As
UN's "Faux" Financial Summit Begins, Host D'Escoto Calls
Nepotism "Entertaining"
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 23 -- Asked Tuesday about charges
of nepotism in the use of UN
funds to pay two of his relatives, President of the General
Assembly
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann told Inner City Press, "I
leave you free to continue your speculations, I find them extremely
entertaining." Video here,
from Minute 18:42.
But
the spokesman for d'Escoto confirmed
to Inner City Press on June 9
and subsequently to the Times
of London that d'Escoto is using UN budget funds to pay his nephew
Michael
Clark to be an economics adviser, and his niece Sophia Clark to be
his deputy chief of staff. There is no speculation. There will
however, as invited, be entertainment.
On
the eve of a UN General Assembly summit on the global economic
crisis for which his nephew has been a major briefer and advisor,
d'Escoto said he was not troubled that only two heads of state are
coming: Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Ecuador's President Correa. Even
Chile's President Bachelet, in the Northeast United States to meet
with Barack Obama, has canceled the previous indication that she
would come.
Inner
City Press, which was first to
report on June 9 the use of UN funds
to hire d'Escoto family members, also asked d'Escoto why there was
still no word who was coming from the host country or if his
president, Daniel Ortega, was coming. D'Escoto answered, I have no
confirmation of who is coming from the two countries you mentioned.
While
nepotism and d'Escoto's proposals to, for example, establish
a
Taxation Authority to consider regulating (or taxing) cyberspace,
are
not the only reason that many
view the Summit as "a joke,"
they are not unrelated. That d'Escoto's advisers didn't tell when he
began his term that issues might arise about putting two relatives on
the UN payroll, and now advise him to make light of the matter, is
also indicative.
Non-governmental
organizations, too, are too blame for allowing the Sandinista emperor
to have no clothes. On June 22, Inner City Press asked the South
Center's director Martin Khor to respond to the nepotism and
cyberspace taxation proposal. Video here.
Khor began diplomatically, saying that
some Ambassadors were taken aback by "Father Miguel's"
inclusion of so many references to Mother Earth. Later in conclusion
Khor said yes, he had read the stories about the nephew. Why then say
nothing?
PGA d'Escoto: hiring of nephew with UN funds is
"entertaining"
On
June 23 Inner City Press asked a panel of NGOs, who had just finished
calling the UN more credible than the G-20, what they had done to
make the UN more accountable, for example on the controversy and
staff-pressuring surrounding the search for a second term in the top
post of UNCTAD. None of the four NGOs would touch the question
directly. Video here.
Yes, the G-20 is
undemocratic. But for the UN, particularly
its General Assembly and President, to be a credible alternative,
nepotism and hair-brained proposals cannot be so easily accepted and
laughed at.
It
was the Latin American and Caribbean Group's turn to hold the General
Assembly presidency this year. The spokesman for a major Latin
country told Inner City Press on Tuesday that Venezuela, Ecuador and
Bolivia -- "that bloc" -- had pushed for Nicaragua, and
hence d'Escoto.
Why didn't they choose a less comical or less entertainment starved
representative,
or at least one who wouldn't hire two of his relatives and then
refuse to answer any questions about it? Put otherwise by the
diplomat, who is making the UN a joke?
If
the summit had been more professionally organized, without Internet
taxation proposals and open nepotism, then the decision by powerful
countries to boycott it could more legitimately have been criticized.
But "they made it easy for them," the diplomat said. And
not only rich countries, but powerful banks are the ones who benefit.
* * *
Nepotism
May Threaten UN Economic Crisis Summit, Role of Nephew of GA President
d'Escoto Questioned
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 9 -- As industrialized countries' public skepticism has
grown at the UN General Assembly's summit on the global economic
crisis, postponed until later this month, analysts have focused on
General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann's refusal to
simply accept the proposed outcome document drafted by member states.
Inner City Press
is told by well-placed sources that a major reason
for the so-called
Draft-Gate which threatens to undermine the crisis
summit is the presence among the PGA's paid staff of at least two
d'Escoto relatives, and the freedom that he gives them.
Michael
Clark is an American staff member who has given numerous lengthly
press conferences about the summit, most recently speaking so
extensively about his views of a world without money that Inner City
Press was not permitted a single question, about some countries'
critique of the draft. At the
time, Inner City Press reported that
Michael Clark previously served with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
and trying to open India to U.S. commercial firms.
Now
it can be told, confirmed by d'Escoto Brockmann's spokesman to
his
credit on June 9: Michael Clark is d'Escoto Brockmann's nephew.
Another niece, Sophia Clark, is d'Escoto Brockmann's Deputy Chief of
Staff.
These two family
connections were confirmed by spokesman
Enrique Yeves on Tuesday. He noted that out of twenty cabinet
members, only two are relatives of the President, and that these are
"freely designated posts" not subject to competition or
qualifications. They are, however, paid from the UN budget.
Chilean
president Michele Bachelet, previously scheduled to attend the
summit, has as Inner City Press heard recently canceled, Yeves
confirmed on Tuesday. Few high level officials from industrialized
countries are slated to come.
It is
becoming, as one well placed
source put it, a wasted opportunity. When the UN General Assembly had
a chance to come out with innovative ideas to regulate the global
financial system, he asked, "who did they turn to? Father
Miguel's nephew."
