Gaza Resolution Vetoed by U.S., While North Korea Faces Veto and Chechnya Unread
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
13 -- The first of some long-delayed voted was taken in the UN Security Council
Thursday afternoon. On the agenda was a resolution about Gaza, sponsored by
Qatar. Just before three p.m., U.S. Ambassador John Bolton stopped at the
stakeout and said that efforts to hold off the vote had failed, that he had
received his instructions from Washington and these would be clear in his vote
and statement.
Inside the chamber,
of the fifteen Council members ten voted in favor, four abstained, and one, the
U.S., used its veto. The resolution failed. The abstainers consisted of Peru,
Slovakia, the United Kingdom and Denmark. Speeches were given by each. John
Bolton sped down the second floor hallway, avoiding a crowd of reporters
surrounding the U.K. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. Next stop / vote: North Korea.
DPRK a/k/a North Korea
On
Chechnya, Ignorance Is Bliss?
One P-5
Ambassador who rarely comes to the stakeout, Russia's Vitaly Churkin took
questions on Kosovo and other matters. After Amb. Churkin spoke about the
situation of the Serbian minority in Kosovo, he jokes that he only wants easy
questions. So Inner City Press asked Amb. Churkin to comment on the Wall Street
Journal's June 24, 2006, front page article describing how paid demonstrators
ostensibly protesting those who criticize Russia's actions in Chechnya are
filmed by Russian state television and broadcast in Russia as real news.
Amb.
Churkin said that this couldn't be true and
claimed that he'd never seen the article.
Click
here
to view. Perhaps that's because the WSJ is not free on the Internet, although
one would expect an Ambassador to keep us with such press accounts. But here are
some fair-use quotes from the article:
"Demonstrators had a simpler goal: getting
paid. "Where's the moneyman?" shouted one of them, Pat Bradley. Mr. Bradley said
he and his wife, Kellie, recovering heroin addicts, had run into a rally
organizer that morning outside their methadone clinic and were promised $15 each
if they would ride a bus to a park in the Queens borough of New York City and
chant slogans for 15 minutes. Mr. Bradley says he alternated shouts of "Stop the
terrorism!" with a more mercantile cry: "Show me the money!" The rally last
December was one of nearly a dozen paid-for protests organized by Russian
émigrés in the U.S. in the past two years. They spent $150,000 to $200,000 in
some months, accounting records indicate, to rally thousands of demonstrators
near spots such as United Nations headquarters and the World Trade Center site.
State-controlled Russian television, whose content is closely guided by Kremlin
handlers, covered some of the events, often as the only news organ present,
showing video of them on the evening news back home....
Russian state television, called First
Channel, has portrayed the U.S. demonstrators as part of an international
movement in support of extraditing militant Chechens to Russia. A person
familiar with the state television channel's operations said that influential
people within Russia had ordered it to cover the U.S. demonstration movement,
even though "at First Channel, everyone knows it is a fake."
... payment varied from person to person.
Russian pensioners from Brooklyn got $35, he wrote, but African-Americans and
Hispanics only $20.
One would
think that a UN Ambassador would take note of such a front page article
in the major business newspaper in the city in which he lives. We'll see.
On
Uganda, Inner City Press asked the Council president, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere,
when the issues of the Lord's Resistance Army will be on the Council's agenda,
now that the Secretary-General's report is fully public. "In the second half of
July," Amb. de La Sabliere replied. At the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked
the spokeswoman if the Secretary-General has any comment on Ugandan President
Museveni's offer of full amnesty to the LRA's Joseph Kony, despite his
indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Ms. Okabe said
that the Secretary General is opposed to impunity, and is suggesting on envoy on
the LRA issues. Click
here
to view, and watch this space.
Feedback: editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 718-716-3540
BTC
Briefing, Like Pipeline, Skirts Troublespots, Azeri Revelations
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N
UNITED NATIONS, July
13 -- An oil pipelines gambit came to interim fruition on Thursday. The Baku -
Tblisi - Ceyhan curving route, avoiding Armenia, breakaway parts of Georgia and
most Kurdish parts of Turkey, is a testament to its precarious position. At a
briefing at the UN,
Inner City Press asked the
outgoing Ambassador of Georgia Revaz Adamia to explain BP's funding of a 700
person defense force for the pipeline. "They are not soldier," Amb. Adamia
answered. "They are high tech people."
