Former
Saleh Minister Is UN Face in Arab World, UNDP Yemen Website
Dormant
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 4 -- Amid news that Ali Abdullah Saleh is leaving
Yemen,
under the immunity deal he has three times before rejected,
the United Nations' engagement with Saleh's thirty year rule has come
into focus.
Inner
City Press
has repeatedly asked the UN Development Program about its director
for Arab states, Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, who previously served as a
Saleh minister and has since “been the UN's face” in the region,
according to UN sources critical of
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's
performance during the Arab Spring.
In
April, Inner
City Press asked UNDP:
“On
Yemen, please state whether former Saleh minister Ms. Amat Al Alim
Alsoswa has recused herself from consideration of Yemen programs.
Please also state, on deadline, whether Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa or
any family member... would be covered by the immunity deal negotiated
between Saleh and the Gulf Cooperation Council.”
Days
later, UNDP's
spokesman responded that
“UN
staff are all international civil servants who act in accordance with
the United Nations’ standards and norms. Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa
assumed her post as Assistant Secretary General and Director of the
Regional Bureau of Arab State in 2006 after leaving her official
functions with the Government of Yemen. Ms. Alsoswa is not part of
any political discussion or agreement taking place in or on Yemen.”
Inner
City Press
followed up:
“On
Yemen, I wanted to know if she is involved in UNDP's program for
Yemen, if she or her brother are covered by the immunity negotiated
by the GCC.”
UNDP's
spokesman
responded that she had not recused herself:
“Regional
Bureaux perform an oversight function over country programmes. They
review the programme and the evaluation plan, based on the quality
criteria, to provide in-house quality assurance of the programme. The
Director of the Bureau endorses the quality of the evaluation plan
prior to the submission to the Executive Board. Ms. Alsoswa and her
brothers are not part of any immunity deal.”
The
deal, which
some say was developed with the input of the US Embassy in Sanaa,
doesn't specifically name all of the Saleh associates who would be
covered by it.
Former Saleh minister Alsoswa in Yemen 2010, recusal not shown
Earlier
this
year, even as Saleh has started ordering the use of life
ammunition against protesters in Sanaa, UNDP's Helen Clark visited
the country accompanied by Amat Al Alim Alsoswa. In UNDP's
statements, democracy and the right to peaceful protest were absent.
UNDP
promoted the
joint visit of Helen Clark and former Saleh minister Amat Al Alim
Alsoswa on UNDP's Yemen web site.
A visit to the site on June 4 found
that it had not been updated for a month, and said virtually nothing
about the killing of protesters.
Likewise,
the UN's
Syria website has been fun of happy talk -- until it disappeared
from
the Internet on June 3 as part of Assad's crackdown on the 'Net. But
why block access to the UN when it is aligned with the dictators? Watch
this site.
* * *
At
UN,
Ban Poised to Announce for 2d Term on June 6, Amid Critiques &
IMF Intrigue
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 3 -- After months of no-comments
from UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about seeking a second term, on
Friday
things heated up. A Security Council member's spokesman told Inner
City Press to “be on the look-out early next week,” then
specified that Ban would announce his intention on June 6.
After
Ban's office
announced he will hold a press conference at 11:30 on Monday, June 6,
another delegate told Inner City Press that an Asian Group breakfast
is being organized for that morning, and said it was for Ban to
announce.
A
Chinese diplomat
told Inner City Press that his country firmly believes that the top
position in the UN for the next five years belongs to Asia -- and
that the next head of the International Monetary Fund should come
from the developing world.
Some
are surprised
that Ban would announce while the nomination
process to replace
Dominique Strauss Kahn at the IMF is still open. If that post goes
to
an Asian, from China or much less likely a South
Korean, that would
change Ban's claim to a second term.
Since
the IMF
nomination process ends on June 10, and the winner will be named on
June 30 or before, “what's the sudden rush?” a delegate asked
Inner City Press.
Ban with Zoellick &
DSK: Lipsky & musical chairs not shown
There
are
critiques of Ban Ki-moon circulating, among them his fast speaking
out against any aid flotillas to Gaza, his inaction on
his own Panel
of Experts' report on war crimes in Sri Lanka and more general
failure to speak out on human rights and media freedom (raised by the
Committee to Protect Journalists, HRW and others)and a general lack
of reform
and pizazz.
Perhaps this explains the rush, before
these
various issues develop further. Watch this site.
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