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While UN Says Kosovo Trust Agency Budget Is Not Public,
UK Calls for Transparency
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 26 -- The budget of the
Kosovo
Trust Agency, a fund run by the UN Mission in Kosovo, is not
public,
UNMIK chief Lamberto Zannier told Inner City Press on Friday. Speaking
outside
the Security Council meeting about the deployment of EULEX, Zannier
said he has
ordered the central bank of Kosovo to preserve the funds, but none of
it will
be public. He said he visited the UN's former office and didn't sense
anything
was wrong.
Inner City
Press then asked the United Kingdom's Deputy Permanent Representative
Karen
Pierce, who had just called for transparency in any parallel
structures, if the
UK thinks the Kosovo Trust Agency should be transparent. She called the
KTA
"not an ideal situation," even before Kosovo's unilateral declaration
of independence. She said it should be "regularized," and at some
point a budget should be issued. But when?
Inner City
Press also asked Zannier about the controversy
surrounding former UNMIK chief
legal officer Borg-Olivier, who not only went directly to work for
the Kosovo
government, but bragged that he had lobbied for them while still
employed by
UNMIK. That was before my time, Zannier answered, refusing further
comment.
On the
Secretary-General's report on Kosovo, there was a lot of happy talk,
punctuated
by Serbia's foreign minister Vuk Jeremic speaking about churches
destroyed and
paved over. Kosovo's representative responded at the stakeout that
Serbia had
done much worse, that history will be written from facts. Inner City
Press
asked Karen Pierce if the UK supports the six point plan. Kosovo has
rejected
it, she said by way of an answer. She pointed out that several more
countries
-- Kosovo puts the count at five -- have issued recognitions of
independence
since the case was filed with the International Court of Justice. Most
of these
five were arm-twisted. Rule of law, indeed....
Serbia's Jeremic earlier in year, Kosovo
Trust Agency budget not shown
On the other hand, when
Inner City Press asked U.S. representative Rosemay DiCarlo is any
progress had been made in getting Miladin Kovacevic, the basketball
player who beat a New York State college student into a coma and then
fled back to Serbia with the assistance of that country's consulate in
New York, extradited to the U.S.. We're trying, Ms. DiCarlo said,
adding that she is aware of no progress. Hillary Clinton is on record
calling for the extradition. Might U.S. policy, even on Kosovo, be
influenced by this issue in the future?
Footnote: Inner
City Press asked Karen Pierce if
and when the Security Council will issue some pronouncement on the
shooting
spree earlier in the day in Mumbai, India. Not tonight, Pierce
answered, going
on to deplore the acts. Cynical journalists moaned that they might have
to come
in on Friday. Thursday, being the U.S. Thanksgiving day holiday, was
considered
out of the question.
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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