Inner City Press -- Investigative Journalism from the United Nations

Senegal's President Claims Peace in Casamance and Habre Trial to Come, A Tale of Two Lamines

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, October 30 -- "That is not an African question." WIth that, Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade answered a question about his age, at a press conference about the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit. Wade challenged the reporter to race him down the hallway. While tennis player Serena Williams was also taking questions, most were directed to Wade.

Inner City Press asked President Wade whether he would follow through on his pledge to put Chad's ex-dictator Hissene Habre on trial, after refusing requests to extradite Habre to Belgium to face war crimes charges. Wade responded that "texts are being prepared," but that the trial is conditional on receiving financial contributions, since the jury may have to travel to Chad.

President Wade spoke of his effort combating female genital mutilation and under-aged marriages, and of the daaras, or Koranic schools, he has set up. Through a hipster translator, he bragged of boosting corn production by 600 percent. He said he would offer the reporter whose question he'd called un-African a scholarship to get some education. He talked up his formula to require sharing of oil "super-profits," which he promotes on a streaming video web site.

On the age question it's worth noting that the Casamance rebel leader Augustin Diamacoune Senghor, 78, was evacuated on October 20 to France due to poor health. Mr. Wade is 80 years old.

Inner City Press about the status of the conflict in the Casamance region. The trigger for the question was rebels' attack on a bus earlier in the day, click here for one report. "We have peace there," President Wade claimed. "There are no more attacks." Video on UNTV.

The briefing room was full, so there was no time to follow-up, or to ask whether Wade has acted on his commitment to remove "press offenses" from the Criminal Code, in Article 80 and elsewhere.

S-G & Pres. Wade

Shortly after Senegalese President Wade's didactic press conference, Senegalese General Lamine Cisse briefed reporters, briefly, at the stakeout outside the Security Council. He called for more focus on the war in Chad and more assistance for the Central African Republic, to which he is Kofi Annan's envoy. One reporter asked him repeatedly about Paul Volcker's UN (mis-) management report, and why he wrote a letter for Kojo Annan.

Gen. Lamine Cisse answered, "What letter?" and even, "What Volcker report?" Video on UNTV, atMinute 3:09 to 4:20. Some at the stakeout initially called this a stonewall. some felt, dodged the question. But perhaps the wall really was made of stone: the individual who appears in the Volcker report is Lamine Sise, a Gambian who works upstairs in the UN Headquarters building. The Gambia separates Casamance from the rest of Senegal. It was a tale of two Lamines, a tale for tout le monde.

At Kofi Annan's spokesman's office's regular noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about the drunk soldier who shot two election officials in eastern Congo, where there was also the burning of ballots, and about why the UN is saying so little about protests against it in Haiti. Video here. As of this mid-afternoon report, we continue to await answers.

At the UN, the Unrepentant Blogger Pronk, a Wink on 14 North Korean Days and Silence on Somalia

UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- Jan Pronk, the UN's envoy to Sudan who has been declared persona non grata by Sudanese president al-Bashir, was defended Friday by the UN Security Council and Kofi Annan's head of peacekeeper Jean-Marie Guehenno. Inner City Press asked Mr. Pronk to explain his statement that his blog posting about the low morale of the Sudanese army was meant to tell the rebel not to attack the army. Video on UNTV. Mr. Pronk explained that his point was that because of low morale, reinforcement were being called, including the janjaweed.

Inner City Press asked Mr. Guehenno is he is aware of such blogging by the chiefs of any other UN peacekeeping missions. Mr. Guehenno did not directly respond, except to repeat the Secretariat's line, that "blogs are personal." Asked about the al-Bashir government sabotaging and delaying the delivery of armored personnel carriers meant for the African Union force in Darfur, Mr. Pronk said yes, APC are delayed, leading to death. Inner City Press asked Mr. Pronk why he didn't post his views on the official website of the UN Mission to Sudan, UNMIS.org. Mr. Pronk said that the UN has never told him to be quiet. But when Inner City Press earlier asked this same APC question, the response was to "look at Pronk's blog" -- in UN parlance, a link verbale.

The president of the Security Council, Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, defended Mr. Pronk. Inner City Press asked if any Council members inquired into the envoy-blogging phenomenon. Amb. Oshima answered, no. Video here.

Earlier on Friday, Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan's spokesman if the UN has any comment on its own leaked report that in Somalia, in violation of the UN embargo, there are up to 8000 Ethiopian troops, and 2000 from Eritrea. Video here. From the UN's transcript:

Inner City Press: there are between 6,000 and 8,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia and 2,000 Eritrean troops. It is a report that has some length, and I was wondering if you can now, after all these months of the United Nations saying it had no idea of what was going on, can you confirm those numbers and what is the United Nations, what does the Secretary-General say given the arms embargo on Somalia?

