Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

As US Holds Hostage Funds for Abkhazia Process, Sources Say, Western P-3 Media Strategy Misleads

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- In belated backroom follow up to the cancellation of the UN's Observer Mission on Georgia, a budget letter is needed from the Security Council so that the General Assembly's budget committee can vote on funds for the so-called “joint incident prevention and response mechanisms” of the Geneva process on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Inner City Press has learned.

But obtaining this letter, on a topic that the United States and its British and French allies say is important, has turned out to be a problem.

On March 2 while the Council met in consultations on its program of work for March's Chinese presidency, the deputy chief of UN Peacekeeping Atul Khare arrived, surrounded by staff members. He emerged half an hour later stern faced and strode quickly off.

A source told Inner City Press, the only media then in front of the Council chamber, that the “awkward” visit concerned Georgia. But what about it?

Later Inner City Press asked Khare directly, “What about Georgia?”

It's not about Georgia, he said. It's about the joint incident prevention and response mechanism.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a proposal a year ago that the Council hasn't moved on, and now the budget committee needs a letter from the Council. While many would assume that it would be Russia, which vetoed the continuation of UNOMIG, that was blocking this letter, it is not, Inner City Press has learned.

The United States has put a hold on the letter.

Why? The US would like to use the UN's need for this letter as an opportunity to have the Council meet about Georgia, which it hasn't done since Russia's veto. It is slowing the process of funding the replacement mechanism in order to try to bring this about.

Without revealing the sourcing for this report, Inner City Press can say it is not the United States, nor the UK, nor France. Each of these countries has in the days following Atul Khare's abortive visit to the Council held by invitation only press briefings for Western media.

While those are off the record or on background, it must be said that this issue was not discussed.

In Council, P5 Plus 1 Perm Reps, private spin not reported

  Rather, the sessions were used in part to spin the UN's screw up of publicly alleging the delivery of helicopters from Belarus to anti-Western Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d'Ivoire, to claim that despite UN Peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy's public admission of a mistake, the Western intelligence was in fact “all true.”

This backroom spin continues of topics of even wider concern such as Libya. As simply one example, while UK Permanent Representative walked away from a filmed General Assembly stakeout when Inner City Press asked if the UK thinks that Security Council approval would be required to legitimate a no-fly zone over Libya, the UK Mission to the UN confined its answer on this public question to a private, off the record briefing for UK selected journalists.

And still the public doesn't know the real UK position on this, nor on the Cote d'Ivoire helicopter intelligence, a topic on which the US is stealthy very active, or the UN and International Criminal Court indictees on Darfur, Omar al Bashir and Ahmed Haroun.

  The French Mission to the UN, in fact, held its English language off the record briefing by Permanent Representative Gerard Araud at the same time as the Council formally met about Abyei in Sudan, to which the UN flew Ahmed Haroun, an issue the French say they care a lot about. Only two reporters covered that Council meeting, due at least in part to the French connection.

  During the Security Council's deliberations on the Libya resolution last Saturday, from among the Western P-3 came much off the record trashing of the positions of other Council members. When some of those attacked issued on the record denials, the trash talkers disappeared into the Council woodwork without explanation -- or accountability.

   What do these Western Permanent Three members accomplish by this and by limiting their briefings to media already supportive or inclined to believe their positions? They attempt to control reporting from the UN without leaving any finger prints. Does this assist the truth, or even better public understanding of their positions? No.

These are among the reasons for the call to reform or even disband the UN Security Council. Click here for a “BloggingHeads.tv” debate of these issues, this week, featuring Inner City Press.

On Georgia, it seems likely that the letter will in the end issue, and the money be allocated. Nearly invisible UN representative to the Geneva talks Antti Turunen will plod along, as will the apparently coordinated media strategy of the Western P-3. And what will be accomplished? Watch this site.