Inner
City Press asked the Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev about the avoidance
of Armenia. We cannot deal with them until they stop occupying our territory, he
said. "You mean Nagorno - Karabakh?" Not only that, Amb. Aliyev answered. That's
only four percent. Few people know this, but Armenia has occupied twenty percent
of our territory.
But we
digress. The pipeline is more than a tube for oil, the Ambassadors read from
their scripts. A four-minute movie was shown. Later the full 20-minute film was
screened, as waiters served lamp chops and salmon on a skewer. "Bill Clinton was
there at the birth," a Georgian representative said. "He offered American
guarantees so the work would get done. It avoids this" -- he pointed on a map at
Russia -- "and here," pointing to Iran and the Middle East. "If only
Turkmenistan agrees to provide its gas," he said wistfully. He added his view
that Armenia gets away with incursions in Azerbaijan due to U.S. support. It's
an issue rarely touched on at the United Nations.
Georgia
Inner
City Press asked outgoing Georgian Ambassador Ademia where he's going. "Back to
science and business," he answered. "Oil," guess-whispered one wag -- not this
one -- in the crowd.
Full disclosure:
this reporter consumed, on the pipeline proponents' tab, several skewers of meat
and a glass of Borjomi mineral water, named for a national park in Georgia which
environmentalists say is put at risk by the BTC pipeline.
At
the UN, A Day of Resolutions on Gaza, North Korea and Iran, Georgia as Side Dish
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
12 -- Just as there are big countries and little countries, at the UN there are
big issues and then other issues, sometimes called non-issues. On Wednesday at
the UN, there were serial stakeouts by the Ambassadors of France and the United
States, off the cuff comments by the Ambassadors of Russia, China and the UK,
and side speeches by the Palestinian Permanent Observer and the UN's head of
peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno.
Taking questions
from a half-dozen journalists at the
noon briefing --
where Inner City Press asked about a UNHCR conflict-of-interest investment with
Ivan Pictet, who's on the UN Investment Committee, click
here for
that article -- was the Special Representative of the Secretary General for
Georgia, Heidi Tagliavini, soon to leave her post and return to Switzerland.
Still she was diplomatic, preferring not to comment on yesterday's outbursts
from Georgia's parliamentary speaker and the Russian ambassador, rather
referring obliquely to "mis-information" being a problem in Abkhazia.
Inner
City Press asked if she views as mis-information the allegations of money
laundering, including for terrorism, in Abkhazia.
"Thank
God my mandate doesn't include bank regulation," she replied. She went on to
describe Abkhazia as a "dark area" where certainly money laundering could
happen. In response to Inner City Press' second question, about South Ossetia,
she described the Abkhazians as more professional, and having a longer
independent history, than is the case in South Ossetia. Asked if Georgia should
be allowed to speak before the Security Council when it is on the agenda, she
respond that she personally thinks that's right, but it is of course up to the
Security Council. In the hall outside Room 226, the Georgia ambassador noted
that Russia should not be able to block Georgia's attendance and speaking, since
these are procedural and not substantive matters. That and a token, a New York
wag replied.
At
another stakeout, Inner City Press asked the UN's head of peacekeeping
Jean-Marie Guehenno for more information on the release of the final five of the
peacekeeper in Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mr. Guehenno
replied that the problem in Ituri is "young men with guns," and that even those
are disarmed can't find a job. He said, in a sanitized on-camera version, that
those negotiated with, Peter Karim, changed from day to day. Inner City Press
asked if in his briefing to the Council about the African Union summit in
Banjul, the issue of the Secretary-General's new deference to a "Mugabe-selected
mediator" came up. Mr. Guehenno replied both that it had not come up, and that
he was not sure if the mediator was Mugabe-selected. Inner City Press asked,
"what is the mediator's mandate? Between whom is he mediating -- Mugabe and the
Blair government in the UK, or Mugabe and the opposition in Zimbabwe?" Mr.
Guehenno said he is not the one to ask, that the question should be directed to
and answered by Department of Political Affairs. Okay then.
