With
UN
Libya Envoy Al Khatib Unvetted for Conflicts, Some on Security Council
Seek Clear Limits to His Mandate
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 11 -- Amid questions about the UN's lack
of
transparency on the business interests of new Special Envoy to Libya,
Jordan's former foreign minister, Senator and businessman Abdul Alah
Al Khatib, some members of the UN Security Council were to meet
with
Al Khatib on Friday afternoon.
UK
Permanent
Representative Mark Lyall Grant told the Press about the 4 pm meeting
on Friday morning, as the Council became consultations on Sudan,
Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire, with a minute of silence for the victims of
the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
After
those
meetings, China's Permanent Representative and Council President for
March Li Baodong told Inner City Press that the meeting with Al
Khatib had been arranged by Lebanon, in the second of its two year
term on the Council.
Informed
sources
told Inner City Press that there are concerns in the Council that Al
Khatib may not be clear on the scope of his mandate. While it is
described as encompassing politics or the political track, some
Council members want Al Khatib strictly limited to humanitarian
issues.
At
the beginning
of the week, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's
spokesman Martin Nesirky if Al Khatib would suspend his business
interests, including service as a director of Jordan Ahli Bank which,
along with Gaddafi's Libyan Central Bank, is a top 20 owner of Union
de Banques Arabes et Francaises.
Nesirky
said that
“those involved” would discussing that, presumably before al
Khatib was unveiled and confirmed on March 11.
But
at the UN noon
briefing on March 11, after a press
stakeout at which Nesirky's
deputy Farhan Haq did not allow this outstanding question to be put
to Al Khatib or Ban, Inner City Press asked Haq how and if Al
Khatib's outside business interests had been vetted before he was
given the post and sent to Tripoli.
Haq
insisted that
Al Khatib, like other UN envoys, will file a financial disclosure
with the UN -- one that the Ban administration allowed to remain
confidential, not available to the public.
Inner
City Press
asked if Al Khatib had at least filed this disclosure prior to being
given the post, so that the UN could assess if conflicts of interest
exist.
He
just got the
post, Haq answered, insisting again that Al Khatib will file in the
future.
Ban & Khatib on March 11, disclosures not shown (c) MRLee
Another
journalists
followed up, saying that conflicts of interest are serious.
Haq
said
dismissively that it was only something “he” -- presumably
meaning Inner City Press -- was raising. But the need to vet outside
hires' business interests is no small matter, as the Obama
Administration found out when it sent Frank Wisner, from a law firm
with interests in Egypt, as an envoy to Mubarak. (Weisner showed up
since that at the UN at the Richard Holbrooke memorial, as
exclusively reported on Twitter by Inner City Press.)
Haq
did not say
whether anyone at the UN had considered Al Khatib's possible
conflicts of interest before he was given the job. As Inner City
Press has reported, Ban first offered the post to Lakhdar Brahimi and
Kemal Dervis before settling on Al Khatib. Being the fall-back, are
conflicts of interest allowed? Watch this site.
* * *
UN
Envoy
Al
Khatib Is On Board of Jordan Ahli Bank, Links With Libya
Central Bank
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
8 -- In selecting Abdul Ilah
al Khatib as the UN's
envoy on Libya, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moved quickly --
maybe
too quickly.
Since
serving
as the foreign minister of Jordan,
describe even some close to Ban as an autocracy, al
Khatib
has served
on the boards of director not only of Lafarge Jordan Cement Company
but also of Jordan Ahli Bank.
Jordan
Ahli
Bank
is active beyond that country's borders. A sample connection: along
with Libyan
Foreign Bank, a fully owned subsidiary of the Central
Bank of Libya, Jordan Ahli Bank
is a top 20 shareholder of Union de
Banques Arabes et Francaises.
Could
there
be
conflicts of interest? Did the UN's Ban administration even consider
these?
Ban & al-Khatib in 2007, directorships not shown: or considered?
Ban
previously claimed that 99% of his officials have made
public financial disclosure. But when Inner City Press showed this is
not true -- even Ban's close ally Choi Young-jin, his envoy in Cote
d'Ivoire, declined to make public financial disclosure -- Ban's
spokesman Martin Nesirky said Ban's statement had been
“metaphorical.”
Now
Ban names and
injects al Khatib into a struggle about democracy and free press,
when as Inner City Press noted
yesterday
"Foreign
Minister
Abd
al-Ilah al-Khatib in January initiated a criminal
defamation suit against weekly newspaper al-Hilal's editor-in-chief
Nasir Qamash and journalist Ahmad Salama. He [al-Khatib] objected to
the content of a January article, and said his tribe had threatened
to beat up Salama if he failed to take action. The case remains in
the courts at this writing."
By
what process was
al-Khatib vetted and selected? Watch this site.
