Amid
Kyrgyz
& Uzbek Bloodbath, UN Gave No New Money, Just Along for
Ride
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 13 -- In Kyrgyzstan over 100 people have been killed in
the southern region of Osh in what's being described as ethnic
violence. 75,000 Uzbeks have fled Kyrgyzstan, making it a cross
border threat to international peace and security.
Central Asia is
fraught with water wars and border closings, problems that as Inner
City Press has documented, the new United Nations "preventive
diplomacy" center in Turkmenistan has done very little to
address.
When
interim
president (and former UN
staffer) Roza Otunbayeva asked Russian
President Dmitri Medvedev for military help, he said there was no
legal basis to intervene in this "internal matter." Russia
took this position as tens of thousands of civilians were killed in
Sri Lanka, so what's a hundred Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan?
Medvedev
referred
Otunbayeva's request to the Russia dominated regional group
Collective Security Treaty Organization, made up of former Soviet
republics including Uzbekistan and Belarus, where overthrown
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, is in exile.
Some
say that it is
Bakiyev, his family and supporters who have stirred up ethnic strife
in order to return to power, or to create a diversion from attempts
to prosecute Bakiyev for corruption and for killings by security
forces during his tenure. There had been a request for UN help with
an investigation of and tribunal on Bakiyev, but then no follow
through.
Miroslav
Jenca of
the UN's Regional Center for Preventative Diplomacy announced loudly
that the UN would give $12 million for elections in Kyrgyzstan. But
when Inner City Press inquired it was told by the UN that
"Further
to
your Q&A with Martin earlier this week on UNDP/Kyrgyzstan...
the $12 million refers to projects already being or to be implemented
in the immediate period leading up to elections in order to help
address the constitutional crisis facing the country (i.e.
constitutional referendum and elections) and to support the country’s
most vulnerable groups that are directly affected by the situation -
the kind of groups being helped include rural youth, students, women,
and unemployed in all provinces of the country."
So
it was no new
money at all.
UN's Ban and Speaker of Kyrgyz Parliament on
violence against women, Uzbeks not shown
Now on June
13, the UN puts out a statement that
"The
Secretary-General
said the United Nations was urgently assessing
humanitarian aid needs. The Secretary-General and the OSCE
Chairman-in-Office agreed their respective special envoys and that of
the European Union would coordinate their response to the crisis. The
three envoys are either ready in Bishkek or on their way."
So
is Jan Kubis
there or not? Jenca? And who is talking to Bakiyev? Watch this site.
Footnote:
Uzbekistan's
Ambassador to the UN, meanwhile, has been most focused
on his country's water war with Tajikistan. He recently called Inner
City Press aside about a Tajik water event at which, he said, the
Tajik government cravenly paid all travel and hotel expenses. We have
other questions pending about Uzbekistan, including with UNICEF. Stay
tuned.
* * *
UN's
Ban
Met Otunbayeva Twice Before Bakiyev Was Toppled, Johnny
Appleseed
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 15 -- Days after the UN refused to answer if Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon met with Rosa Otunbayeva before she replaced
President Bakiyev as ruler of Kyrgyzstan, then referred only to a meeting
by Ban's political advisor Lynn Pascoe, Inner City Press
learned that Ban attended two meeting with Ms. Otunbayeva, before
Bakiyev's overthrow.
Sources
told
Inner
City Press that Ban attended two meetings, one closed and an open one
with parliamentarians, at which Otunbayeva spoke to him. While Ban
did not do a projected media availability on April 15 after he
briefed the Security Council on his Central Asia trip, Inner City
Press caught up with Lynn Pascoe in his wake.
Inner
City
Press
asked Pascoe to confirm or deny that Ban met twice with Otunbayeva.
To his credit, Pascoe confirmed it. There were three things, he said.
The first, the S-G with parties, opposition parties, Rosa Otunbayeva
spoke. And then with the parliament. In the first, she raised the
question of opposition folks who were demonstrating. The S-G said,
I'm going to be taking meetings, I have Pascoe. So I did it.
Ban's
associate
spokesperson
Farhan Haq, when Inner City Press asked in
writing if
Ban had met Otunbeyeva, said he would not comment on the new leader.
Then
when Inner City Press asked Martin Nesirky, Ban's spokesman,
Nesirky mentioned only the Pascoe meeting. He used the word
"singular," which no longer makes sense: there was more
than one opposition leader met with, and more than one meeting, even
with Ban.
UN's Ban and Bakiyev, just before his
overthrow, Otunbayeva meetings not disclosed
On
April 12, Inner
City Press asked
for
a "readout on what opposition leaders did
the UN delegation meet with while in Kyrgyzstan?"
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
I think it is singular rather than plural, and it was Ms.
Otunbayeva. This was a meeting with about half a dozen
representatives, mostly journalists and including Ms. Otunbayeva. This
took place during the Secretary-General’s visit. The
Secretary-General was in other meetings, and he asked Mr. Pascoe and
a number of other advisers who were travelling in that delegation to
Central Asia to meet with them and they were then able to report to
the Secretary-General on the conversation.
Inner
City
Press: Did they make any predictions? Or is it possible to get
kind of a readout of what was discussed at the meeting?
Spokesperson:
No,
I do not think it is possible to have a readout of that meeting
in itself, because that goes beyond normal diplomatic practice.
Inner
City
Press
asked Pascoe about this on April 15, that his meeting was with
"mostly journalists." Pascoe said, "I saw that and I
cringed a little bit, there were several opposition figures."
To
some it appears
that the UN is playing down -- to put it diplomatically -- Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's pre-overthrow meetings with opposition leader
Rosa Otunbayeva.
But
why? Some point
to the obvious double standards of having denounced the ouster of
President Zelaya from Honduras and the leader of Niger, but not this.
On that, we will continue to report. Watch this site.
Footnote: the split
between Pascoe and the UN spokespeople is highlighted, not to
discourage Pascoe from saying what happened, but to encourage the
spokespeople to.
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