The main
action was dueling resolutions: the Qatari resolution on Gaza, not expanded to
cover Lebanon, texts and more texts on North Korea, and forthcoming text on
Iran. In the midst of these, all covered
elsewhere, French ambassador
Jean-Marc de La Sabliere let drop that he met with the Thai candidate for
Secretary-General. Inner City Press pursued at the stakeout the fate of the Gaza
electrical power plant, which UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Tuesday
should be repaired by Israel. Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador John Bolton
if he had any comment on this. He replied, "I don't have any comment." Dan
Gillerman, the Ambassador of Israel,
said
that his country has "no intention to punish" civilians, but that he has "no
information on the plant." Inner City Press asked to be updated, and asked OCHA
to amplify Jan Egeland's reference to an "American insurance company" now
possibly barred from paying out on the policy due to sanctions against Hamas.
Who paid the premiums? Especially, after the insurance company became arguably
barred from paying on the policy? Developing....
UN's Corporate Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with
Microsoft, and UNDP Continues
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
13 -- The UN under Kofi Annan has increasingly worked with corporations.
Questions have been raised about background checks and safeguards. A day after
Inner City Press reported that the UN's Geneva-based refugee agency had not
known that Swiss banker Ivan Pictet is on the UN Investment Committee when the
UNHCR Kashmir Relief Note placed money with the Pictet Funds India Equity fund,
the agency's spokesman mused, "Isn't the UN Investment Fund based in New York?"
Inner
City Press asked if it would have been helpful to UNHCR if the UN system had a
database of the companies controlled by the outside business people who serve on
bodies like the UN Investment Committee. A Google search for that committee and
Pictet found close to nothing. It appears that there is no easy way to find who
is on the UN Investment Committee.
UNHCR's
Ron Redmond answered that that it would "have been helpful to have that type of
information... For UNHCR to look it up is labor intensive, with all the possible
company names." He later added in writing, "Any additional information on
prospective corporate partners is of course always welcome; it would facilitate
our screening processes." Mr. Redmond states that UNHCR was never required to
ask SocGen to cease using the UNHCR visibility logo, in part because the
brochure that it was on was only intended to be used for a brief period. But
records show that individuals high in UN Headquarters chided UNHCR for the use
of such terms as UNHCR "teams up" with SocGen. Despite this in-house chiding, or
perhaps because the chiders refuse in their defensiveness to comment for the
record, this practice continues in the UN system to this day, literally. Click
here to
view the UN's World Tourism Organization's July 12, 2006 press release, "UN
tourism agency teams up with Microsoft,"
which was published on the UN News Center just as UNHCR SocGen-derilab's April
5, 2006 press release was. They just keep teaming up.
As the UN
increasingly has intercourse with corporations, basic safeguards are still not
in place. Inner City Press has previously reported on the lack of background
checks when corporations are allowed to join the UN Global Compact, and has
twice been rebuffed in requests to interview or ask questions of corporate CEOs
who have come to meet the Secretary General or on other Global Compact business.
At
Thursday's noon
briefing,
spokeswoman Marie Okabe was asked if any of the individuals in the Secretariat
who were asked to comment on the UNHCR - Pictet - Societe Generale transaction
had in fact spoken or provided guidance. We're still working on it, Ms. Okabe
answered.
Near six
p.m., Ms. Okabe called Inner City Press and said she had spoken about the
matter, as requested, with Under Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown. "They are
aware of the issues," Ms. Okabe said. "This case highlights the complexities of
the UN's partnerships with the private sector and so current guidelines and
practices of various funds and agencies and programs will be reviewed" to try to
avoid "potential conflicts of interest" and misuses of UN logos.
Great.
But what about the continued "teaming up," now with Microsoft? There's more work
to be done.
[A note on UNHCR's
work about Uzbekistan: the agency managed to visit in Kazakhstan with
Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident threatened with refoulement
back to Tashkent, and has, its spokesman said, gotten a commitment to be able to
review Uzbekistan's extradition request.]
Alongside
UNHCR's work, unlike at the
UN Development Programme, at least UNHCR answered the questions and acknowledged
that things could be better. On UNDP and human rights, on UNDP and refusal to
answer press questions, what will happen?
