As
Former
Somali Diplomat Is Barred from Mission to UN, Is UNICEF Barred by TFG?
WFP Withholds MOU with IOC
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 15 -- As the UN World Food
Program continues to
withhold its Somalia Memorandum of Understanding with the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, even from other UN officials,
a
once and perhaps future Somali diplomat has reportedly reappeared
at the country's Mission to the UN and had the police called on him.
Idd
Beddel
Mohamed, who Inner City Press interviewed
in 2007 as Deputy Permanent
Representative denounced UN payments to warlords, recently came
back
to the Somali Mission, according to sources, saying that the new
Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Oomar had
authorized him to enter.
But
the current
Permanent Representative said he'd heard no such thing, the sources
say, the police
were called to oust Idd Beddel Mohamed.
Meanwhile,
after
both Mark Bowden, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for
Somalia and Ms. Kiki Gbeho, Head of the Somalia Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Inner City Press they had
not even seen WFP's agreement with the OIC, on December 14 Inner City
Press asked OCHA chief Valerie Amos about it.
Ms.
Amos answered
that OCHA can't compel any UN system agency to “coordinate” with
it. Video here.
Idd
Beddel
Mohamed previously at UN, ejection from Mission not shown
On December
15, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin
Nesirky if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon thought that UN system
agencies should reach and withhold secret deals. Nesirky said he had
nothing to add to what Mr. Bowden and Ms. Gbeho had said.
A
WFP spokesperson
has emailed offering to talk about the MOU and has been asked to
provide a copy. He replied "I can't email the MOU to you." Watch this
site.
Footnote:
at
the December 15 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman
Nesirky about reports that the Somali Transitional Federal Government
has ordered UNICEF and other UN agencies to stop their work in
Somalia, for missing a meeting about the drought.
Previously, Inner
City Press asked UNICEF's spokesman, but he is out of the office for
a long time (question have been backing up for the past two weeks).
Nesirky said that events have moved on and that the Somali block is
not (any longer?) in place. We'll see.
* * *
On
Somalia,
UN
Looks Away from Mercenaries & Funder, Withholds MOU
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
13 -- As not only Puntland but
the Transitional
Federal Government in Mogadishu move to use mercenaries, the UN is
in
denial even as its Security Council's sanctions regime is being
violated.
On
December 6
Inner City Press asked
UN
Spokesman Martin Nesirky:
Inner
City
Press:
there is a former US official, Pierre Prosper, who has
said that Puntland, the portion of Somalia, has hired a private
military contractor, Saracen, to do anti-piracy work — that it’s
being all funded by a Muslim nation that he wouldn’t name. So what
I wonder is whether, given Mr. [Augustine] Mahiga or anyone in the
UN, given both the prohibitions against mercenaries and also the 1992
sanctions on Somalia, what does the UN say to Puntland pretty openly,
or at least as acknowledged by a former US official, hiring a
mercenary firm to patrol the coast of Somalia, and what’s the UN
going to do in light of this report?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well,
thanks for the question, Matthew, and let’s see
what we can find out. I don’t have anything at the moment.
A
full week
later, the UN Spokesperson's Office has not provided any information.
But on December 10, Inner City Press asked the UN's Humanitarian
Coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden about mercenaries. Despite
reports that the TFG is moving forward, Bowden said that there's been
a step back. Video here,
from Minute 13:55.
Inner
City
Press
asked if the UN knows the identify of the country funding the
mercenaries. Bowden did not answer, but said that the funder should
contact the UN Somalia Monitoring Group, or they might be in
violation of the sanctions. But the country has indicated it will not
identify itself, ostensibly to not suffer attacks. Is there a
loophole in the sanctions regime for this?
UN's Bowden on Dec. 10, mercenaries and MOU not shown
On
the UN World
Food Program's confidential Memorandum of Understanding with the OIC,
Inner City Press asked what it says about paying to deliver service.
Ms. Kiki
Gbeho, Head of the Somalia Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs replied that she “hopes” it has
prohibitions, adding that the UN “in principle does not pay to
deliver... perhaps it has happened, but it is the policy not to pay.”
But
neither she
nor Bowden have seen the WFP agreement. What does it mean, then, to
be a UN Humanitarian “Coordinator” or OCHA Head of Country
office? What is WFP doing? Watch this site.
