In
Praise of Migration, UN Misses the Net and Bangalore While Going Soft on
Financial Exclusion
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, June
6 -- The dual role and constraints of the UN system are on display in its
just-released
Report on International Migration and Development. The report
highlights the global rise in migrants, from 155 million in 1990 to 191 million
in 2005, and in remittances back to their countries of origin, from $102 billion
in 1995 to $232 billion in 2005. Kofi Annan's introduction to the report recites
that "it is for Governments to decide whether more or less migration is
desirable" -- then headlines "benefits at both ends of the voyage."
Other wires' Migration Report coverage:
AP
Reuters
AFP
BBC
The
report does not address the accelerating trend of corporations in developed
countries outsourcing back-office and other skilled work to countries like
India. A call to customer service is increasingly answered in an offshore call
center, as is live on-line help. X-rays can be read and diagnoses delivered by
lower-cost doctors overseas, over the Internet. Now investment banks' stock
analysis comes from overseas, and Reuters business stories about mergers in
California have Indian datelines. The trend may be that while some can ply their
trades over the Internet, telecommuting on steroids, less skilled workers still
need to migrate, by any means necessary.
The
reason for the Secretary-General's and other UN officials' statement that "it is
for Governments to decide whether more or less migration is desirable" is to be
found in the anti-immigrant political debates in France, Germany and the United
States. The UN does not want to be accused of promoting open migration right at
the time that both Houses of the U.S. Congress, to differing degrees, are trying
to substantially slow and problematize entry into the United States.
The
report will be taken up by the UN General Assembly
in September. The General
Assembly has already spoken -- without strong-arming Capital-G Governments, of
course -- on the question of remittances, urging countries to bring about more
competition and impose fewer restrictions. The just-released report states that
"Governments can do much to increase
competition in the remittance market and maintain pressure on fee reduction,
including... requiring all money-transfer agents to disclose all charges and
fees before a transaction is made; and disseminating information on costs in a
systemic manner... Governments of both countries of origin and destination can
reduce regulatory constraints hindering the use of banking institutions by
migrants."
Governments can do these things -- but do they? Following 9/11/01,
the United States made it much more difficult to open a bank account,
particularly for migrants.
Al Barakaat,
the major remitter to one of the poorest countries on earth, Somalia (see
below), had its assets frozen. Officials implied that informal but longstanding
remittance networks like South Asia's hawala system were rife with money
laundering for terrorism.
Money
laundering and it cousin, tax evasion, may play some unexamined explanatory part
the Report's Table 11 of the Top Twenty Countries in terms of receipts of
remittances. The first three are no surprise -- India, China and Mexico -- but
Number Four jumps out: France, with $12.7 billion remitted to it in 2004. This
compares to only $3 billion having been remitted to the United States, a figure
the UN report's table 11 cites to the World Bank. The World Bank table is
here
in PDF; more detailed remittance data is available
here,
in Excel format. Neither the World Bank report nor the just-released UN report
answer, where is the money of American expatriates going? A question for
another day.
Forced
migration
The
question of the day at the Secretary-General's Spokesman's noon press briefing
was Somalia. A statement was read out, from the elusive SRSG Francois Lonseny
Fall in Nairobi, that
"members of the international community
welcome reconciliatory statements from the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs)
and encourage a similar approach from the Union of Islamic Courts and other
parties in Mogadishu."
The facts
on the ground are that Islamic Courts drove the warlords out of Mogadishu, and
that the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism warlords
were thrown out of the ever Transitional Federal Government in Baidoa. So to
what "reconciliatory statements" was Amb. Lonseny Fall referring? The spokesman
said he would find and identify them, but nothing was received by the expiration
of the embargo on the UN Report on International Migration and Development at 4
p.m.. [Inner City Press was instructed, by a spokesperson for the General
Assembly president, not to call any countries' missions for responses to the
Report prior to 4 p.m.. Therefore
we link to this response,
to a separate but related UN migration report: "Austria's representative, Hannah
Liko on behalf of the European Union, notes that, 'while the [Report] covered a
number of important issues, it had missed a deeper analysis of the root causes
of migration.'"
