UN
Removes
5 Taliban from Sanctions List, 2 Already Dead, Gul File
Follies
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 30, updated -- The UN's Al Qaeda / Taliban sanctions committee
is removing five names from its list today, as blocks
against their
removal have been lifted just before an end of July deadline. The
five now delisted Taliban -- two of them dead -- are:
1)
Abdul
Satar Paktin (TI.P.35.01.)
2)
Abdul
Hakim Mujahid Muhammad Awrang (TI.M.116.01.) (Former
Ambassador to UN)
3)
Abdul
Salam Zaeef (TI.Z.62.01.) (Author: My life with the Taliban)
4)
Abdul
Samad Khaksar (TI.K.54.01.) (deceased)
5)
Muhammad
Islam Mohammadi (TI.M.90.01.) (deceased)
The
mission to the
UN of Austria, which chairs the Committee, has said that the names
will be removed from the Committee's web site at noon on July 30, and
that further information will be available at a press conference on
August 2.
Inner
City Press
has asked the UN and the Austrian mission about attempts to place on
the Taliban sanctions list former and perhaps current Pakistani army
figure Hamid Gul, who appears in one of the WikeLeaks documents as
plotting with Taliban to kidnap UN officials on the road from Kabul
to Jalalabad.
UN
spokesman
Martin Nesirky replied that the UN Department of Safety and Security
is reviewing the documents.
Bamiyan, some Taliban handiwork, Gul file not shown
But UN DSS, to its highest levels, has
appeared to prioritize politics and “cultural
sensitivity” to
following up on threats and even deadly attacks on UN system
personnel, for example the murder of DSS officer Louis Maxwell by
Afghan national forces, for which no one has been held accountable.
Inner
City Press
asked the Austrian mission about Gul and was told that they "didn't have a formal request in our time
and IF there has been a request, it could only have been an informal
before our Chairmanship.. check with the Belgium mission." Those
on the sanction
list have their files kept in the Mission offices of the committee
chair, to some a strange practice. But those with only
informal requests, have their files kept by the UN's secretariat of
the Committee. Watch this site.
* * *
As
UN
Council
Moves to De-List Taliban for Karzai, Louis Maxwell Probe
Stalled
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
28 -- When the UN Security Council was in Afghanistan
last week, Hamid Karzai announced that they had committed to remove
people from the Al Qaeda / Taliban sanctions list of the 1267
Committee. On Monday at the UN in New York, Inner City Press asked
this month's Council president, Claude Heller of Mexico:
Inner
City
Press:
When you were in Afghanistan, did the government of Hamid
Karzai stressed particular names to the Council [inaudible] mediating
between the authorities of Afghanistan and the Taliban. Were
particular names discussed [inaudible] removed from the list?
CH:
I
think
it’s important to say that the Sanctions committee, all of
the sanctions committees, are touching very sensitive issues, but of
course they do it on a confidential basis. The fact that the chairman
of the sanctions committee was in Afghanistan was an opportunity that
he had to be in touch with the authorities. President Karzai publicly
mentioned this issue, and the willingness of his government to
cooperate with the sanctions committee.
After
Heller's
polite
dodging of the question, the chairman of the 1267 committee
Thomas Mayr-Harting came to speak with the Press, on the record but
off camera. Inner City Press asked, if the standard to remove a
Taliban is that they are not in contact with Al Qaeda, how the Karzai
government can make this negative proof.
Mayr-Harting
said
that
his Committee in the past has applied four tests: renunciation
of violence, laying down of arms, no contact with Al Qaeda and
accepting the Afghan constitution. He said that Afghanistan's
specialized services should be able to provide information about
accepting the constitution -- some of the list are members of
parliament -- and perhaps about contacts with Al Qaeda.
UNAMA, UNSC members, action on Louis Maxwell not shown
He
said he is
hoping to remove dead people from the list, and that the Afghans can
help by providing proof of death. But that's not the group of people
of most concern to Karzai.
It
is not clear
whether during the Council's visit any member raised the killing of UN staff
member Louis Maxwell by Afghan National Forces, as described
in a UN Board of Inquiry report that calls on the Karzai government
to further investigated. It appears that no Afghan investigation
has
been done or even begun. Some think that should be a condition for
removing Karzai's friends from the sanctions list. We'll see.
, 
