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UN Terror Confab Has Only 3 Funders, Spain Wants Security Job Beyond UNIFEM and Base

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, August 18, updated August 19 -- That the UN wants to give voice to the victims of terrorism is surely a good thing. But why limit the funders of such an initiative to only three of 192 countries? At Monday's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked

Inner City Press: there is this upcoming symposium on supporting victims of terrorism in September.  And it seems like it says that there are three Member States who contributed money to it -- the UK, Spain and Colombia.  There have been some questions about if it's the UN Secretariat that solicited the funds for the event, were all Member States solicited?  How was it chosen who, which countries to approach for funds for this UN event?

Associate Spokesperson Haq:  I don't have any information on that.  As far as I am aware, the arrangements for this, including the financing of this event are still being determined.  So, some of this still is in process.

Inner City Press:  On 7 August there were invitations that went out to Member States to attend the thing and it lists those three countries as the ones providing.  So, some countries said why they were never asked for funds.  So, can you find out whether all countries were asked for funds and, if not, why not?

Associate Spokesperson Haq:  Yes, I'll check up on that.

[The Associate Spokesperson later added that the Government of Colombia, Spain and the United Kingdom had provided voluntary contributions to bring 25 to 30 victims of terrorism, experts and civil society representatives to the symposium.]

  All the Spokesperson's Office did was forward to Inner City Press, and then put into the transcript, the lines from their August 7 memo about the terror meeting. But in neither forward did they answer the question asked: were countries other than Spain, the UK and Colombia asked for funding, and if not, why not? Inner City Press sent this question to the event's closing speaking, American Robert Orr, but did not receive any response. If and when one is received it will be reported on this site. In following-up our last Valencia base story, Spain's Ambassador to the UN Juan Antonio Yanez-Barnuevo told Inner City Press outside the Security Council that from his point of view, all the base is lacking is the "blessing" of the UN General Assembly. Here, we call it "approval," the thing that was lacking at the time of the ill-fated photo-op in Valencia...


Ban Ki-moon with Spain's Vice President, Foreign Minister and Perm Rep, job offers not shown

    The public record reflects Spain's increasing funding to, and demands on, the UN, under President Zapatero. Spain acknowledged seeing a connection between its $700 million payment to the UN system and a proposed peacekeeping logistics base slated for Valencia, along with being awarded the top job at UNIFEM, the UN agency for women.  This anti-terror funding, sources say, is part of Spain's campaign to try to gain an ever higher UN job, the post of Under Secretary General for Safety and Security. When Ban Ki-moon was recently in Mexico City for the UN conference on AIDS, he was quoted in the Spanish press as encouraging the Zapatero administration to submit a nomination, since Spain had been a victim of terrorism. Now comes this funding -- can the job be far behind?

Update of August 19:  the next day, the following was received:

Subj: Re: question at noon: symposium of victims of terrorism - thnks, but were other member states asked to contribute? etc 

Date: 8/19/2008 6:33:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From:  [Office of] Robert Orr @un.org
To: Inner City Press
CC:  [Office of the Spokesperson] @un.org

Dear Mr. Lee,

Mr. Robert Orr is currently out of the office.  After verifying in this office, I see that your email contained no question to Mr. Orr but rather a transcript of your query to the Spokesperson's office. I therefore do not think it is correct to state that Inner City Press did not receive a response from Mr. Orr, since no query was directed at him.

To respond to your question to the Spokesperson, this is to confirm that all 192 Member States have been repeatedly briefed on the activities of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force and its working groups, including on the voluntary funding needed to support the activities of the Task Force and the working groups. All activities of the Task Force and its working groups, including the working group on Supporting and Highlighting Victims of Terrorism, are posted online.

As of this time, three countries have come forward to support the Symposium on Supporting Victims of Terrorism. Contributions from other Member States to support this and other UN efforts in the fight against terrorism are most welcome.

Regards,

Silva Bonacito
Special Assistant to Mr. Orr

   Since the second request to the Spokesperson's office was separately sent to Mr. Orr, that a second opportunity to state whether other countries had been asked to contribute to the victims of terrorism event seemed clear. But the question has still not been directly answered: was for example the United States asked to fund this event, but said no? Unless countries were asked to fund the event, how did the three countries -- Spain, Colombia and the UK (read ETA and Al Qaeda, FARC and paramilitaries, and Al Qaeda, IRA and now even the Taliban) -- know to give money? To be continued.

Watch this site. And this (on South Ossetia), and this --


   

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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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