Also at
the noon briefing, the spokesman was asked if there is any update on the plight
of the seven UN peacekeepers taken hostage in Ituri in the Congo. "No," the
spokesman said. We'll keep asking...
Other wires' Migration Report coverage:
AP
Reuters
AFP
BBC
UN-reported
post-embargo post-script: With the embargo lifted, Hania Zlotnik was asked how
the International Organization for Migration
relates or not to the report. "They are not part of the UN system," Ms. Zlotnik
said. "We've tried to swallow them but we get indigestion." Responding to
expressions of regret that she, as the report's author, could not (easily) be
quoted, except it was projected and confirmed by one
paper of record (which quoted her that "societies don't ask themselves
enough what they would do without migrants"), Ms. Zlotnik shrugged, "That's how
they do it," and headed down the escalator from the UN's third floor...
UN Sees Somalia Through a Glass,
Darkly, While Chomsky Speaks on Corporations and Everything But Congo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- Most of Mogadishu fell over
the weekend to so-called Islamic Court. They declared victory over the also
so-called Anti-Terror Alliance, also known as warlords. From the Transitional
Federal Government in Baidoa, the warlords were expelled. A corner sees to have
been turned and so at UN Headquarters at noon the question was asked: what is
the United Nations' or its Secretary General's view of Islamic Courts' takeover
of the putative capital of all Somalia?
Four hours later, the answer came in
writing, in three sentence here quoted in full:
"The
Secretary-General continues to be concerned about the violence in Mogadishu and
its environs. He appeals to all sides to stop the fighting and enter into
negotiations. He stresses that all parties to the conflict should resolve their
differences and address outstanding issues in accordance with the Transitional
Federal Charter of Somalia."
To some, the statement is both empty and
besides the point. Already Puntland and Somalialand are hardly in the orbit of
Mogadishu, much less Baidoa. Now Mogadishu falls to Islamic Courts. What may be
being cooked up in the Pentagon is anyone's guess.
East Congo / Monuc
Also over the weekend, reports emerged
that the seven Nepali UN peacekeepers taken prisoner in the Congo had been
released. This came from Nepal's permanent representative to the UN, but turned
out to not be true. The perhaps-accurate names of the Nepalis were, unlike the
soldiers, released: Gir
Bahadur Thapa, Prem Bahadur Thapa, Tuk Jung Gurung, Chhatra Bahadur Basnet, Sher
Bahadur Bista, Jhalak Kunwar and Kale Sarki. At the Secretary-General's
spokesman's
noon briefing, Inner City Press asked for
an update. Unfortunately, they are still being held, was the response. There are
rumblings of military action, and of attempts, not by the UN, to pay ransom.
Still the
US representatives in Kinshasa
characterize events in East
Congo as a sideshow, that will not impact the election slated for July 30. Some
say: wishful thinking.
The
status of the Democratic Republic of Congo was raised to Noam Chomsky on Monday,
when he took questions from the UN Correspondents' Association. Inner City Press
noted that neither Congo or DRC is in the index of the professor's new book,
"Failed States." Mr. Chomsky acknowledged that the DRC is "perhaps the worst
ongoing atrocity in the world" and that it is not mentioned in his book --
because, he said, "I can't think of any sensible way to do anything about it."
He mentioned strengthening the "weak" UN force, and stopping other countries'
interventions. Afterwards, one of Prof. Chomsky's more combative interlocutors
opined that if the U.S. is not the major negative actor, a situation is not of
much interest to the professor. In his answer, Chomsky put it differently,
saying "we should focus on our own responsibilities" and on "our own society."