Zimbabweans
On the
issues surrounding UNDP, the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
managed to get some response from UNDP to a question Inner City Press asked UNDP
in writing more than a week ago: why does UNDP help the government of Uzbekistan
to collect taxes, given the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights'
finding that this government shot and killed its own people in Andijan in May
2005. Here now is UNDP's response:
"As far as your UNDP/Uzbekistan questions
from the other week, here's what I can tell you... in Uzbekistan and most of the
140 developing nations where UNDP operates, UNDP works with government and civil
society on a broad range of governance projects, including economic reforms, of
which tax administration and fiscal policy are a significant component. Other
governance projects in Uzbekistan focus on gender equality, internet access, and
public administration reform. It may be worth noting that UNDP works in a wide
range of political environments, from Costa Rica to North Korea, with the belief
that UNDP's mandate as a development agency is to work constructively on behalf
of the people of the developing world wherever and whenever possible."
One wag
wondered if UNDP's programs in Uzbekistan might involve technical assistance on
not putting political dissidents in boiling water, as the U.K.'s former
ambassador in Tashkent has testified takes place. And see above, that UNHCR has
managed to visit in Kazakhstan with Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident
threatened with refoulement back to Uzbekistan, where he would face
torture -- perhaps with tax funds UNDP helped to collect. UNDP has still not
even purported to answer the week-old question about
UNDP's funding of
Robert Mugabe's purported "Human Rights Council." Now the Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights has
called for a boycott.
What was that again, about UNDP working with civil society? To be continued.
Feedback: editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 718-716-3540
Conflicts of Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform
Rifts
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, July
12, 11:45 am, updated 7 pm -- Eager to "team up" with banks Societe Generale
and Pictet & Company, the United Nations' refugee agency allowed SocGen to use
the UN logo in a way subsequently criticized by UN legal staff, and to invest
Kashmir Relief Notes funds in a Pictet & Cie fund despite owner Ivan Pictet
being a member of the UN Investment Committee. Criticized by other UN units,
UNHCR agreed to cease renting out the UN logo, but said nothing can be done
about the investment with Pictet et Cie.
Inner City Press
first raised these matters in April 2006. Earlier today UNHCR in Geneva finally
responded, confirming but defending the investment in a Pictet fund. UNHCR's
Ron Redmond wrote to Inner City Press that
"based on the information available to us,
there is no conflict of interest created for Mr. Ivan Pictet, managing partner
of Pictet & Cie, and ad hoc member of the UN Investments Committee, by the fact
that Pictet Funds Indian Equities is one of the funds in which KRN funds are
invested. Societe Generale, the issuer of the Note, is solely responsible for
choosing the funds and this selection is based on recognized risk management and
hedging criteria; UNHCR plays a purely passive role as the recipient of a
donation and has no interest in the performance of the Note. Moreover, Mr.
Pictet's membership in the UN Investments Committee was unknown to all parties
involved in drawing up this investment product, and we trust therefore that the
decision to include a fund managed by Pictet & Cie was taken in good faith."
Whether this
is in keeping with current and proposed UN standards of ethics and transparency
will be seen in coming days. Whether the stated lack of knowledge of Mr.
Pictet's membership on the UN Investment Committee comports with minimal
corporate or competence standards is also in question. The problem is a wider
one: in a defensive internal memo reviewed by Inner City Press, UNHCR lawyer
Helmut Buss argues that UNICEF similarly partners with FIFA and NIS Petrol Co,
and that the World Food Programme does the same with TNT Airways and the World
Rugby Board. Nevertheless, UNHCR has agreed to drop the logo use and the "teams
up" language deployed in its
April 5 press release.
The investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee UNHCR defends, including by pointing out that
Morgan Stanley's Francine Bovich
is also on the UN Investment Board, while the UN does much business with
JPMorgan Chase. (Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, despite the comment
reference to Pierpont, are not related companies.) The UNHCR memo's argument is that it's too
complicated or burdensome to avoid conflicts of interest. UNHCR's earlier
justification to Inner City Press argued that "we are
not talking about the usual procurement procedure," when talking about an
investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee.
