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UN's Harston Removed from W.
Sahara As Quid Pro Quo for Van Walsum, Ban Too Quiet as on Fowler,
Diplomats Say
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, March 9 -- The
UN's envoy to Western Sahara, Julian Harston, has unceremonious left
that post,
and been reassigned to the UN Office in Belgrade, Serbia. Inner City
Press is
told, by Polisario and other diplomatic sources, that Harston's removal
from
Western Sahara was a "quid pro quo... The pro-Morocco [Peter] Van
Walsun
was taken out, or took himself out, and so Morocco demanded that
Harston leave,
tit for tat," one senior diplomat told Inner City Press.
At the UN noon briefing on March 5, Inner City Press
asked Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas to confirm and
explain
Harston's removal from Western Sahara and reassignment to Belgrade.
Even those
the move, though not the reason, had been noted in the
Balkan press, Ms. Montas
said she didn't have information about it, would look into and update
Inner
City Press.
This did not take place that day or the next, and so on March 7
Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas' deputy, Marie Okabe, who was listed
as
on-duty that day. On March 8, Ms. Okabe
replied merely that "we are looking into it." Inner City Press
directly asked for UN comment on the diplomat's "quid pro quo"
quote. A day later, none has been
received.
How can it be that Ban's
Spokesperson's Office still has "no information" about the new
assignment
given to Harston, and why?
UN's Ban greets Harston on his way to W. Sahara, explanation for exit
not shown
Compared with the UN's ongoing silence about its
ostensible envoy to
Niger Robert Fowler, who was abducted in December while traveling in
that
country in a UNDP vehicle but without any UN security, Harston perhaps
"got off easy," one of the Africa-focused diplomats remarked, adding
that the Ban Administration's lack of transparency is making it more
difficult
for the UN to recruit qualified envoys to other countries, particularly
in
Africa. They claim they are withholding their short list of candidates
to
replace Kermal Dervis at UNDP, he continued, out of respect for those
who
applied. At that level, it's an absurd
concern. But silence on Fowler, and selling out Harston, that hurts
them with
people who might otherwise apply. It's a race to the bottom.
As so it goes in Ban's UN.
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