The UN Correspondents' Association, however, includes journalists from all over
the world. A philosophy that as one of its seven main points urges that the UN
be lead-actor on world crises should have something to say about wars like the
Congo's. And the West is not without responsibility: DRC resource extractors
include U.S.-based Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, Adastra Mineral f/k/a
American Mineral Fields, Ivanhoe Nickel & Platinum and Canada's Kinross Gold
Corporation, among others.
To Inner City Press' other question, on
the regulation of corporation, Prof. Chomsky replied that corporations are
"private tyrannies" that have come to dominate most stakes. "It is not a law of
nature," he said, "that corporation must serve only their shareholders... What
about stakeholders?"
There was much back-and-forth about the
Middle East, and a prediction by Chomsky that China is ascendant, and that India
will have to choose. (.wmv file being processed; available.) Asked at the end
about the Uighurs in western China, Prof. Chomsky said it could be followed up
by email. We'll see.
In
Congo, Peacekeepers Turned Hostages: Interview with Jean-Marie Guehenno by Inner
City Press
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
30 -- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, one UN peacekeeper is dead, three
wounded and seven taken hostage by the forces of Peter Karim, known for hauling
the DRC's resources east into Uganda. At UN Headquarters on Tuesday, Inner City
Press interviewed Jean-Marie Guehenno, Under-secretary general for peacekeeping
(click
here
for WAV file). Earlier,
Inner City Press asked
Secretary General Kofi Annan what is being done to secure the peacekeepers'
release, and how the DRC election, slated for the end of July, can take place in
these circumstances. The
Secretary General replied
that Karim has been implored to release the peacekeepers, and will not have
impunity. He added that the UN is doing the best that it can for the election,
the first in 40 years in Congo.
An hour
later at Kofi Annan's spokesman's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about
reports that Karim is demanding $20,000 per peacekeeper. We do not pay ransom
for our personnel, the
spokesman replied,
and there will be no impunity. Asked about MONUC's own report that it is
government soldiers who are responsible for most of the rapes in the Congo, the
spokesman referred to training, and repeated that there is and will be no
impunity. That was the word of the day. To inquire further, Inner City Press
asked at the noon briefing if Jean-Marie Guehenno would take questions after he
briefed the council. "We've asked," was the answer.
At 1
p.m., Inner City Press asked Jean-Marie Guehenno as he rushed into the Security
Council if he would answer questions at the stakeout after he briefed the
Council. Mr. Guehenno replied that he was not going in to brief, but rather to
find an Ambassador. It was past three p.m. when the briefing began. Kofi Annan
and Mr. Guehenno went in, and at 4:08, the Secretary General came out, waving.
At nearly five o'clock Mr. Guehenno emerged, with a half-dozen staffers in his
entourage. For eight minutes Mr. Guehenno answered Inner City Press' questions,
all on the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Asked
about the status of the seven kidnapped peacekeepers, Mr. Guehenno said the
militia leader involved would be held personally accountable if the Blue Helmets
are not released. Asked if this militia leader is, in fact, Peter Karim, Mr.
Guehenno replied, that is the assumption. He described an ambush in Ituri in
which one peacekeeper was killed, three injured and seven surrounded and
captured. A helicopter that arrived thereafter could not free them, due to the
surrounding jungle.
Asked to
clarify a recent quote that there are not that many deaths in Congo, Mr.
Guehenno distinguished between "direct" deaths, by shooting or machete, and more
indirect impacts of war, including the breakdown of the state and health system.
Asked if
the elections, slated for the end of July, are on track, Mr. Guehenno replied
"as much as can be," and described logistical and political obstacles. Mr.
Guehenno asked rhetorically, Will it be a Westminster democracy? No, he
answered. He said that what gives him hope, when he goes "beyond Kinshasa," as
the ten Permanent Representatives visiting DRC in the second week of June
apparently will not, is excitement about voting, and the mobilizing of voices
"who have no voice."
"Ituri Explorer" / MONUC
Mr.