This
conflict-or-reform debate has included at least in the carbon copies Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown,
who appears to have agreed that UNHCR's actions were improper. The paper trail
may be important. The story began with a
UNHCR press release on
April 5 of this year, headlined "New corporate
investment scheme helps fund UN quake relief efforts" and stating that "the
United Nations refugee agency has teamed up with two Swiss investment
companies in a scheme that will benefit its earthquake relief operation in
Pakistan. The joint project launched by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
Zurich-based Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, and derilab s.a.,
a derivatives company, will allow investors to participate in a financial
product that affords a unique opportunity to support reconstruction and relief
efforts."
Inner City Press
inquired into the release and published a round-up
article on April 11 questioning
the partnership: "It might well be on the level. But
it's not yet clear that if it weren't, the scheme would not proceed. It would
help if the follow-up questions were answered."
Inner City Press' article included at length the
statement of UNHCR's Olivier Delarue:
From: Olivier
Pierre Delarue
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:18:54 +0200
Subject: Re: Fwd: Press inquiry concerning how Societe Generale Corporate &
Investment Banking, and derilab s.a were selected for participation with UNHCR
I work in
UNHCR's Private Sector Fund Raising Service as Senior Corporate Relations
Officer and your query about this fund raising initiative was forwarded to me...
Based on the previous exchange of email you sent, your focus seems to be on the
procurement and bidding process done by the UN. This particular initiative,
however, is a fund raising project first proposed by corporate entities and
aimed at raising funds for UNHCR's humanitarian program. Therefore, as with any
fund raising project, we are not talking about the usual procurement procedure.
In my capacity
as Senior Corporate Relations Officer, my role is to work on creating new
partnerships with the corporate world in order to increase our donor base and
receive greater financial and expertise from the private sector. In this
particular case, Derilab s.a. approached us in the aftermath of the earthquake
in South Asia and proposed to assist us pro bono in finding new ways of raising
donations from the financial market for this emergency. As this was never done
in the past, a financial product which incorporated a charity/donation component
was not easy to build. Derilab presented the project to all the major banks
involved in structured and derivative products. Only Societe Generale showed a
serious interest in working on this new concept. As matter of principle, UNHCR
screens all new partnerships with the private sector. Societe Generale, the only
bank to show an interest for this project, was screened. As a result of our
careful review, Societe Generale was screened positively for various reasons,
including their participation in the UN Global Compact. Please note that in the
case of this initiative, UNHCR is only a receiver of donations through this
financial product -- but is not endorsing the product itself
The phrase "we are not talking about the usual
procurement procedure" may have been an understatement, given the investment
with a company controlled by an individual who is a member of the UN Investment
Committee. Regarding the last above-quoted phrase, even the UN Headquarters
staff who subsequently questioned UNHCR's program apparently found dubious this last point:
the use of the phrase "teams up" implies an endorsement, the question-memo
noted. ICP reiterated its broader questions to UNHCR in Geneva on June 1,
including directly to Mr. Delarue, to whom UNHCR's spokesman's office also
forwarded the request.
Several UN officials contacted Inner City
Press about its initial story. Subsequently UN staff in New York wrote to UNHCR
in Geneva, demanding an explanation including of the seemingly violative use of
the UN logo contrary to GA Resol. 92(I) of 1946. More than a month later,
UNHCR's Helmut Buss sent back a multi-page memo, acknowledging the investment in
Pictet Funds Indian Equity Fund, and that Ivan Pictet is on the UN Investment
Committee. Mr. Buss claimed to have determined that this conflict had been
stumbled into "in good faith," and that avoiding conflicts would be difficult,
given for example that
Morgan Stanley's Francine Bovich
is also on the UN Investment Board.
How
will conflicts of interest be avoided in the future? More than 12 hours before
initial publication of this report, Inner City Press put these questions to UNHCR in
Geneva, as well as to Ivan Pictet by fax at his place of work. Inner City Press' request for UNHCR's comment stated that "while it
shouldn't need to be said, Inner City Press has been appreciative of UNHCR's
responses, when received, on refugee-related questions on Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan,
etc.. This inquiry, which began in April and was attempted to be concluded in
June, is neither anti-refugee nor anti-UNHCR. As many have said, transparency is
good for the UN system, in the long run. In this short-run, this is a formal
request for UNHCR's written comment as quickly as possible."
