UN Peacekeeping Waits For Sudan's Letter, Lobbies
Pakistan for Troops and Restructuring
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- Sudan's
long-promised and long-delayed response to Ban Ki-moon's January 24 letter is
still lost in the mail. On Tuesday UN envoy Jan Elliason said that outgoing
Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Hedi Annabi, had sought out the
Sudanese Ambassador to
try and get the letter. For the same microphone a few minutes later, Ambassador
Kumalo of South Africa, this month's Security Council president, said that
"Sudan is a sovereign nation, so I believe them."
One UN official who many feel can be
believed is Hedi Annabi. On Tuesday Inner City Press asked him why his boss Jean
Marie Guehenno is in Pakistan. (On the evening of March 2, Mr. Guehenno with
rolling suitcase told Inner City Press that was where he was going.)
"He
is in Pakistan on his way to Afghanistan, to visit with UNAMA," Hedi Annabi
replied, adding that "Pakistan is one of our largest troop contributors and this
is one of a series of such visits on a periodic basis to major troop
contributors." It makes sense to make such good will visit, especially in light
of current and growing needs for peacekeepers. The African Union force in
Somalia was aiming for 8000 troops and has 4000, if that. The goal in Sudan, Mr.
Annabi told reporters, is 19 to 20 thousand. Where would the troops come from?
Mr. Annabi said they are casting a wide net.
Left out of the net, ostensibly, is
Fiji. Ban Ki-moon's predecessor Kofi Annan said that Fiji might be shut out of UN
peacekeeping operations because of its coup d'etat. On Tuesday Inner City
Press asked Mr. Annabi about conflicting reports in the Fijian press about the
half-dozen peacekeepers being sent to Sudan. Inner City Press had previously
submitted this question, and
another about Bangladesh,
to the Deparment of Peacekeeping Operations' press people, without response. Mr.
Annabi has promised to get to the bottom of the issue, but said that "we have
had no additional offers at this time." The loophole here may be that six
Fijians were rotated out, and another six Fijians in, to the UN force in South
Sudan. Does that make it pre- or post-coup? We'll see.
A
story about
Guehenno in Pakistan, the only one in English online, says that he is also
briefing Pakistan's "Foreign Minister on the proposed
restructuring of department of
peacekeeping operations at the
UN." Particularly since Pakistan is now the chair of the Group of 77 and China,
might this not be called in a part a lobbying trip?
Fiji, it's worth noting, made
much of
its support of Ban Ki-moon's proposal to split DPKO in two, click
here
to view. Is this a play to continue making peacekeeping dollars?
Hedi
Annabi: stand and deliver
On Feb. 23 it was
reported that
92 Fijian peacekeepers were bound for Sinai and Sudan. Inner City Press asked
that day at noon if these were in the pipeline prior to the coup. As of the end
of that day, there
was no answer. Later, to Fijiian press, someone in the UN distinguished Sinai (a
non-UN force) from Sudan, and argued that the latter is a roll-over. This is
gleaned from the online Fijian press, not from any response to Inner City Press
to its questions. Nor would the spokesperson's office respond, when asked by Inner City
Press, to The Economist's article
reporting that
"a letter sent
on January 10th to Bangladesh's army chief, Lieutenant General Moeen U. Ahmed,
was one of the more remarkable episodes in a 60-year history of UN
interventions. It warned that his army, if it proceeded to provide security for
a dodgy election due on January 22nd, might lose several UN peacekeeping
contracts. The UN's warning had the desired effect. The next day General Ahmed
marched into the office of Bangladesh's president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and ordered
him to declare a state of emergency, cancel the election, and install a
military-backed caretaker government."
The Spokesperson's Office expressed awareness of the article, but that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations had
been asked and said it was not aware of having sent anything to Bangladesh. So
then, who did? This interim "not DPKO" answer was memoralized
here,
from Minute 28:02. At press time, Inner City Press was encouraged to contact
DPKO directly. Inner City Press put in the question in writing, to separate DPKO
spokespersons, on Feb. 23. There has still been no response. Mr. Guehenno has
spoken of the Department's communications needs. Now Mr. Annabi, outgoing, has
committed to try to fill one of the needs, as least as regards Fiji. Here's
hoping.
