At
UN, Security Council Moves to Push All But 15 Nations into the Hall,
Cut Press Access: Turf Wars
By
Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, April 5 -- Outside the first consultation meeting in the new
UN Security Council chamber, both reporters and members states not on
the Council were Monday in disarray, on the verge of losing even more
access.
A representative of UN Security Council Affairs told Inner City Press
that the media will be moved further back, where they can't even see
Council members enter. And member states other than the 15 Council
members will be relegated to an open hallway by the stairs, under the
plan.
The UN representative said that Council members complained of
"involuntary interation" with the press and even other member states
"like India and Germany," wanting a way to leave without seeing either.
Inner City Press countered that the media, and non-Council member
states, must be consulted, but was told to quiet down.
In what passes for news, in the beginning of the month consultations
led by April's Council president, Yukio Takasu of Japan, the U.S. asked
for a briefing about the elections in Sudan. Since U.S. envoy Scott
Gration is in Khartoum appearing to praise the process as "as fair as
possible," the U.S.'s request struck some as strange.
Nigeria requested a briefing about the chaos in Guinea Bissau, in which
the police arrested the Prime Minister last week. Apparently Myanmar
will not be discussed. Ambassador Takasu will hold a press conference
later on Monday. Watch this site.
The background: After its final March meeting,
the Council was moved from its longtime location on the second floor
to a suite of rooms in the UN's basement.
There
are no
windows, but the UN says it is secure, safer than Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon's office atop the boxlike Temporary North Lawn Building.
But
outside the
Council, everything has changed. The suite of rooms has a closed
metal door and a sign, "Consultation in session, Security
Council members only."
This
seems to mean
that Permanent Representatives of member states not among the
Council's 15 members -- including for example India, Germany and South
Africa, to name a few -- can't even go into the Council's lounge, as
for years they did upstairs.
Some
Security
Council reform -- getting less rather than more inclusive.
A
stakeout with the
15 Council members' flags has been set up where the Vienna Cafe used
to be. It is at some remove from the Security Council doors; members
can leave by the stairs or garage without walking by the stakeout.
The new UNSC chamber under construction
Monday
morning,
reporters milled around between the stairs and the Council doors.
Spokespeople of only two of the Council's members, one permanent and
one in its second of two years on the Council, deigned to speak to
the press scrum. By 10:15, Inner City Press was the only media left,
on a rickety chair without a table by the stairs. Several Permanent
Representatives asked Inner City Press how to get into the Council.
"Through the General Assembly," was the reply. Watch this
site.
* * *
In
Central Asia, UN Ban Blind to Corruption, Skips Prisoners Rights and
Water
Wars
By
Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, April 3 -- As the UN's Ban Ki-moon traipses Central Asia,
what of political
prisoners, UN hiring scandals and simmering
cross border conflicts?
Apparently for the UN Secretary General, these don't exist. Before Ban
started his trip, Inner City
Press asked why the UN was not even to solve the dam-based
conflict between
Tajkistan and Uzbekisan. Don't call it a conflict, Ban's spokesman
Martin Nesirky said. What what should it be called?
As Inner City Press has reported,
Uzbekistan opposes the Tajik dam so much it shut the country's border.
Why isn't the vaunted Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy
for Central Asia involved?
A UN source alleging corruption in the UNRCCA notes
On
the website of the Center, there is not a single word about the Dam.
but there is a tender announcement for the fitness equipment for the
gymnasium at the UNRCCA building - the former elite Demiryolchy
Hotel. The question is whether the procurement of the fitness
equipment is reconciled with the UN budget rules and regulations, or
whether it is a good UN background for the unsolved Dam conflict.
http://unrcca.unmissions.org/
the left click Tenders
http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=4319
At
Tnders page you could see translation: The Regional UN Center
(UNRCCA) announces the tender: Fitness equipment for the gymnesium)
http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=4319&ctl=Details&mid=4408&ItemID=8098
http://unrcca.unmissions.org/portals/unrcca/gym.pdf
is set of pictures.
Meanwhile
Miloslav
Jenca (Slovakia), SRSG and head of UNRCCA, has published an article
“Developments in Central Asia and the role of the UNRCCA” in
International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy AffairsIssue no.02
/2009, Publisher: Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy
Association (RC SFPA)
The
curiosity is that it can be read only if the reader would pay 25 Euro
(€) in advance (from each the price of Jenca’s article would be
taken). Click
here. the UN
staff in general and of Jenca’s status in particular are not
supposed to publish the UN related staff for money (not saying about
other connotations).
Turkmenistan
would be the first country in the SG tour – 2 April (would SRSG
Jenca inform the SG of the fitness equipment tendered – especially
of the ball to play at the beach?
