Sudan
Cites Hezbollah, While UN Dances Around Issues of Consent and Sex Abuse in the
Congo, Passing the UNIFIL Hat
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
August 17 -- As the situation in
Darfur continues to deteriorate,
at the UN powers great and small dance around the need for the consent of
Sudan's al Bashir government to the introduction of UN peacekeepers in Western
Sudan. On Thursday Inner City Press asked Sudan's UN envoy Omar Bashir Mohamed
Manis to explain his president's
analogy of himself to Hezbollah and UN
blue helmets to Israel. He
answered that this merely reiterated Sudan's position against any transfer of
mission in Darfur from the African Union to the UN. Regardless of the situation
on the ground, he said, they want to introduce UN troops. Why?
While
Sudan's president has previously ascribed this to colonialism and a clash of
civilizations and religions, at the UN on Thursday questions were answered with
other questions. The Security Council's president, Ghanaian Ambassador Nana
Effah-Apenteng was
asked by Inner City Press to
respond to the Sudanese analogy of the UN to Israel. "Maybe I can pose the
question back at you," Amb. Nana Effah-Apenteng said. "UNMIS is there already.
How does that effect the sovereignty of Sudan?" Inner City Press said it would
try to put the question to Sudan's president, but for now has reached Sudanese
Ambassador Omar Bashir Mohamed. Video
here,
beginning Second 34.
South
Darfur
U.S.
Deputy Permanent Representative Jackie Sanders held her first media stakeout
after the Security Council consultations on Sudan. She said there will be an
experts' meeting on Friday on the draft resolution put forward by the U.S. and
UK.
Inner City Press asked her
to respond to the request earlier in the week that sanctions be imposed on
senior Sudanese leaders who are blocking the UN. She responded that while in the
Council "we haven't gotten into targeted sanctions," it should be "looked at
closely, we would be supportive."
Whether
or not on Wednesday this was the U.S. position, to support target sanctions on
president Bashir and others, the U.S. Mission Thursday provided this transcript:
Inner City Press:
Does the US have a position on that request? Has it been discussed in the
Council?
Ambassador Sanders:
We haven't gotten into the details of targeted sanctions lately in the Council.
I think it's something that we certainly need to look at carefully, and we would
be supportive.
Meanwhile
the UN's mission in Congo, MONUC, announced it is investigating the involvement
of UN peacekeepers in a prostitution ring involving children close to large
concentrations of blue helmets in South Kivu. Responding to CNN, Kofi Annan's
spokesman's office provided incrementally provided the following data Thursday
afternoon: "there are a total of 256 open allegations of misconduct by MONUC
staff currently under investigation. Of these, 144 are allegations of sexual
exploitation and abuse (SEA). We have 201 completed investigations of sexual
exploitation and abuse resulting in the repatriation from the Democratic
Republic of Congo of 102 military, 11 police personnel, the reprimand of three
civilians and the suspension of six civilians to date." To this spokesman orally
added that "an additional seven civilians were summarily dismissed on the basis
of allegations." It is unclear how sexual exploitation and abuse" is defined,
in relation for example to non-minor prostitution. Also not yet provided,
despite Inner City Press' mid-afternoon request, are similar allegation and
investigation numbers for other UN peacekeeping missions. Developing...
UNIFIL Contribution Update
During a
two hour stakeout on the UN's second floor, the German Ambassador spoke of
guarding the whole coast. When asked by Inner City Press about the oil spill,
occasioned by the second power station's bombing, the German Ambassador said no,
the issue didn't come up. So too UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, who spoke of
offering a frigate but shrugged at mention of the oil spill. He did, however,
confirm that work continues on the UK-led draft resolution on the Lord's
Resistance Army. The true number two in the U.S. mission, Alejandro Wolffe,
spoke of "muscular" force. In terms of "self-deploying" forces, a term used by a
senior UN official who asked to be unnamed, few meet the definition. Nepal,
Indonesia, Malaysia? Nevertheless, the Deputy Secretary General, meanwhile,
emerged flush with American vernacular: we're got this show on the road, "we're
in business." With
Dow Chemical,
Soc Gen
and
Microsoft,
yes the UN is...