* * *
UN's
Envoy
al-Khatib
Has Attacked the Press, Commitment to Democracy
Questioned
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
7 -- Faced with armed and
unarmed struggles for
democracy in North Africa and the Middle East, Secretary General
Ban
Ki-moon last week decided to name a UN envoy to the region.
But
sources
close
to Ban tell Inner City Press, shaking their heads, that
democracy seemed the last thing in Ban's mind when he assembled his
short list.
Ban
offered the
post to Lakhdar Brahimi of Algeria, where the
election of an Islamic party was simply annulled.
Ban
offered the
post to Kemal Dervis, which the Ban administration sources say was
ridiculous, given that Dervis
is mostly an economist and academic,
and given his record at the UN Development Program, reviewed below.
Finally,
as
what
the sources called a “fall back,” Ban gave the post to a former
foreign minister of Jordan. According to Human
Rights
Watch's World
Report 2008, this Jordanian
"Foreign
Minister
Abd
al-Ilah al-Khatib in January initiated a criminal
defamation suit against weekly newspaper al-Hilal's editor-in-chief
Nasir Qamash and journalist Ahmad Salama. He [al-Khatib] objected to
the content of a January article, and said his tribe had threatened
to beat up Salama if he failed to take action. The case remains in
the courts at this writing."
Great...
Ban's
spokesman Martin Nesirky, who did not allow a question at Monday's
noon briefing about Libya from Inner City Press, instead telling
another reported that "this will be the last question," said that
al-Khatib
will not be based in Libya. If he will not speak with the rebels,
will Gaddafi speak with him, given Gaddafi's characterization of
Jordan as a stooge of the US and Israel? So how was he selected?
At Friday's
noon briefing, Inner City Press asked if Ban has had any contact with
Libya's Ali Treki, now nominated by Gaddafi to be his new ambassador to
the UN, since Treki left his post as President of the UN General
Assembly. From
the
March
4
UN transcript:
Inner
City
Press:
can you describe what, since Dr. Treki was the President
of the General Assembly, since that time, the Secretary-General’s
contacts, if any, with Mr. Treki?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
I
am not aware of anything particular. Obviously, within
the context of Dr. Treki being the President of the General Assembly
for the sixty-fourth session, they obviously interacted with him, he
with him in that capacity. I am not aware of any specific
interaction since then.
Inner
City
Press:
Did he have any other UN system role since he left being
the President of the General Assembly?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Not to my knowledge, but if colleagues have details, I am sure
that
they will correct me, but not to my knowledge. I think it is
important to point out that this was a letter from the Libyan
authorities, and naming Dr. Treki as the person they wish to have as
the Permanent Representative.
Inner
City
Press:
And what does this mean, what’s the next step in terms
of the Secretariat? Does this go to the General Assembly or do you
just automatically process and begin, and give Mr. Treki a pass?
Spokesperson:
It
doesn’t go to the General Assembly. As I think you know,
recognition of countries is a matter for Member States. Libya is a
recognized member of the United Nations, and it is in that context
that, when any country sends a letter naming the Permanent
Representative, that person is the person who will be recognized as
the Permanent Representative. But that is a question of presenting
credentials; the person comes to present credentials.
Inner
City
Press:
One last thing on this, because I remember in the case of
Côte d'Ivoire, the Secretary-General went and gave a speech; he
said
the General Assembly should take up the matter and take on the
[Alassane] Ouattara people as opposed to the [Laurent] Gbagbo people.
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
That’s a very different matter; this is entirely different.
This
was, as you know very well, this was a question of new Government
being recognized by Member States, by the Credentials Committee; it
is entirely different. You can’t compare the two.
Treki has yet to arrive in New York, and in fact may not any time soon
to replace current Ambassadors Shalgam and Dabbashi,
sources tell Inner City Press. We'll have more on this.
Regarding
Kemal
Dervis,
when he left the UN system in early 2009 Inner City Press wrote
that his
"tenure was marked by a series of scandals
in UNDP, from funding violent
disarmament in Uganda anddiamond mining in Zimbabwe to procurement
fraud
cover-ups and
financial irregularities in its North Korea program. Through it all,
Dervis largely avoided the media, repeatedly telling Inner City Press
that he refused to
answer questions in
the hallway of the
UN, as even the Secretary General and
his
top officials do. He presided over retaliation, and then fought to keep UNDP
exempt from the UN system's Ethics Office."
So why did Ban
offer Dervis the job, then turn as a fall back to a Jordanian minister
who has threatened the press?
Footnote: on Dervis, all
that said, Inner City Press has a semi-positive memory. On his way into
the Secretariat building one blue-skied day, Dervis stopped and mused
that, you only have so many mornings like this in your life, you have
to enjoy them. We hope he does -- and that the next UNDP Administrator
does a better job. At the UN noon briefing then, Inner City Press asked
Ban's spokesperson if he will at least commit to what his predecessor
did, releasing a short list of candidates for the post. I don't know
yet, the Spokesperson said then.
And now, this secret fall-back process and this result.
* * *
, 
