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As UN Pitches Wiretaps in
Guatemala, Bus Murders Unsolved, Bhutto Panel Not Filled Yet
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, February 24 -- A
UN-sponsored prosecutor in Guatemala is advocating legalizing and
expanding
wiretapping in that country, it emerged on Tuesday. The head of the
International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, Spanish
prosecutor Carlos
Castresana, told the Press that he has assembled a team from Chile,
Uruguay and
Colombia and is going after the drug gangs known as marras.
Inner City Press asked about a statement
by Castresana that he will
expose the role of journalists in criminal conspiracies in
Guatemala. It is
undeniable that civil society is involved, Castresana answered. Asked
to name
other countries in which the UN might get so directly involved in
judicial and
investigative proceedings, Castresana told Inner City Press to "ask the
Secretary-General."
After the briefing, a Department of Political Affairs
spokesman declined to comment on the idea of a similar transition from
a UN
political mission to a judicial follow-up in, for example, Nepal. The
countries
would have to come and ask for help, he said. CICIG's funders
include a slew of mostly Western European countries, the U.S and the
Soros Foundation.
Inner City Press asked whether Castresana has made
any progress on one
of the two cases he first accepted from the government, that of a spate
of
killings of bus drivers. Castresana said that these killings, numbering
over
130 in 2008, began as extortion schemes against the bus companies. The
threats
were delivered by gang leaders by cell phones, but wiretapping was not
possible. Video here,
from 45:37.
An earlier stage in Guatemala with UN
involvement, before wiretapping
After the briefing, Castresana told Inner City Press
that the problem
was not any government resistance to wiretapping, but rather getting
the phone
companies to invest the funds necessary to allow systematic monitoring
of
communications.
How closely
related to the UN's mission is
advocating an expansion of wiretapping?
A senior UN official told Inner City Press, on
condition of anonymity,
that there are increasing doubts about the wisdom of the UN's
involvement in
judicial processing. You can lose your focus, he said, citing the UN's
role in establishing
a tribunal for Hariri's assassins in Lebanon, and Ban Ki-moon's
one-third
complete naming of a panel on the Benazir Bhutto killing in Pakistan.
On
the
Pakistan panel, one name thrown around has been Peter Galbraith, who
while a
U.S. diplomat in the Balkans was, sources say, involved in evading arms
embargoes in the region. The UN official told Inner City Press that
while
Galbraith, pushed for the post by Pakistan's government, may not be on
the
Bhutto panel, look for him to be named soon to another UN post. We'll
see.
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
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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