Guehenno
Asked
about the calls in Kasai for a boycott of the election, Mr. Guehenno replied
that the leader of the UDPS had been given many opportunities to participate,
but unfortunately has chosen not to. Asked about President Kabila's allegation
that the three dozen foreign bodyguards, including three from Orlando,
Florida-based AQMI Strategy and others from South Africa's Omega Risk Solutions,
were attempting a coup, Mr. Guehenno said he only knows the news he reads. One
wonders if others in a position to impact Congo even read the news. Click
here
to hear Inner City Press'
interview with the UN's Jean-Marie
Guehenno, recorded on a $20 MP3
player and edited on open source audio software, with an voiceover introduction
recorded in an echo chamber on the UN Headquarters' third floor. Watch -- and
listen for -- this site.
At
the UN, Too-Rosy Light on Myanmar, More Clarification on Timor L'Este
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
24 -- Myanmar was illuminated, briefly, by rosy light at the UN Headquarters on
Wednesday. Following his visit to Myanmar including its new capital Pyinmana,
the UN's Ibrahim Gambari told journalists that Aung San Suu Kyi, who he called
A.S.S.K., is in good health, that the military regime is working well with the
UN's anti-drug office and, generally, that things are looking up. Inner City
Press
asked
Mr. Gambari if he raised to the regime the issues of press freedom, and of the
Karen and stateless people, and about reports that Myanmar is defaulting on
payments to the state-owned Ukraine arms supplier UkrspetsExport and on
construction of its new capital in the jungle. Mr. Gambari said his visit was
not about the defaults (or, by implication, about arms sales), but he was
willing to describe his one hour visit to the new capital, stating that although
most ministries have moved there, it is still fairly empty. Mr. Gambari made an
analogy to when his country, Nigeria, moved its capital. But the Myanmar
regime's move seems not about rural economic development, but rather about
staying in power.
Refugees
from Myanmar (c) UNHCR
Relatedly,
Mr. Gambari was repeatedly asked about his and Kofi Annan's involvement in
seeking an endgame for the Mugabe era in Zimbabwe. While the spokesman turned
questions away, Mr. Gambari appeared to respond that he's involved, then backed
away. We talk to a lot of people, was essentially the answer. Ah, diplomacy.
Also
diplomatic was the UNAIDS director's spin on more than fifty countries' failure
to respond to UN surveys on AIDS. At a briefing on Wednesday he characterized
such an inquiry as pessimistic. While tomorrow can always be a better day, for
the UN to excuse failure to provide basic information seems counterintuitive.
On an
issues
raised at
the noon briefing, the UN's reaction to disturbances in Timor L'Este which has
now invited back in foreign forces from four countries, in light of the critique
that the UN left too quickly, the Secretary General's spokesman subsequently had
an answer,
on-
and off-line. It was the U.S. and Australia which wanted to pull out when they
did. He also stated, in the briefing, that the UN would not look kindly on the
reported coup attempt by foreign mercenaries in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Well, unlike on Somalia and even Montenegro, it is a response. On
Tuesday
as Monday, the spokesman declined to comment substantively on the weekend's vote
in Montenegro, despite Russia and now Serbia conceding the result.
An
observer noted that perhaps the UN made little of Montenegrin's vote for
independence because the victory and credit for the peaceful transition, so far,
is for the European Union and even Serbia. Another noted that Timor L'Este is
considered one of the UN's coups, so to speak, so perhaps the UN is reticent to
highlight the temporary unraveling of things there. But what explains the lack
of information from Somalia, in particular from the UN's envoy Francois Lonseny
Fall? Most recently his office still has no comment on the UN-backed
transitional government inviting in peacekeeper -- from which it seems fair to
infer that the UN was not involved in this development. He still has no comment
on the attempted sale by the breakaway region of Puntland of mineral rights to
the Australian company Range Resources Ltd. In fact, the UN system insists on
characterizing those who flee into Puntland as "internally displaced persons"
and not full fledged refugees. (Click
here
for the wider humanitarian issues.) It was however observed: if you're going to
play politics and put more energy into always siding on a one-state solution for
Somalia, you should at least fully play the game and both be involved in seeking
peace(keepers) and in speaking out against a breakaway region's sale of
resources to a first world corporation, in what others in the UN have called a
vulnerable conflict zone. If the UN doesn't speak on these matters, who will?