Heard in
the hall: The ambassador of Kazakhstan, walking smiling between the Security
Council and the delegates' lounge, stopped to tell Inner City Press of an
upcoming briefing on the 15th anniversary of denuclearization of Kazakhstan.
Inner City Press took the opportunity to deliver rare praise, echoing UNHCR's
praise of the non-refoulement of an Uzbek refugee to Tashkent. In the spirit of
the glossy nature photographs passed out at the last Kazakh briefing, "Let the
wild horses run!"
Finally,
an update to yesterday's footnote on the selection of questioners at Wednesday's
briefing by the Israeli foreign minister. It has been pointed out to Inner City
Press that at an earlier UN press briefing, Iran's current president took a
question from a reporter from Israel, then laughed. For that reason, two
television producers from the Middle East opined to Inner City Press that the
comment should not have been made. They also pointed out that Israel's Foreign
Minister granted an interview to Al Arabia television prior to the briefing.
Another pointed out at this TV interview was in Israel. The spokeswoman for
Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman, Anat Friedman, opined to Inner City Press that
the intervention was "rude." There are worse sins, in Darfar for example.
Feedback: editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile
(Saturday): 718-716-3540
With Somalia on the Brink of Horn-Wide War, UN Avoids Question of Ethiopian
Invasion
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS,
August 16 -- With the Horn of Africa teetering on the brink of a region-wide
war, the widely reported incursion of Ethiopian troops into Somalia is either
too inconvenient, too controversial or too unimportant to be inquired into by
the United Nations. Kofi Annan’s envoy for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, came
to New York on Wednesday to brief the Security Council and then the UN press
corps. In response to one of five questions from Inner City Press, Francois
Lonseny Fall said that during the morning’s Security Council consultations, the
issue of Ethiopian troops in Somalia "didn't come up." He added that no member
of the Security Council asked about the issue. Video is at
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pressbriefing/brief060816.rm
In two
interviews Wednesday with Inner City Press,
Ghana's ambassador who is the president of the Security Council emphasized that
Ethiopia is not the only state violating the Somalia arms embargo. While true,
that does not explain why the UN cannot or will not address or even inquire into
the issue of the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
Francois
Lonseny Fall acknowledged that the UN has staff in Baidoa, the seat of the
Transitional Federal Government where numerous eye witnesses and journalists
have spotted Ethiopian troops. He insisted however, that his "office has no
monitoring capability on the ground to confirm these reports."
Francois
Lonseny Fall
Separately, Inner City Press Wednesday asked the UN's humanitarian arm, OCHA,
for a read-out on its assessment mission to Somalia earlier this month. A
spokeswoman for OCHA confirmed the mission, saying it was the first UN airplane
to land in Mogadishu in fourteen years. Asked if assessment mission have been
made to Baidoa she said yes, some months ago.
In May,
the UN issued a report naming as violators of the Somalia arms embargo six
countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen, Italy and Saudi Arabia. Eritrea
and Ethiopia are engaged in a border dispute for which Somalia threatens to
become a second front. Since Eritrea has tried to tell the UN which
nationalities must be excluded from its UNMEE peacekeeping force, some wonder if
that is not a partial explanation of the UN's seeming siding with Ethiopia, or
equating Ethiopia's incursion with troops to Eritrea's reported delivery of
weapons, into Mogadishu airport.
On
factual matters, Francois Lonseny Fall confirmed the
defection
of soldiers from the TFG to the Islamic Courts, last month and as recently as
yesterday. Nevertheless he said he supports lifting the arms embargo against the
TFG. Who would use the weapons, one wag was heard to wonder: mercenaries? He
also confirmed the opening of an Islamic court in Puntland, an area that has
claimed independence and has endeavored to sell its mineral rights to
Australia-based Range Resources, Ltd.
Inner
City Press asked for a response to the theory that the UN is so committed to the
Transitional Federal Government that it is turning a blind eye to violations of
the arms embargo on Somalia. Francois Lonseny Fall replied that it is not only
the UN that supports the TFG, but also "others in the international community."