Spokesman: No, I cannot confirm those; I am sorry, as a matter of policy, I was about to say, we do not comment on leaked or reportedly leaked documents, which we can�t authenticate. We do, however, receive second-hand reports from the parties and the press, and as we've said repeatedly, we are not in a position to verify these reports or comment on any presence of foreign troops in Somalia. The Secretary-General stresses that the solution in Somalia is political and not military, he urges the Somali parties to settle their differences through dialogue and he calls on the international community, especially Somalia's neighbors, to avoid any action that could further aggravate the situation... The issue is that it is not in the mandate of -- the current mandate of the United Nations is given to it by, as it stands now, with this political office, to verify these numbers. The message to all the neighbors is to avoid any action that would further aggravate the solution. And, obviously, furthermore, I would add, the message is also for all countries to respect and abide by the embargo currently in place.

Question: There is a United Nations group of four experts who are supposed to report...

Spokesman: Those experts, I am talking about the political mission led by Mr. Fall, the experts work and report for the Security Council. They come out with the regular reports. You may want to see if you can get in touch with them, to see if they have anything to say.

But these four Somalia experts have already declined to speak, at least until they brief the Security Council. When this will happen, no one is saying.

"The Peacebuilding Commission has only one reporting structure. It submits an annual report to the General Assembly and the Assembly is expected to hold an annual debate to review that report. And, that's the only real structure. What I think might have been a concern was the fact that the resolution which established it does, in fact, say that, on issues of relevance to the Security Council or to ECOSOC, that information should be shared. It says, for example, that the Commission would provide advice to the Council at its request. It's the same for ECOSOC -- the Commission would provide advice, particularly on countries in transitional recovery towards development and anything that would be of relevance to that issue. So, it's not that it sets up extra layers of bureaucracy, which I think was Sierra Leone's concern."

On the sidelines outside the Security Council, the chairman of the North Korea sanctions committee, Slovakian Amb. Burian, said that although the deadline to agree on one of the sanctions list is October 28, agreement by Monday, October 30 at noon will be considered compliant. Since there is no court to oversee or review the Security Council's work, anything goes, apparently...

A Tale of Two Americans Vying to Head the World Food Program, Banbury and Sheeran Shiner

UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- The four-person short list to replace Jim Morris as head of the UN World Food Program includes Tony Banbury, a Democrat who worked in the Bush Administration for a year before rejoining the UN system and the current head of WFP's Asia operation, Inner City Press has learned.

As first reported by Inner City Press on September 29, the Bush Administration's nominee for the WFP post is Josette Sheeran (Shiner), formerly an editor of the Washington Times and a 20-year member, until 1998, of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The two other short listers are Canada's Robert Fowler and Walter Fust. Sources say that many senior figures in the Bush Administration could live with Tony Banbury getting the job, given his strong credentials earned in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the earthquake in Pakistan. They simply couldn't or didn't choose to nominate a Democrat instead of a Republican, particularly a Republican with a history with the Unification Church, a sub-constituency.

Friday, a senior UN official confirmed to Inner City Press that Tony Banbury is on the WFP short list. The list was whittled from eight candidates to four by a five-person panel that included the UN's Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland and UNFPA's Thoraya Obaid, and well as two representatives from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. Now the finalists will be interviewed by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is currently in New York. It is widely known that Dr. Diouf does not get along with finalist Robert Fowler who has been serving as Canada's ambassador to the FAO in Rome. Dr. Diouf's views on Walter Fust, are not known. Nor are Dr. Diouf's connections with the Bush Administration although regarding these, the coming decision may speak loudly.

On October 25, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, as transcribed by the UN:

Question: On the World Food Program (WFP) process, we have heard that there is a shortlist. Is that true? Who is on it?

Spokesman: I have said all I have to say on that, and we expect an announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Inner City Press question: When the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) selected Mr. Guterres they did actually say who was on the shortlist. Is that not going to be done in this case?

Spokesman: The process here is slightly different because as opposed to UNHCR this is not an appointment that goes to the General Assembly. This is an appointment that is made jointly by the Secretary-General and the Director General of the FAO.

Concerns have been raised about Kofi Annan making five year appointments now that he remains Secretary-General for only nine more weeks. On September 27 at the UN, before the WFP nomination had become public, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters that Kofi Annan's appointment of new UN officials would only be okay if these officials' contracts ended "soon after January 1." Video here, at Minute 4:43.

September 29 at the UN, Inner City Press asked Ambassador Bolton if the U.S.'s position is that Josette Sheeran (Shiner) could be given a five-year WFP term even before Kofi Annan leaves the UN in three month. Ambassador Bolton answered that the appointment could be made before January 1, that "the precedents have differed." Video here, from Minute 8:15, the US mission's transcript:

Inner City Press: On the secretary-general transition and the World Food Program looking for a new executive director, I've heard that the U.S. put forward Josette Sheeran Shiner. Is it your position that this should not be done until January 1st or that she could be appointed and given a five-year term prior to that?

