Amid
UN
Complaints on Ban Ki-moon's "Arbitrary" 3.7% Budget Cuts, His
Pre-Coronation Is Reported
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 5 -- Even before it is decided who should
be UN
Secretary General from 2012 through 2016, news wire services have
predicted with “100%” accuracy that Ban Ki-moon will and should
be re-appointed, quoting unnamed “UN diplomats.”
But
why? Beyond
questions about silence on human rights issues, and compromising the
UN's purported impartiality in Cote d'Ivoire and elsewhere, on June 3
members of the UN's budget advisory committee complained to Inner
City Press about Ban's just-made budget proposal.
“He said it
would be a three percent across the board cut,” a member of the UN
Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs told Inner
City Press. “Then he comes in with three point seven, but
implemented very haphazardly. There are no cuts to UN Women, but
larger cuts to other departments.”
Another
ACABQ
source wondered why member states would move so quickly to rubber
stamp Ban for five more years right after he made a controversial but
still secret budget proposal.
“This wouldn't
happen in any democracy in the world,” the source said. In these
fiscal times, how leaders proposal budgets is the major issue to
judge them on. "Ban just dropped this one on us, the member states
haven't even debated or even heard it -- and they want to give him a
second term?”
Ban with Zoellick &
DSK: successor & musical chairs not shown
Beyond
this, as
Inner City Press has pointed out since the resignation of Dominique
Strauss-Kahn as head of the IMF and before, if that now vacant post
goes to an Asian or even South Korean, it would change the UN
balance, and quite possible bring out another candidate for the top
UN spot.
If
Ban is
preaching democracy, why not at least wait to see if a competing
candidate emerges? Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
on 2d Term for Ban, “No One Else Wants the Job,” a P-5 DPR Tells Press,
Asia Group
to Prejudge IMF Race?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 5 -- With Ban Ki-moon
24 hours away from seeking Asian
Group backing for a second term as UN Secretary General, already
arguments are being made that Ban this year made up for his quiet on
human rights by promoting air strikes in Cote d'Ivoire and Libya.
But
the
performance of the UN in Cote d'Ivoire under Ban's close ally Choi
Young-jin, who acted as Ban's campaign manager to be selected
Secretary General on 2006, has come into question explicitly on human
rights grounds.
On
June 2, Inner
City Press asked Ban's spokesperson's office for its response to
charges that the UN stood by as Alassane Outtara's forces carried out
reprisal killings in Abidjan. Their inaction in Duekoue is already
under investigation.
Ban appears
to not even be monitoring the
bombing of Libya, even amid reports of collateral damage and the use
of mercenaries.
On
Friday June 3
after Inner City Press reported on
the Asia Group's breakfast with
Ban set for Monday morning -- not listed on Ban's schedule as of
the
weekend -- other reports followed quoting unnamed UN diplomats
supporting and promoting Ban's bid.
While
no one, it
seems, wants to speak entirely on the record about Ban, on Friday the
Deputy Permanent Representative of a Permanent member of the Security
Council told Inner City Press that there are no other alternative
candidates to Ban, adding “maybe nobody else wants the job.”
If
you use the
UN S-G post this way, some wonder, who but a red carpet and travel
addict
would want it?
The
structural
problem is the need to please all of the Permanent Five during a
first time, in order to get a second. A solution would be to limit
Secretaries General to a single term, perhaps of seven years.
As
to the Asia
Group casting their lot with a second term by Ban on June 6, to some
this seems to preclude the International Monetary Fund post going to
an Asian, or perhaps even a developing world candidate. Is this the
right move for the Asia Group? What exactly is the rush to act before
the IMF decides on June 30, or even before the June 10 court decision
on whether a case will proceed against Europe's, or at least
France's, IMF candidate to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Christine
Lagarde?
Could
it be, some ask, that those who most supported Ban's and his Choi's
attack helicopter raids in Cote d'Ivoire feel similarly about this
pre-emptive action in the IMF replacement race?
DSK
is in court in
lower Manhattan on June 6, but no final decision about his future
will be made there. Must it be different in Turtle Bay? Watch this
site.
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