This is not, he said, a green light for meddling in Somalia. But to many, it
seems like a green light has been given. Developing...
In other
UN Headquarters news, Israel's minister for foreign affairs Tzipi Livni
briefed
a roomful of UN reporters on Wednesday. After reading a prepared statement, she
took only five questions, from journalists she and Israeli Ambassador Dan
Gillerman conferred on and selected. At the end, a head-scarfed correspondent
noted, "You didn't choose any Arabic journalists." The entourage left the room.
Power speaks and then is gone. [See August 17 update, above].
In
UN's Lebanon Frenzy, Darfur Is Ignored As Are the Disabled, "If You Crave UNIFIL,
Can't You Make Do With MONUC?"
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED
NATIONS, August 15 -- "We are looking for forces who can be self-deploying."
Thus Tuesday spake a senior UN official in a Lebanon background briefing for
five dozen rapt reporters. In the wake of
Friday's ceasefire resolution,
apparently the entire world craves to know the nitty-gritty of the UN troop
contributions meetings. The senior and bald-pated UN official declined to name
countries with specific soldier numbers. At briefing's end he relented and said,
"on the record," that he hopes that France "could be the backbone" of the
revamped UNIFIL, which some called UNIFIL II.
Monday
afternoon, a five-reporter stakeout of Conference Room 5 yielded elusive quotes
from a tall peacekeeping official who reappeared at Tuesday briefing. He said
Germany and France are on board, Turkey "not yet." Press
reports on
Tuesday have Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan awaiting a second UN
resolution before deciding to commit troops.
While
one-step, two-step was the structure of the
initial Franco-American
proposal of ten days ago, it is not clear that if Turkey waits for a second
resolution they will join the initial force. Inner City Press had that question,
and another concerning the meaning of the "offensive military operations" that
Israel must cease, but time and the spokesman's queue did not permit. Instead
the briefing contained a hypnotizing repetition of the word "robust," converted
by the unnamed official into "robustness," as in demonstrating to European
foreign ministers the prospective robustness of the UNIFIL II force.
Looking
for coverage: Darfur
At
Tuesday
noon briefing,
along with the Darfur question related but not answered below, the spokesman
disclosed that Saturday's DPKO meeting included 28 countries, and Monday's had
17 countries, reportedly different. From that reporters collectively calculated
the number 45, as in Colt 45, the beer or the handgun. Mid-briefing the unnamed
UN official confessed, "I am not an expert on military matters." Only on
peacekeeping, apparently. But how robust is that?
Press
accounts have Italy committing up to
3000 troops,
and an Israeli Brigadier General, Yossi Kuperwasser, opining that "it could be a
very short cease-fire."
One reporter asked what UNIFIL would do if it witnesses Hezbollah forces
launching a rocket.
"We could
take action," the senior UN official replied, if they get in the way of our
mandate. But what of Israel? What could constitute an "offensive military
action"? It was neither asked nor answered, despite the media swarm.
The
peacekeeping crew who staffed the packed-room briefing were the same as presided
over a session on the Congo, which four reporters attended. Tuesday one wag
mused that the Congo needs exposure. Perhaps Kofi Annan's envoy William Lacy
Swing should appear at this better-attended session as a kind of movie trailer,
a Coming Attractions as it were.
"If
you craved UNIFIL, you could be satisfied by MONUC," might be the slogan,
referring to the UN's missions in Lebanon and the Congo respectively. A
sharper-edged wag envisioned a movie trailer-like voiceover:
"From the
directors who presided over Rwanda's Arusha Accords... From the producers of
UNISOM and its Black Hawk Down sequel... With a budget taken in part from this
summer's sleeper UNMEE... It's the blockbuster this August has needed, with a
15,000 crew... It's UNIFIL Two, coming into theater before the end of the
month!"
A needed
UN mission that's still sitting on the runway is a peace force for Darfur. At
Tuesday's
noon briefing, Inner City Press asked
Kofi Annan's spokesman for the Secretariat's reaction to a request, the day
before, that senior Sudanese officials including president al Bashir be hit with
UN sanctions for blocking UN entry. "I'm not aware of the request," the
spokesman answered.