In Brussels --
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, in Brussels
BRUSSELS, April 28 --
Ears ringing with the talk of waste within the UN system, an Inner City Press
reporter yesterday visited the consolidated, scaled back and renamed UN Regional
Information Center (UNRIC) in Brussels, to see how an early attempt at
cost-saving is working out.
On
narrow, car-filled Rue de la Loi, just passed the European Commission, the UNRIC
is tucked in on the 7th and 8th floors of a stately building in the Residence
Palace compound. Outside are construction zones, the city literally torn-up to
build office space for the ten new EU members. Inside UNRIC it is spacious, with
hardwood floors and uncaptioned photos of each Secretary-General. The UNRIC's
deputy director is an engaging Dane who is among other things the answer to the
UN system Jeopardy question: who was the spokesman for the president of the
General Assembly when the World Trade Towers were demolished by hijacked plane?
Who is... Jan Fischer. Mr. Fischer also served the UN in Iraq in 1993, along
with a stint in Australia. He knows the System, and the context of the
cost-cutting he's witnessed at the UNRIC.
The
travel budget the more than half-dozen country desk officers based in Brussels
is $16,000 for six months. This has resulted in fewer trips to the countries
covered by each desk officer, and even to them staying with family and friend on
such trips. There's a striking correlation between surname and country covered:
Carlos Jimenez for Spain, Fabio Graziosi for Italy, Dimitrios Fatouros for
Greece and so forth. The desk officers were once "national information
officers," which required this consonance. Now that they've had to move to
Brussels, they've been "professionalized," in the parlance of the UN civil
service. Still some stay with friends and family on their UN trips back home.
In
Brussels some 15,000 journalists cover the doings of the European Union and to
some degree NATO. It is hard, Jan Fischer says, for UN news to break through.
They hold press conferences, and briefings by visiting UN envoys, from conflict
diamonds to the rights of the child. Across from the well-guarded United States
embassy, there's a storefront for UNICEF, with its tell-tale blue sign. The UN's
refugee agency, it appears from a list, has a dozen Brussels employees, seeking
EU funding for their far-flung operations. UNRIC tries to get their stories
told. Mr. Fischer says he'd rather say too much than too little; he suggests
that the media not abandoned UN staffers who go off script and speak their
minds. It's a plan that makes much sense, and one that we will follow. This
series of occasional visits with continue from Inner City Press, consonant with
the cost-cuts as they come.
Footnote: in a
third-floor room in the European Parliament on April 27, Green party delegate
Heide Ruhle listened while nodding to consumer advocates despairing of non-bank
input into the pending Consumer Credit Directive. When asked, with an
administrative colleague, about merger review in the Euro zone, the Green
response was that review by particular nations is outmoded. Will Brussels'
review consider predatory lending? That remains unclear.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
AIDS Ends at the
UN? Side Deals on Patents, Side Notes on Japanese Corporations,
Salvadoran and Violence in Burundi
On AIDS at the
UN, Who Speaks and Who Remains Unseen
Corporate Spin on
AIDS, Holbrooke's Kudos to Montenegro and its Independence
(May 31, 2006)
Kinshasa Election
Nightmares, from Ituri to Kasai. Au Revoir Allan Rock; the UN's
Belly-Dancing
Working with
Warlords, Insulated by Latrines: Somalia and Pakistan Addressed at the
UN
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in
Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
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lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click
here for Inner
City Press's
weekly CRA Report.
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Nations, where Inner City Press
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