Ban's
Office
Admits UN Staffer Traveled to Bahrain, with Roed Larsen, Who Refuses to
Comment, Calling It Personal Trip
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 6 -- With the ruling family of Bahrain now sentencing
demonstrators to death, the UN in New York is engaged in double-talk
at best about it engagement with the government.
On
May 6, Inner
City Press asked part time UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen if he took a UN
staff person with him on his
trip in April to Bahrain. “I do not
wish to comment on that,” Roed-Larsen said.
Moments
later
Inner City Press ask UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq to confirm
or deny that UN staff member Fabrice Aidan accompanied Roed-Larsen on
a trip that Haq
on April 18 said was not “in any UN capacity.”
Inner
City Press
had
asked this same question on April 29, in
connection with
publishing a piece about Roed-Larsen “non-UN UN” trip to Bahrain,
from which as Inner City Press exclusively
reported a previously
proposed UN envoy Oscar Fernandez Taranco was blocked, by a call from
Saudi Arabia to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
“just
a yes or no — whether in fact a staff, a UN staffer that works with
Mr. Roed-Larsen on resolution 1559 (2004) accompanied him, and if so,
if he used a laissez passer and if in fact it was characterized in
Bahrain as a UN trip?”
On
April 29, Haq's
boss Martin
Nesirky told Inner City Press, “I do not know the
answer to that. So if I have any answer, I’d be happy to give it
to you, okay?”
Despite
this
statement that Inner City Press would be given any answer to this
simple question, nothing was provided until on May 6 Haq when
questioned again said that yes, Fabrice Aidan did travel to Bahrain.
"UN Envoy" Larsen and Bahrain deputy premier
Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa
Inner
City Press
asked, to make sure, that it was at the same time as Larsen. Yes. How
then was this not a UN trip? In fact, it was characterized that
way, at a time when it benefits the Bahrain royal family to claim to
be on the inside with UN officials.
When Haq was
asked by Inner City Press if the UN Secretariat had told Roed-Larsen to
make sure this was not construed as a UN trip, Haq would not comment.
This
UN allows
Roed-Larsen to work part time for the UN, on Resolution 1559, and
part time (but for a high salary) as the head of the International
Peace Institute.
Well placed sources, of the facts of
Fabrice Aidan's travel belated confirmed by the UN, say that Larsen
goes to places
like Bahrain and allowed the ruling families to portray this as UN
support, and received support to IPI, which raises his salary.
We'd like a
response to this, but Roed-Larsen “would't like to comment on
that.” Watch this site.
On
Syria,
Larsen told the Press that two countries disagreed whether it
is a threat to international peace and security. When this was
conveyed to Syrian Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari, Ja'afari
said “you know we don't trust him.” Syria is not the only one.
* * *
As
Alsaidi
of Yemen Retires to IPI, Roed-Larsen Bahrain Trip's UN Link?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
29 -- When Abdullah M. Alsaidi announced earlier this
year he was resigning as Yemen's Ambassador at the UN, where he had
represented President Ali Abdullah Saleh since 2002, it was described
as an act of principle, akin to Ibrahim Dabbashi and Shalgam
resigning as Libyan diplomats in protest of Gaddafi's crackdown.
But
sources well
placed on Yemen inform Inner City Press that before his loud
“resignation,” Alsaidi was informed by letter that it was time
for him to retire. For some time, Alsaidi had been seeking a job with
the UN. If he simply retired, he would have to return to Yemen. So he
resigned.
Soon
thereafter
he
was hired not by the UN but by the International Peace Institute
across the street, which announced on its website that
“Ambassador
Alsaidi was the Permanent Representative of Yemen to the United
Nations from 2002 until his resignation last week in response to the
killing of dozens of demonstrators by pro-government forces in
Sanaa... Terje Roed-Larsen, IPI's President, welcomed Ambassador
Alsaidi, saying, 'His considerable experience both as a high-level
diplomat and as an academic will be a strong asset for IPI in helping
the UN and its partners better understand ongoing developments in the
Middle East.'”
Some
find
it
particularly appropriate that Alsaidi lands at IPI under Roed-Larsen,
who is viewed as an ally of Saudi Arabia, among others.
Recently
Roed-Larsen
traveled
to Bahrain. While the UN has said publicly that
Roed-Larsen traveled in his “personal capacity” and not in any
connection with his part time post as Under Secretary General and
representative on Security Council Resolution 1559, Inner City Press
has been told some of the backstory.
Sources
say
Roed-Larsen
asked to travel to Bahrain in a UN capacity, but that the
UN said no. He then traveled there, taking one of the UN staffers
from his Resolution 1559 post who, sources says, traveled with a UN
Laissez Passer. While in Bahrain, Roed-Larsen presented himself as a
UN official.
How
the UN is
served by allowing a person to simultaneously be an Under Secretary
General and run a think tank some view as partisan directly across
from the UN, and to blur the roles, remains a mystery.
At the UN
noon briefing of April 29, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's
spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm or deny
that Roed-Larsen took to Bahrain with him a UN staff member using a UN
Laissez Passer. Nesirky said he didn't know, and that if he find out he
will say. Watch this
site.
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