press
asked Le Roy to confirm that UN Peacekeepers have shot and killed at
least one Ivorian. He said only that they had responded
appropriately, but that there are more threats.
It
was Le Roy's second
confirmation to Inner City Press of Gbagbo's use of
mercenaries. After the first one, still Ban's acting Deputy
Spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Tuesday at noon that it had NOT been
confirmed. Video here.
But Le Roy
confirmed it again four hours later. Why did
Haq deny it?
UN's Ban & Gbagbo, mercenaries and blockade not shown
In
the hall of the
UN's North Lawn building, Sudan's Permanent Representative greeted
Ban and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, and then the Ambassador of
Nigeria and ECOWAS, and Le Roy. At the stakeout, Inner City Press
asked Le Roy about Sudan's destruction of IDP camps in Darfur. We are
aware of that, Le Roy said. UNAMID is on the scene. We'll see.
Footnote:
Inner
City
Press interviewed Cote d'Ivoire's Deputy Permanent
Representative both before and after Ban's speech. Before, when Inner
City Press asked if he would speak, he said “nous ne sommes pas
mandate.” Afterward he said Ban's speech was only about the
Permanent Reprentative Djedje, and that the new Ouattara Perm Rep Mr.
Joseph previously represented Gbagbo: “He's a career civil
servant.” Oh, diplomacy.
* * *
In
Cote
d'Ivoire
Gbagbo Is Using Mercenaries, From Liberia, UN Says, US
Unaware
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
20 -- Laurent Gbagbo has imported mercenaries into
Cote d'Ivoire, chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy told Inner City
Press on Monday. After Le Roy briefed the UN Security Council, Inner
City Press asked him to confirm or deny Gbagbo's use of mercenaries.
“We have
confirmed it,” Le Roy answered. Inner City Press asked from where,
and after a pause Le Roy said from Liberia, “they did not speak
French.”
Le
Roy told the
Press the UN peacekeepers will not be leaving Cote d'Ivoire, as the
AU andeeper ECOWAS have recognized Ouattara as the president.
Two
UN
peacekeepers have been injured, Le Roy said. Asked by Inner City
Press if there are clashed beyond Abidjan, he said yes, naming a town
forty kilometers from the capital. And then he was gone.
An
African
Permanent Representative on the Council said that in the closed door
consultation, Le Roy did not use the word “mercenaries,” but
rather “non Ivorians.” How diplomatic.
Alain Le Roy & Jean Ping: Gbagbo mercenaries
& Bashir's $9B not shown
Susan
Rice
spoke
to the media after the Council meeting, to read out a Cote d'Ivoire
press statement drafted by Mexico (as was Resolution 1502, which it
cites.)
Inner
City Press asked her
about Gbagbo's use of mercenaries. She said she wasn't aware of that
being confirmed, but that if it was, it would be of concern not only
to the US but to the Council.
She
also told Inner City Press, after its
question, that
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's March 20, 2009 meeting with her
and Deputy Alejandro Wolff about $9 billion Sudan's Omar al Bashir
allegedly siphoned into bank accounts at Lloyds in the UK described
in a cable made available by Wikileaks, was not in her
“recollection.” Watch this site.
* * *
Once
Ocampo
Told
Susan Rice of Bashir's $9 B in Lloyds, What Was Done?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
20 -- Sudan's Omar al Bashir has stashed $9 billion
overseas, in Lloyds, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has told last
year by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.
The
March 2009 meeting was memorialized in a cable Wikileaked over the
weekend, see below.
One
wonders what
Ambassador Rice did with this information. While Lloyds responded
that it is unaware of such Bashir accounts, in January 2009 US
authorities fined Lloyds $350 million for concealing the origins of
wire transfers from Sudan, Iran and Libya in violation of US
sanctions against the countries.
A
cynic might
surmise that Ocampo chose to name Lloyds to US Ambassador Rice
because of this US fine of the company, only two months before his
meeting with the US Mission.
But Lloyds so
recent fine, for
concealing the source of money from Sudan, would have given Rice and
the Obama Administration leverage to get Bashir's accounts confirmed
or denied by Lloyds at that time. Did they?
