Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

NGO's Report on Conflict Resources, Targeting Rebels, May Let Regimes Off the Hook, Is Reviled by UN's Doss

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- The UN is a club of governments. Even the seemingly idealistic things it does, it does for reasons of state and sovereignty.

  A UK-based NGO with 45 employees, Global Witness came to the UN in New York to lobby about conflict resources. Two of its campaigners met with the EU, and later the Press. They talked about the Congo, about Angola, all Africa all the time.

  Inner City Press asked about Myanmar, about the military regimes use of resources to fund its war on the Burmese. Global Witness is looking at Burma, but only rebel groups export of timber across the border.

  It seems obvious that to merely crack down on rebel groups is just what governments would want. What about North Korea? What about Sri Lanka, where clamp downs on financing of the rebels was accompanied by debt relief to the Rajapaksa government and then a "bloodbath on the beach" in 2009? What about Zimbabwe? Asked these question by Inner City Press, Global Witness' campaigner Amy Barry said another side of their work is anti-corruption.

  But that doesn't line up with squarely with human oppression. And Equatorial Guinea, which she cited, is not on the Security Council's agenda. Nor is Sri Lanka: even during the peak of 2009's bloodbath, inclusion on the Council's agenda was opposed by China and Russia, and not pushed for by the UK and others.

  Japan, she said, indicated it would need more evidence that in a UN Experts' report to go after companies trafficking in conflict resources. The UK said it could not rely entirely on reports by the UN Group of Experts. But few countries can afford to do their own research. If the UN reports are not credible, according even to an ostensibly human rights sensitive P-5 member, why are they being funded?

  While many in the UN open their ears to Global Witness, the head man in the Congo Alan Doss showed only anger, it was said. As Inner City Press has reported, to solve his nepotism scandal he has rolled the dice with the ex-CNDP. Doss has called Human Rights Watch short sighted. He was even more brusque with Global Witness.

UN's Doss escorted through ex-CNDP mining territory

  Ms. Barry recounted the founding and history of Global Witness: three guys concerned about timber sales in Cambodia. Lo these many years later, all three are still involved: two working from homes in the warmer part of Europe, the third and last still in London. They are still active on Cambodia, urging donors to impose conditions of transparency and human rights.

What sad is that despite all this heartfelt effort, when Inner City Press quizzed Security Council Ambassadors at the Chinese end of presidency shindig on the night of January 28, few had heard of the visit of Global Witness. Even spokespeople of EU Council members said they were not aware. Pearls to swine, it seems, at the UN Security Council.

Footnote: another too ignored NGO, International Commission on Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation, re-released its report "Eliminating Nuclear Threats" last week. The first launch was during the Copenhagen climate change summit, and was largely ignored. Gareth Evans appeared at the UN last week, saying the report will have a long tail.

  Inner City Press asked about North Korea, Reuters about Iran. Then Ambassador Gary Quinlan, the Permanent Representative of Australia who was moderating the press conference, called on an Italian diplomat, who gave a speech which cut off journalists' questions. So it is with NGOs, even those sponsored by governments, at the UN.

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