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
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At the UN, Belarus Blames Victims of Trafficking, OAS
Head for Extraditing Posada Carriles
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, March 5 -- That the UN
Conference on Trafficking in Women and Girls was sponsored by Belarus was found
ironic by some. Other were more angry, and tried to invoke the U.S. and European
Union travel ban on Vladimir Naumov, Minister of the Interior of the Republic of
Belarus, to prevent him from coming to New York for the conference. Inner City
Press on Monday asked Mr. Naumov about this, and he responded by thanking the UN
system for its cooperation with Belarus. Video
here,
from Minute 16:09.
The content of Belarus' press
conference was also controversial. Speaker Natalya Petkevich, Deputy Head of
Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus, blamed many women's
"negligence" for the problem, and urged the "mass media" to be "objective" to
"make sure they know such negligence." Video
here,
from Minute 21:36. Ms. Petkevich referred to girls trying to make their way by
"dancing and singing," and falling into trafficking. Still, negligence seems to
many like blaming the victims.
Natalya
Petkevich, on the lookout for negligence; Vladimir Naumov, on the lookout,
period.
Two new Under Secretaries
General briefed the media on Monday. OCHA's John Holmes focused, as forgotten
disasters, on Somalia, Northern Uganda and Iraq (for which he said OCHA is
opening an office in Amman, Jordan). Inner City Press asked for his views on the
interplay of humanitarian and political impulses, following up on Eric Laroche's
briefing on
Somalia last
week, and on previous comments by Mr. Holmes. This time Mr. Holmes was cautious,
saying that his predecessor Jan Egeland met with the Lord's Resistance Army "not
as a political mediator as such." Still, Mr. Holmes urged that lines between
humanitarian and political impulses be kept clear. Click
here for
a story on his answers about UNDP and North Korea.
Alicia Barcena also appeared,
leaving less than 15 minutes for questions. Inner City Press asked about the
Pension Fund and OIOS, click
here
for that story. In response to another question, Ms. Barcena referred to a staff
member "suspending, on paid leave." This was interpreted to mean staffer Andrew
Toh, and Singapore's mission, which has supported Mr. Toh, was reporting hopping
mad.
In other surreal UN action on
Monday, the deputy Ambassador of Georgia Irakli Chikovani conducted a
record-shortest press conference -- six minutes -- to denounce the weekend's
elections in Abkhazia as illegal. Click
here for
video, including Inner City Press' three question (in six minute, also a
record).
By late afternoon, the
secretary general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza,
took questions from four reporters in the half-light outside the Security
Council. Inner City Press asked about Haiti -- Mr. Insulza blamed China for the
eight rather than 12 month mandate -- and about Venezuela refusing to sign on to
the OAS anti-terrorism convention. This is
reportedly in
protest of the U.S.'s failure to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, who bombed a
Cuban jetliner in 1976. Surprisingly, Ms. Insulza said "I have been in favor of
the extradition of Posada Carriles." But he disagreed that it was any reason to
abstain from a terrorism convention.
On the stories from the UN's
nether-regions, there was feedback on
Friday's round-up
on Monday from the spokesman for the Capital Master Plan. He confirmed that eels
and fish, and even once a police diver, who was able to escape, accumulate on
the screens of the intake machines in the UN's third sub-basement. As to the
existence of a subway station under the UN, he confirmed the ability to descend
to the tracks directly from the UN, but denied it was a station. Inner City
Press has asked him for a tour. We'll see.
From the UN to JFK, It's Kim Jong Eel and Labor
Relations Snafus
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN
UNITED NATIONS, March 2 -- Most of the
stories written from the UN are read by very few here. This week's
tale
of rats and eels in the UN was different. It appeared on
Page Six
of the New York Post, and was talked about not only in the briefing room and at
Wednesday evening's reception at the Slovakian Ambassador's 67th Street
townhouse, but also by security guards in
UNICEF,
and cleaning staff in the Secretariat's garage.
