As
UN
Budget Goes
Overtime, P5's
Political
Missions,
Opaque Ban
Special Fund
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 23 --
The UN
budget was
scheduled,
perhaps
optimistically,
to be voted on
Friday at 3 pm.
As the clock
moved past 4
pm diplomats
continued to
mill about the
North Lawn
building where
the
negotiations
are taking
place.
While
Fifth
Committee
chairman Tommo
Monthe told
Inner City
Press "we
already have a
paper, now we
just have
to... powder
it," the
representative
of a major
developing
country
described a
hang up on
"thematic
issues"
related to
Special
Political
Missions.
"The
Permanent
Five [members
of the
Security
Council] want
to control the
SPMs," he
said. Major
SPMs are in
Libya, Iraq
and
Afghanistan.
"The P-5 just
want us to pay
for them."
The
pushback, he
said, is not
only from non
Security
Council
members, but
also from the
UN
Secretariat,
on managerial
grounds.
He said the
Secretariat
would like to
move the SPMs
out of the
regular budget
and create a
Special
Account, with
separate
financial
negotiations
like regular
UN
Peacekeeping
mission have
now.
The
descripion by
this diplomat
and others of
Ban Ki-moon
administration's
role in making
proposals in
the budget
negotiations
is directly at
odds with the
responses of
Ban's
spokesman
Martin
Nesirky.
Since it was
scheduled to
be the last
in-person
briefing of
the year,
Inner City
Press on
Friday asked
Nesirky for a
comment on the
budget
negotiations
and the
Secretariat's
positions.
Nesirky
declined
comment,
saying it is a
matter for
member states.
But Ban's
Secretariat is
not only in
charge of
defending or
advocating for
programs and
staffers that
developed
countries
would like to
cut -- it is
also making
proposals such
as about SPMs.
But Ban's
Secretariat
refuses to
explain
itself, or to
be
accountable.
Vienna
Cafe 4:30 pm
Dec 23, food
& worker
about to
disappear (c)
MRLee
While
seeming
friendlier
than in recent
years, this
December's UN
budget
negotiations
are also less
transparent,
despite UN
Ambassador for
Management Joe
Torsella's
loud push to
televise some
of the Fifth
Committee's
proceedings.
Another
diplomat
described a
closed door
process in
which, for
example,
people say
"Africa...
take it a D-1
post."
Does
this take
place in the
closed door
but at least
formal venue
of Conference
Room 5? No, it
is in the
rooms of the
Group of 77,
down DPA's
hallway, and
in the room of
the EU.
Germany's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Miguel Berger
swept through
Friday at
noon; later on
Friday, the US
Mission's
spokesman sent
out as
reply a
photo of
Torsella
"pictured here
moments ago,
in midst of
continuing UN
budget
negotiations."
Inner
City Press
replied with
questions,
whether
Torsella still
wanted the
negotiations
to be filmed
and televised,
and whether
the US Mission
has any reply
to Russian
Ambassador
Vitaly
Churkin's
jocular
rejoinder to
Susan Rice,
about her
vocabulary and
"Stanford
education. The
P5 might be
together on
SPMs, but they
are far apart
in other ways.
Click
here for that,
and watch this
site.
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