In
the Fall of
2009, Inner City Press asked and was given the run-around about a
hiring scandal in this Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for
Central Asia. Inner City Press posed this question in writing:
In
a message dated 8/27/2009 3:50:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, montas
[at] un.org writes:
Please refer your DPA questions to Jared
Kotler
I've been referred to you for a response
to the allegations below concerning hiring in the Regional Center in
Turkmenistan (the United Nations Regional Center for Preventive
Diplomacy for Central Asia).Also, please tell me when Jan Egeland's
job with DPA ended, what he did during his tenure and how much he was
paid.
on the RCPDCA, while here is more to this story,
but let's start on deadline with confirmation or denial of the
below:
During 2005-2007 Mr. Miloslav Jenca, Slovakia ,
worked in Tashkent as the OSCE Head of Office/OSCE Project
Co-coordinator in Uzbekistan together with Ms. Polina Pomogalova ,
Uzbekistan , as his local general support staff:
http://www.osce.org/uzbekistan/photos.html?lsi=true&src=22&limit=6&pos=36
Mr.Jenca
at OSCE,
Uzbekistan
http://www.osce.org/documents/eea/2007/10/27048_en.pdf
Ms.
Polina
Pomogalova at OSCE, Uzbekisan, page 3
In
December
2007 the UNRCCA ( United Nations Regional Center for Preventive
Diplomacy for Central Asia) was inaugurated
by Lynn Pascoe, DPA in
Ashgabat.
In
April 2008 Mr.
Miloslav Jenca
was appointed UNRCCA Head and SRSG, (“…Mr.. Jenca,
currently the Director of the Office of Slovakia’s Foreign Affairs
Minister, recently served as head of mission for the OSCE centre in
Tashkent , Uzbekistan …”)
Soon
after this
Ms. Polina Pomogalova was appointed the Personal Assistant to the
SRSG Jenca at UNRCCA: see the UNRCCA web site:
http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1995
“…Ms.
Polina Pomogalova, Personal Assistant to the Special Representative
of the UN Secretary-General Ambassador Jenca…”
Question:
How
could it be that Polina Pomogalova without a single day of the UN
experience was shortlisted for an interview by PMSS while other
candidates with the extensive UN experience in Central Asia and
technically cleared to the positions of this category were not
included? How could it be that the UNRCCA interview board recommended
exactly Polina Pomogalova? The answer seems clear: she was the
protégé of SRSG Jenca and it was he who had arranged
everything.
Again, there is more to this story, but let's start on deadline with
what is the UN's / DPA's . the Center's response?
The
majority of the
above was simply never responded to, just as the UN's Department of
Political Affairs refused to respond to or address nepotism and
hiring scandals in its Africa II unit and the Central African
Republic. This lack of accountability extends to the UN's approach to
human rights.
UN's Ban and Jenca (2d from left) and his delegation, 2008
As
Ban left on
April 1, Inner City Press asked
his Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq if
Ban would visit political prisoners:
Inner
City Press: In terms of the Secretary-General’s trip through
Central Asia, I’m wondering, various groups, including Human Rights
Watch, have said this is an opportunity for him to address issues
such as, in Uzbekistan, the failure to prosecute anyone for the
Andijon massacre, as well as the abuse of political prisoners,
religious minorities and others. What is the place of the issue of
human rights in the Secretary-General’s trip, and specifically, is
he going to raise Andijon while he is in Uzbekistan?
Associate
Spokesperson Haq: I’m not going to get ahead of the Uzbekistan
portion of the trip before it happens. What I will say is: it’s
always clear whenever the Secretary-General visits countries that
human rights, international humanitarian law and other norms are
always part of what he discusses with his interlocutors. He
certainly plans to do that over the course of his trip to Central
Asia. And one of the things that he is going to do in the various
countries that he visits is to reach out to civil society. As you
know, civil society organizations have been developing in many of
these countries. We will provide you with the details of those
visits as they transpire. There is nothing really to say about them
just yet.
Inner
City Press: There are fairly high-profile, what are called political
prisoners, although the Governments disagree in both Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan, and I am wondering, does he have, when he says he’s
going to reach out to civil society, can you say whether he’s
actually asked to meet any imprisoned political figure?
Associate
Spokesperson: I wouldn’t give the itinerary, the precise
itinerary, of his meetings just yet, but we’ll provide those
details as they arise. But certainly, he will be meeting with civil
society, and the sort of concerns he brings on all of his trips he
will also bring on this one.
But what, for example, of the HIV activist
imprisoned by Uzbekistan which called his UNICEF-funded pamphlet
blasphemous? Watch this site.
, 