Guards
said that yes, there are eels, and that in the past some ate them. The
spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon, who was known in Korea as the Slippery Eel, made
light of the story and implied there are no eels, only rodents.
And so Inner City Press, on its own turf
on this story, went in search of the eels. This quest, as so many here, led to
the third sub-basement. There one finds machines that screen and filter the
water that comes in from the East River. Inner City Press is told that eels, or
fish of any kind, would only be visible when they stop the machine and open them
to clean out the screens. Whether the New York Post actually saw the eels before
running its piece is not known. Some years ago, U.S. Navy SEALS explored the UN
- East River interplay for potential security issues.
Another urban legend was plumbed: whether
there is or was a subway station under the UN, a stop between Grand Central and
Long Island City on the 7 train. The answer appears to be yes. There is a
tunnel, metal fencing, security cameras. Wonders never cease.
North
Korea: keep on walking
Friday evening as most UN
staff poured out of the building, Peacekeeping head Jean-Marie Guehenno was
coming in. To Inner City Press he explained, "Night shift." He said he was
coming back from Washington, would soon be leaving for Pakistan. Inner City
Press asked about the
comment earlier on Friday from Ambassador
Kumalo of South Africa, that even a civilian force in Chad would need security.
"That's true," Mr. Guehenno said. Speaking of protection, Mr. Guehenno is known
to be lobbying to get additional spokespersons' posts in his Department. There
are, he says, three functions: speaking for the Department, providing back-up to
the missions in the field, and creating an overall communications strategy. It
sounds like UNDP...
Meanwhile a portion of the UN press corps
has been in a frenzy tracking the foreign minister of the Kim Jong Il government
of North Korea, from San Francisco to New York, where he's slated to meet with
Christopher Hill at the U.S. Mission. In San Francisco, Japan's NHK television
is said to have rented five motorcycles to try to find Minister Kim. In New
York, reporters flocked out to the airport, awaiting a certain (or uncertain)
United Airlines flight, and then camped out in front of the Millennium Plaza
hotel, in the same structure at UNDP, and awaited him. They got a wave, and not
much more.
Back in the UN, the day ended as it so
often Friday does in the Delegates' Lounge. This time a high-ranking UN official
twice graced the scene -- hint: one who will hold a press conference on Monday,
which narrows it down to two -- and first conveyed the 38th floor's anger at the
Staff Union's letter to the editor of the New York Times. This letter looks
critically both at Mr. Ban's reforms to date, calling them cosmetic, and at the
Times' Feb. 28 article making much of these reforms. The letter focuses on three
"fundamental reforms" it calls necessary: staff selection, the culture of fear
and the "unfair system of justice at the United Nations."
An example of the first of these was
within spitting and drinking distance of the UN high official Friday night. The
culture of fear, so often described on this site, was attempted to be spread to
the Press this week by the Pension Fund's
complaint to UN
Security about Inner City Press' attempt to observe and ask questions outside
the February 15 Audit Committee meeting. On Friday, a UN spokesperson said not
to worry about this complaint, that the OSSG is angry about it too, and that no
written statement is necessary. The system of justice at the UN is called into
question by the same UN Pension Fund's lack of action on a March 2006 OIOS
report, and failure to be fair to many of its employees.
Still the week and evening came to a
pleasant close in the Delegates' Lounge, with its door into the ECOSOC Chamber,
its six-dollar screwdrivers and bowls of free potato chips, its views of the
East River reflecting an empty insane asylum, in the middle of the river or here
on its west bank, it is not quite certain...
At the UN, Chad and Darfur Fall Into Footnotes,
Sudanese Praise of French But Not UN Soldiers
Byline: Matthew Russell
Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, March 2 -- While some
predict Security Council resolution in March on sending UN peacekeepers to Chad,
the Council's president for February, Slovakian Ambassador Peter Burian, on Feb.