Before 1
p.m., the full request, dated August 14, was emailed to the spokesman and one of
his colleagues. Still at 5 p.m. there was no Darfur response. There is UNIFIL
and more UNIFIL, we are filled with UNIFIL. As with Hollywood, the public is
given what it wants. Or is it?
At the UN
this week and next, a new human rights treaty is being negotiated, the proposed
Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities. At a press conference on Tuesday, the chairman of the Ad Hoc
Committee on the Convention, Don MacKay, said that if current efforts to block
the creation of a treaty monitoring body are successful, the Convention may well
not be enacted. "And that would be shabby treatment," Mr. MacKay said, citing a
long history of societies' discrimination against the disabled.
There were less than a dozen reporters at
the briefing. Mr. MacKay referred to this, to the other "important issues" going
on, while noting that the number of people impacted by this treaty, in the
hundreds of millions, dwarfed those impacted by the current focus on the UN
press corps' attention.
There are however people
watching. Circling this meeting, much as the National Rifle Association circled
the one on Small Arms, are anti-abortion activists. They see, they say, in the
treaty's reference to "reproductive health" a slippery slope toward legalized
abortion. Mr. MacKay, asked by Inner City Press to response, said the argument
has no merit at all. Click
here for
video and
here for
the text of the draft Convention.
Inner City Press asked if the United
States is among the countries opposing any monitoring of countries' performance
under the Convention, similar to the approach the U.S. took in derailing the
Small Arms meeting at the UN earlier this year. Mr. MacKay acknowledged that the
U.S. is among six or seven countries raising such concerns, but stated that the
U.S. position does not seem "doctrinal" or doctrinaire.
On whether the UN's websites,
at least, are accessible, Inner City Press' question was answered by referring
to the meeting's
subsite
which states that "
For this site, and for
future United Nations websites, we have incorporated design elements that allow
navigation by visually-impaired users." Well alright.
Mr. MacKay's co-speaker, not identified
in the Media Alert of the event but referred to by Mr. MacKay as Maria Veronica,
stated that with her wheelchair, she was unable to speak from the podium in the
briefing room 226. Afterwards, Inner City Press was told by another UN office
that there is, in fact, a ramp for the podium in Room 226. A telephone call
placed to the office reportedly in charge of the ramp was not returned by press
time, leaving only this reflection, that the root of the word "podium" is the
same as that for "foot," leaving its relation to feet's replacement "wheelchair"
more than a little unclear.
[Concluding inside joke: The article above is damning enough without even
mentioning Congolese warlord-now-colonel Peter Karim, the negotiations with whom
the senior UN official's been asked about, without substantive response. Okay,
it's not a joke.]
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
Impunity's in
the Air, at the UN in Kinshasa and NY, for Kony and Karim and MONUC for
Kazana
UN Still Silent
on Somalia, Despite Reported Invasion, In Lead-Up to More Congo Spin
UN's Guehenno
Says Congo Warlord Just Needs Training, and Kazana Probe Continues
With Congo
Elections Approaching, UN Issues Hasty Self-Exoneration as Annan Is
Distracted
In DR Congo, UN
Applauds Entry into Army of Child-Soldier Commander Along with Kidnapper
Spinning the
Congo, UN Admits Hostage Deal with Warlord That Put Him in Congolese
Army
At the UN, Dow
Chemical's Invited In, While Teaming Up With Microsoft is Defended
Kofi Annan
Questioned about Congolese Colonel Who Kidnapped Seven UN Soldiers
At the UN,
Speeches While Gaza Stays Lightless and Insurance Not Yet Paid
At the UN
Poorest Nations Discussed, Disgust at DRC Short Shrift, Future UN
Justice?