In the
short and medium-run, UNHCR has declined to answer press questions about this,
back in April, in early June, and now. What will happen in the longer run
remains to be seen.
At 8:15
a.m. New York time, 12 hours after sending its written request for comment,
Inner City Press telephoned UNHCR deputy spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis in Geneva and
reiterated the request for comment. Ms. Pagonis indicated that the request had
already been forwarded to Mr. Delarue for response by midday. But since he had
been asked back in early June to comment on developments of which Inner City
Press was even then aware, and he did not respond, to await Mr. Delarue's
belated second response seemed neither necessary nor appropriate. "It is not really
about Mister Delarue," Inner City Press explained to UNHCR's Jennifer Pagonis.
"It's about UNHCR and the wider United Nations." Subsequently, the following
was received:
From: REDMOND [at]
unhcr.org
To: Matthew.Lee [at]
innercitypress.com, BUSS [at] unhcr.org, DELARUE [at] unhcr.org
Sent: Wed, 12 Jul
2006 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Request
for comment asap on UNHCR / Societe Generale's Kashmir Relief Note/ Pictet Funds
- on deadline
Dear Mr. Lee,
Olivier Delarue and
colleagues have looked into your questions and their reply follows.
- Use of UN name and
logo: UNHCR has not authorized Societe Generale to use the UN name and logo, nor
of the UNHCR official logo, both of which are indeed protected under GA/RES/92(I)
of 1946. In line with the "Guidelines on Cooperation between the United Nations
and the Business Community", issued by the Secretary-General on 17 July 2000,
however, UNHCR has, for the sole purpose of the raising of funds for UNHCR,
allowed SocGen to use, on its brochure announcing the KRN, the UNHCR "visibility
logo" with the addition "in support of". For your information, Article 16 (d)
(ii) of the a/m Guidelines authorizes the use of the name and emblem "to assist
in the raising of funds for the Organization".
- Potential conflict
of interest: Based on the information available to us, there is no conflict of
interest created for Mr. Ivan Pictet, managing partner of Pictet & Cie, and ad
hoc member of the UN Investments Committee, by the fact that Pictet Funds Indian
Equities is one of the funds in which KRN funds are invested. Societe Generale,
the issuer of the Note, is solely responsible for choosing the funds and this
selection is based on recognized risk management and hedging criteria; UNHCR
plays a purely passive role as the recipient of a donation and has no interest
in the performance of the Note. Moreover, Mr. Pictet's membership in the UN
Investments Committee was unknown to all parties involved in drawing up this
investment product, and we trust therefore that the decision to include a fund
managed by Pictet & Cie was taken in good faith. In any event, Mr. Pictet had no
involvement whatsoever in UNHCR's decision to accept the funds thus raised by
SocGen. Finally, you may also note that the volume of this investment (US$1
million shared over a number of funds, only one of which is Pictet & Cie's)
cannot be considered to benefit Mr. Pictet in any substantial manner.
- Screening of
Corporate Partners: Societe Generale is a member of the Global Compact .
Moreover, our research at the time demonstrated that Societe Generale was rated
over the past years as one of the best banks in the world, and the best in terms
of derivative products. For your information, private sector partnerships are a
relatively recent addition to UNHCR's fundraising strategy. In its dealings with
the private sector, UNHCR consistently bases itself on the a/m Guidelines issued
by the Secretary-General. In addition, UNHCR is in the process of installing an
advisory board to ensure even more checks and balances. This process, by the
way, was already on the way before the KRN was even first considered.
Derilab, finally, is
not a signatory to the Global Compact. It is a very small Swiss company
consisting of former bankers, that offered to provide its expertise in the
highly specialized field of derivative products to come up with innovative
approaches that could increase UNHCR's ability to raise funds from the financial
market.
Apologies for the
delay in getting back to you. The past month is one of the busiest times of the
year at UNHCR.