Michael Clark, with UNPGA one of two Clarks -- or three?
Within
those parts of the General Assembly not related to Escoto Brockmann
by blood or marriage, one can find dissatisfaction with Michael Clark
and the way d'Escoto has "let him run wild," as one source
put it. This source states that Clark has been trying to find this
next job after d'Escoto Brockmann's year as PGA expires, and that
this has included trying to find some European jobs.
The source
traces changes that Clark made to what was ostensibly d'Escoto
Brockmann's personal draft to subsequent criticism of the draft.
"Father Miguel is taking heat for a problem Michael created,"
the source says, calling it misplaced loyalty.
Yeves
said for the record that Michael Clark is by no means the only
adviser on the summit, and argued that Clark's appearance at three
press conferences in a row about the summit was not, as one source
put it, a "try out," but simply a product of the travel
schedule of d'Escoto Brockmann and his other advisers. Inner City
Press asked to interview Michael Clark for this story.
Yeves said
all
such requests to the PGA's advisers go through him, and that answer
would be given by Tuesday at 5 p.m.. Inner City Press hours before
that time also made the request directly to Mr. Clark. After that
deadline, this story is being published, and will be updated. Watch
this site.
UN's $8.2 Billion
Peace Budget Faces 2.5% Cut, S. Korea Puts Congo
Drones on Block?
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 8 -- Anyone can call for peace, but who will pay for
it? That question was being debate, or at least discussed, in the
basement of the UN past 10 p.m. on Monday night. The UN's Fifth
(Budget) Committee had passed its end of May deadline and still the
$8.2 billion peacekeeeping budget was in dispute.
The U.S, Japan,
European Union and surprise Westerner South Korea are proposing a 2.5
percent across the board reduction in all peacekeeping missions'
budgets. The phrase, taken from the Western Sahara draft of June 6, was
a decision "to reduce the Mission's overall operational costs by a
further 2.5 per cent to be accommodated through efficiency savings."
The Group of 77 and China are resisting.
Take
for example
the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known by its
French acronym MONUC. The Advisory Committee on Administrative and
Budgetary Questions' "recommendations on the financing of MONUC
would entail an overall reduction of $66,818,200 or some 4.7 percent
of the Mission's overall budget," mostly due to the local
elections MONUC will support being put back into 2010.
The
African Group,
on the other hand, "is concerned that the cuts proposed by the
ACABQ could negatively impact on the effective functioning of the
Mission."
These
quotes are
from public speeches. Consider, however, the confidential
presentation of the Secretariat to ACABQ, the slide script of which
Inner City Press has been given by a well-placed source. The
Secretariat argued that "the budget before you is not a
maintenance budget based on routine operations." Instead the
Secretariat proposed "an increase of $235 million compare to
2008/09... 168 new posts and positions directly related to the surge
in troops."
This
"surge"
is the 3,000 additional personnel called for the Security Council
during the CNDP fighting in the Kivus, before the house arrest and
Nkunda and incorporation
of indicted war criminal Jean-Bosco
Ntanganda into the Congolese Army, where he has worked in connection
with UN-supported operations according to Congolese records. While
troubling, this should at least save money, no? No. The Secretariat
still proposed ever-increased spending.
The
surge will
come, the document says, from "troops from Bangladesh, Egypt and
Jordan... The new Egyptian battalion will be deployed to South Kivu
and the Bangladeshi will be deployed to Ituri... while the Jordan
Special Forces company will be positioned in North Kivu."
Interestingly, the budget includes "$18 million additional
requirements for 2 UAVs" -- unmanned aerial vehicles, the drones
MONUC chief Alan Doss requested at the turn of the year.
UN's Ban and Doss (not
Mountain) in DRC, budget cuts not shown
Several
Fifth
Committee sources emphasized to Inner City Press the news value of
South Korea's position. Here you have Ban Ki-moon, one source spun,
putting his name on proposals to increase peacekeeping budgets by
almost five percent, while his home country South Korea has joined
the push to instead cut the budgets by 2.5 percent.
The
source asked,
"who's kidding who?" All we could say is "whom."
(On this front it must be said that the Secretariat's presentation to
ACABQ has some laughable typos. It refers for example to "the
Pakistanese battalion." But we digress.)
Upstairs
in the
Delegates' Lounge, a proponent of the Haiti mission's budget told
Inner City Press that MINUSTAH, as it's known, spends 100% or more of
its budget. Mission head Hedi Annabi is called Napoleonic. Other
missions, in their start up phase or even earlier, like Somalia,
might face even steeper cuts.
During
all of this,
the chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le
Roy
is slated to travel from June 9 to 23 to West Africa. He will stop
first in Nigeria, where 27 peacekeepers have been sentence to jail
for life for protesting not being paid after a UN mission. Another
peacekeeper, female, says she was pressured for sex while on mission.
As a now-dead rapper sang, More money, more problems.
Le
Roy will head
to Cote d'Ivoire, where Laurent Gbagbo keeps putting off the promised
election. When will the mission draw down? The force in Liberia,
too, is called larger than needs be. In the basement, however, it is
a question of whose ox is gored. Watch this site.
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