At the UN
Wordsmiths Are At Work on Zimbabwe, Kony, Ivory Coast and Iran
UN Silent As
Congolese Kidnapper of UN Peacekeepers Is Made An Army Colonel: News
Analysis
At
the UN, New Phrase Passes Resolution called Gangster-Like by North Korea; UK
Deputy on the Law(less)
UN's Guehenno
Speaks of "Political Overstretch" Undermining Peacekeeping in Lower
Profile Zones
In Gaza Power
Station, the Role of Enron and the U.S. Government's OPIC Revealed by UN
Sources
At UN, North
Korean Knot Attacked With Fifty Year Old Precedent, Game Continues Into
Weekend
UN's Corporate
Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with Microsoft, and
UNDP Continues
Gaza Resolution
Vetoed by U.S., While North Korea Faces Veto and Chechnya Unread
BTC Briefing,
Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations
Conflicts of
Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform Rifts
At the UN, A Day
of Resolutions on Gaza, North Korea and Iran, Georgia as Side Dish
UN Grapples with
Somalia, While UNDP Funds Mugabe's Human Rights Unit, Without
Explanation
In North Korean
War of Words, Abuses in Uganda and Impunity Go Largely Ignored
On North Korea,
Blue Words Move to a Saturday Showdown, UNDP Uzbek Stonewall
As the World
Turns in Uganda and Korea, the UN Speaks only on Gaza, from Geneva
North Korea in
the UN: Large Arms Supplant the Small, and Confusion on Uganda
UN Gives Mugabe
Time with His Friendly Mediator, Refugees Abandoned
At the UN,
Friday Night's Alright for Fighting; Annan Meets Mugabe
UN Acknowledges
Abuse in Uganda, But What Did Donors Know and When? Kazakh Questions
In Uganda, UNDP
to Make Belated Announcement of Program Halt, But Questions Remain (and
see
The New Vision,
offsite).
Disarmament
Abuse in Uganda Leads UN Agency to Suspend Its Work and Spending
Disarmament
Abuse in Uganda Blamed on UNDP, Still Silent on Finance
Alleged Abuse in
Disarmament in Uganda Known by UNDP, But Dollar Figures Still Not Given:
What Did UN Know and When?
Strong Arm on
Small Arms: Rift Within UN About Uganda's Involuntary Disarmament of
Karamojong Villages
UN in Denial on
Sudan, While Boldly Predicting the Future of Kosovo/a
UN's Selective
Vision on Somalia and Wishful Thinking on Uighurs
UN Habitat
Predicts The World Is a Ghetto, But Will Finance Be Addressed at
Vancouver World Urban Forum?
At the UN, a
Commando Unit to Quickly Stop Genocide is Proposed, by Diplomatic Sir
Brian Urquhart
UN's Annan
Concerned About Use of Terror's T-Word to Repress, Wants
Freedom of Information
UN Waffles on
Human Rights in Central Asia and China; ICC on Kony and a Hero from
Algiers
At the UN,
Internal Justice Needs Reform, While in Timor Leste, Has Evidence Gone
Missing?
UN & US,
Transparency for Finance But Not Foreign Affairs: Somalia, Sovereignty
and Senator Tom Coburn
In Bolton's Wake,
Silence and Speech at the UN, Congo and Kony, Let the Games Begin
Pro-Poor Talk and
a Critique of the World Trade Organization from a WTO Founder: In UN
Lull, Ugandan Fog and Montenegrin Mufti
Human Rights
Forgotten in UN's War of Words, Bolton versus Mark Malloch Brown: News
Analysis
In Praise of
Migration, UN Misses the Net and Bangalore While Going Soft on Financial
Exclusion
UN Sees Somalia
Through a Glass, Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and
Everything But Congo
AIDS Ends at the
UN? Side Deals on Patents, Side Notes on Japanese Corporations,
Salvadoran and Violence in Burundi
On AIDS at the
UN, Who Speaks and Who Remains Unseen
Corporate Spin on
AIDS, Holbrooke's Kudos to Montenegro and its Independence (May 31, 2006)
Kinshasa Election
Nightmares, from Ituri to Kasai. Au Revoir Allan Rock; the UN's
Belly-Dancing
Working with
Warlords, Insulated by Latrines: Somalia and Pakistan Addressed at the
UN
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in
Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
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City Press's
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