Regards, Ron Redmond
Head, Media Relations
& Public Information, UNHCR Geneva
Update 1 p.m. July 12
-- Asked at
the noon briefing if UNHCR is correct in invoking in its defense of this
program and investments Kofi Annan's "Guidelines on Cooperation between the
United Nations and the Business Community," spokeswoman Marie Okabe said that
UNHCR has submitted a detailed response and that she, and presumably for now the
Secretariat, have nothing to add to it. While UNHCR's written response was, as
always, appreciated, on-the-record inquiries will continue, first into whether
this UNHCR program, SocGen's initial use of the logo and the investment with
Pictet & Cie, are viewed within the Secretariat and elsewhere as comporting with
current and proposed standards of transparency and ethics. Inner City Press is
aware of views within the Secretariat, not close to the ground, which are at
odds with UNHCR's positions and actions. These views are being solicited,
on-the-record.
If Ambassadors to the
UN, even from the Permanent Five, answer questions at the Security Council
stakeout about their positions on such issues as amnesty for the Lords
Resistance Army's Joseph Kony, and who should repair the Gaza electrical power
plant, the Secretariat should answer regarding this UNHCR program. Watch this
space [and see Report of July 13, 2006, above.]
Inner City Press'
earlier story on this, followed by UNDP - Uganda, etc.
Inner City Press
Global Inner Cities Report - April 11, 2006
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, April 11 --
An
inquiry to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, about what they
called a financial "scheme" with
Société Générale and derilab s.a., resulted in the following answer:
From: Olivier
Pierre Delarue
To: Matthew.Lee
[at] innercitypress.com
Sent: Thu, 6
Apr 2006 14:18:54 +0200
Subject: Re:
Fwd: Press inquiry concerning how Societe Generale Corporate & Investment
Banking, and derilab s.a were selected for participation with UNHCR
I work in
UNHCR's Private Sector Fund Raising Service as Senior Corporate Relations
Officer and your query about this fund raising initiative was forwarded to me...
Based on the previous exchange of email you sent, your focus seems to be on the
procurement and bidding process done by the UN. This particular initiative,
however, is a fund raising project first proposed by corporate entities and
aimed at raising funds for UNHCR's humanitarian program. Therefore, as with any
fund raising project, we are not talking about the usual procurement procedure.
In my capacity
as Senior Corporate Relations Officer, my role is to work on creating new
partnerships with the corporate world in order to increase our donor base and
receive greater financial and expertise from the private sector. In this
particular case, Derilab s.a. approached us in the aftermath of the earthquake
in South Asia and proposed to assist us pro bono in finding new ways of raising
donations from the financial market for this emergency. As this was never done
in the past, a financial product which incorporated a charity/donation component
was not easy to build. Derilab presented the project to all the major banks
involved in structured and derivative products. Only Societe Generale showed a
serious interest in working on this new concept.
As matter of
principle, UNHCR screens all new partnerships with the private sector. Societe
Generale, the only bank to show an interest for this project, was screened. As a
result of our careful review, Societe Generale was screened positively for
various reasons, including their participation in the UN Global Compact. Please
note that in the case of this initiative, UNHCR is only a receiver of donations
through this financial product -- but is not endorsing the product itself.
Inner City Press responded with follow-up
questions, including regarding Societe General's long embroilment in a money
laundering scandal, and asked:
-is membership in the Global Compact the main
screen UNHCR applies to its corporate engagements, whether philanthropic or in
procurement? What are the other "various reasons"? Did your careful review of
Soc Gen -- just as an example -- include the issues raised by the money
laundering allegations sketched below, including those in Nigeria (we're aware
that Soc Gen has not been convicted of anything, but that wouldn't seem to be
the standards for a careful review).Again, these questions don't go to the
merits of how the funds are used by UNHCR -- as an aside, hats off for your work
in the Balkans and with Return, Afghanistan, etc.
- is derilab s.a a signatory to the Global
Compact? (I'm aware I could look it up, but the question also includes -- if a
company is not a signatory to the Compact, what else do you look at?)
Neither question
has yet been answered. A Web search for derilab reflects that nearly all of the
"hits" are about its recent "scheme" with UNHCR. It's own
web site says
only
"derilab(R) was recently founded by
experts in the field of financial derivative and structured products. derilab's
focus is to provide it's [sic] customers with key information on derivative and
structured products. derilab also advises on the structuring of financial
products."
It might well be on the level. But it's
not yet clear that if it weren't, the scheme would not proceed. It would help if
the follow-up questions were answered.
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