Ambassador Bolton: She could be appointed prior to January 1 or thereafter. And the precedent has differed from reappointment to reappointment.

U.S. Ambassador Bolton added that Josette Sheeran Shiner was "the most qualified candidate."

As Inner City Press reported on September 29, open-source research reflects that Josette Sheeran (Shiner) was an active member of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church from 1975 through at least 1996. After that date, it is reported that she went "into the world," including into William Bennett's Empower America organization and then the U.S. State Department, in order to spread the Unification Church's message and position. Beyond controversial views on abstinence, mass-marriage and other matters, including the UN, these include business ties with and praise of North Korea.

The internal U.S. State Department memo obtained by Inner City Press stated that

"For the past several weeks, we have been working with the White House to search for a highly qualified candidate to succeed Jim Morris as Executive Director of the World Food Programme. We now have an excellent candidate in Ambassador Josette Sheeran (Shiner)... Through the course of a distinguished career in government, business and journalism, Ambassador Sheeran has excelled as a diplomat, humanitarian, business leader and development policy leader."

The reference to journalism is to Ms. Sheeran's tenure as managing editor of the Moon-owned Washington Times.

In that capacity, in 1992 Ms. Sheeran went on an 11-day visit to North Korea, leading up a feature article commemorating the 80th birthday of Kim Il-Sung's 80th birthday. "Even if the sky is falling down on us, there will always be a hole for me to rise up through," said Kim -- a sentence Sheeran-Shiner later recollected, as recounted by the American Prospect, as "this wonderful thing which I printed in the paper."

Sheeran-Shiner's interview with Kim Il-Sung painted him as a "self-conﬁdent, reﬂective elder statesman rather than the reclusive, dogmatic dictator he is usually portrayed as in the West."

Now Kim Il-Sung's son is being portrayed by Ms. Sheeran-Shiner's nominator as a threat to international peace and security. More documents on the North Korea - Moon connection are online here.

Josette Sheeran's first appearance in the media was in Time magazine of November 10, 1975, in an article entitled "Mad About Moon" --

"One typical worried parent is New Jersey's state insurance commissioner James Sheeran, three of whose daughters�Vicki, 25, Jaime, 24, and Josette, 21�are Moon converts. He wants laws to protect people from 'cruel and exotic entrapment of their minds, souls and bodies.' Late one night last August, Sheeran decided to act when Josette, normally compassionate, showed little interest upon learning that her grandmother was in the hospital. He, his wife and a son drove to Moon's school to seek Josette. Fifteen Moon men materialized, a scuffle ensued, and state police arrived amid mutual charges of assault."

In fairness or under the doctrine of equal time, Inner City Press has heard a person who states that she "worked with Ms. Sheeran at the Office of the Untied States Trade Representative" and that "she severed her ties with the Unification Church... do you actually think the State Department's security clearance process" who have passed a Unification Church member?

Well, yes. George H.W. Bush has given speeches extensively praising Sun Myung Moon. But it's duly noted here, this missive from a person who worked with Ms. Sheeran also at the Washington Times, that after 20 years of membership in the Unification Church, it's stated that all ties were then severed. It remains newsworthy, also on the shifting positions on whether Kofi Annnan should be allowed to hand out five-year appointments in the less than three months he has remaining in office. U.S. Amb. Bolton said Annan shouldn't make appointments beyond the end of 2006, then receiving new instructions, said there'd be precedent to give Ms. Sheeran five years right now. Would he and the Bush Administration take the same position on Tony Banbury? We'll see.

WFP insiders have pointed out to Inner City Press that within the U.S. State Department, of Josette Sheeran (Shiner) it is said, "She is no Al Larson," her predessesor as Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs. These WFP sources note that Ms. Sheeran Shiner has no experience in humanitarian operations, or in emergency relief work, in international affairs, or in managing a large, complex, multi-billion dollar agency. One argues, "it would still be possible for Kofi Annan to retain an American for the WFP post and to not agree to the Bush Administration's rather unqualified candidate. After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, America learned a lesson: Don't place unqualified political appointees in charge of critical emergency response agencies. The same lesson applies to leadership considerations for the WFP, the global 'first responder' for floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis the world over. It is quite critical that the U.S. seek to retain leadership of a vital UN agency and also to place the very best qualified candidate into the post."

For reporting about banks, predatory lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click here for Inner City Press's weekly CRA Report. Inner City Press also reports weekly concerning the Federal Reserve, environmental justice, global inner cities, and more recently on the United Nations, where Inner City Press is accredited media. Follow those links for more of Inner City Press's reporting, or, click here to contact us with or for more information.