Susan Rice & UN's Ban, action on ICC report of
Bashir #9 B not shown
At
issue is not
only corruption by a leader indicted for war crimes and genocide:
under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, oil profits were to be split
between North and Southern Sudan. Southerns have alleged that the
Bashir government had improperly kept and hid revenue.
Could this
have been the money? Or just a story Ocampo tried to float? What did
the US Mission to the UN, State Department and Obama administration
do to find out? Watch this site.
Footnote:
the
cable
may cause major problems for Ocampo with the ICC. This explains
Ocampo's fast December 18 press release putting his spin on the cable.
If the
Court does not hold a hearing on it, credibility will again be at
issue. What do the Court's supporters have to say? The holiday seasons
is no excuse.
* * *
Darfur
Seems
An
Afterthought
In Ban Ki-moon's UN, Defense of Gambari, Withholding
of Massacre Reports
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
17
-- “Mister Gambari has been working very hard
with the Sudanese government,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
told the Press on Friday of his envoy in Darfur.
Inner
City
Press
had
asked why the UN peacekeepers under Ibrahim Gambari's UNAMID
command did not leave their base when dozens of civilians were
murdered in Tabarat in September, and whether Ban would at least make
UNAMID's report on the killings public.
“We will have
to
see,” Ban answered. But UNAMID has answered requests for copies of
the report by saying it is up to the Secretary General.
Until
the
very
end
of Ban's end of year press conference, run by acting Deputy Spokesman
Farhan Haq, there had been no questions or answers about Sudan, where
the UN has two $1 billion peacekeeping operations. After a protest,
Haq allowed the Sudan question from Inner City Press:
On
Darfur,
you
said
it was one of your priorities. As the year ends, the
government of Omar al Bashir is attacking the one rebel group it
supposed made peace with, the Minni Minawi group, UNAMID has no
access to Jebel Marra and ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo says that
UNAMID doesn't report attacks on civilians because it is threatened
by the government. You summoned Ibrahim Gambari to meet you... about
the massacres in Tabarat, after the UN peackeeepers didn't even leave
their base in Tawila to do to the site. Even the report on these
Tabarat killings is being withheld. What will you do differently in
2011?
To
this Darfur
question, Ban responded largely about the Southern Sudan referendum.
He said, “The situation in Sudan will be one of the top concerns of
international community starting January 9... There are sticking
issues, to establish a commission in Abyei.” Video here,
from
Minute
51:31.
After
that
Ban
turned
briefing to Darfur, saying that “the security situation in
Darfur a serious concern. The recent bombing by the Sudanese
government of the north and south boundary of southern sudan... [We
are] making demarches that
the Sudanese government should be
cooperative. This afternooon I meet the Minister for Peace and the
CPA for Southern Sudan to discuss this matter.”
Of
the so-called
Doha process, Ban answered that the “peace negotiation has not been
progressing well. Except that government of Sudan and the Liberation
and Justice Movement LJM have agreed to a negotiation text. That can
be done, but without participation of all other rebel movements --
JEM, SLA and Abdel Wahid -- without their participation this
negotiation will not be sustainable. Joint mediator Bassole is
asserting his best efforts.”
Then
Ban
defended
Ibrahim
Gambari, saying that “Mister Gambari has been working very
hard with the Sudanese government... to have freedom of movement of
UN peacekeepers.”
This
implies
that
the
peacekeepers in Tawila for example tried to go to the Tabarat or
Tabra site but were stopped by the government. But internal UN
communications obtained by Inner City Press show that the UN
Peacekeepers told relatives of those being killed and injured that
they had come to late, to come back in the morning.
UN's Ban & Gambari, report on Tabarat massacre not shown
Now
the report on
the incident is being withheld, with UNAMID saying it is up to the
Secretary General, who when asked would not released, instead
speaking of “consultations.”
Inner
City
Press
also
asked if the report on Sri Lanka war crimes inquiries by Ban's
three person Panel of Experts will be made public. Ban did not answer
this either. Watch this site.
Footnote:
There
was
widespread
dissatisfaction in the UN press corp about how
acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq ran the press conference, and
about lack of question and answer opportunities with Ban Ki-moon
throughout 2010. Ban said he will make an announcement in early 2011
about seeking a second term as S-G. We'll see.
, 