28 told Inner City Press that it is unlikely that "anything can happen in Chad
until summertime." The obstacles include Chadian president Deby's now-stated
opposition to peacekeepers (he would prefer a "civilian" presence).
On March 2, the incoming
president of the Security Council, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said
that Darfur, Chad and Central African Republic only in the footnotes of this
month's Council agenda, that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has said
that even a civilian force would need protection, and that discussions continue.
Video here.
Inner City Press also asked when to expect UN envoy Joaquim Chissano to brief
the Council about Uganda's
Lord's Resistance Army.
Outgoing Council president Burian raised to the issue to Amb. Kumalo during
their bilateral meeting of transition.
A less studied response to Inner City
Press' questions, on March 1, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN told Inner City Press
that he, too, doubts that Chad will let in the force the UN would like to send.
"We are the same people," he said, saying that one of Deby's sons is named Omar,
after Sudan's president Omar al Bashir.
Inner City Press asked for his
explanation of last year's abortive march by rebels on Chad's capital,
ostensibly stopped by France dropping of a bomb next to the rebel column.
"France showed too much force," Sudan's Ambassador said, adding that his
government has fewer doubts about French troops than UN blue helmets, against
whom the Ambassador raised issues of sexual and other abuse.
Mr.
Ban at the Lest We Forget - The Triumph Over Slavery
event
It was at an event on slavery -- the
opening of the "Lest We Forget - The Triumph Over Slavery" exhibit -- in the UN
visitors' entrance on Thursday night that the Sudanese Ambassador made his
remarks to Inner City Press. He began be remarking that the commemoration of
slavery should be a national holiday in the United States. He continued:
"Chad, they
don't like this force. They want a small civilian force here and there, just to
make the world community happy they are doing something. Darfur and Chadians are
the same people. Idriss Deby [Chad's President], his wife delivered in the
medical hospital in Khartoum. His youngest son is named Omar, for Omar al Bashir.
His second wife is Sudanese...
"Now
the Security Council is considering this resolution. They say they have not
money for Darfur, but they want to deploy to Chad and to Somalia. [CAR
president] Bozize? There is a reconciliation there, the Libya mediation. There
are many problems there and in Chad that have nothing to do with Darfur. Like in
our case, it is better to advance the peace process."
Inner City Press asked about France's
dropping of a bomb in Chad to defend the Deby government last year. Who were the
rebels? Why did they stop advancing? Had they been told to simply knock on
Deby's door -- either related to oil and the World Bank's conditional loans, or
to recognizing China and not Taiwan -- and then to back away?
"The
French response was too big, too massive... We prefer the French to the UN
troops, the French do not engage in sexual exploitation like the UN peacekeepers
do. In Sudan we don't consider the French as destabilizers."
When Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Thursday
event, he said that slavery continues to this day, including in the use of child
soldiers. Canapes were passed around and Ambassadors chit-chatted. On the walls
were pictures of slave traders, including Humphrey Morice (1679-1731), who
besides owning eight slave ships, named for his wife and daughters, was also a
governor of the Bank of England. Beside this picture, the Ambassadors of Sudan
and the UK made small talk. Only at the UN...
At deadline, in other inside-the-UN news,
Inner City Press has learned that Warren Sach has been removed from the post of
Ban Ki-moon's representative to the UN Pension Fund, replaced on March 1 by
Alicia Barcena of the Department of Management. Perhaps this explains Mr. Sach's
recent non-response to recent questions. [At 4 p.m., eight hours after
questions, an auto-response arrived, that Mr. Sach is away from UN Headquarters
from Feb. 28 -- the
day of the Pension Fund press conference -- through March 12.] Ms. Barcena,
on the other hand, will be taking questions from the Press on March 5. [Click
here for that.]
Other, earlier Inner
City Press are listed here, and
some are available in the ProQuest service.
Copyright 2006 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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UN Office: S-453A,
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