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UN's Terror Victims Lack
Afghans, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and China, UNICEF Defends Links
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the
UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 8 -- On
the eve of the UN's victims of terrorism symposium, organizing
Assistant
Secretary General Robert Orr was besieged by press questions about how
the
victims had been chosen, why no victims from Somalia, Afghanistan or
Pakistan
-- or Sri Lanka for that matter -- would be attending, and a right of
veto the
UN had apparently given to governments over victims from their country.
On
Somalia, which Inner City Press asked about, Orr said the UN had tried,
but
there is a lack of "civil society" organizations to provide contacts
with victims. While he claimed that the geographic spread tracked the
incidence
of terrorism, only one of 18 victims comes from Asia. This despite
continuing
attacks in Sri Lanka, where suicide bombing is said to have been
invented. While all four of the
symposium's funders,
and four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, are
represented by victims, there is no victim from China, despite the
characterization of Xingjiang insurgents as terrorists, and deadly
attacks
during the Olympic Games this summer.
More troubling, Orr said that the
government of each
victim was consulted.
Inner City Press asked what this meant in, for example, Colombia, from
which
Ingrid Betancourt is coming. Would victims of the pro-government
paramilitaries
not be invited? Orr did not dispute that governments were given veto
rights.
Rather, he bragged that no country exercised its veto right. But that's
based
on the proposals that the UN made.
Ban and Betancourt, other victims, of paramilitaries to Somalia, not
shown
Also at the cusp of the UN and terrorism,
Inner City
Press received the
following response from UNICEF spokesman Chris de Bono
Am
consulting on your other questions and will respond if/when I have
anything to
offer.
On
the partnership with the International Islamic Relief Organization
Saudi Arabia
I can say:
"UNICEF
would not enter into an agreement with a terrorist entity. The
International
Islamic Relief Organization Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) -- the entity with
which
UNICEF has partnered -- is not listed on the United Nations Security
Council’s
consolidated list. Two other entities –
the IIRO Philippines and the IIRO Indonesia -- are listed and UNICEF
has not
and would not enter into any partnership with either of these entities.
"The
IIROSA is a non-Governmental-Organization accredited to the UN Economic
and
Social Council (ECOSOC), a member of the Muslim World League, and is a
member
of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), a prominent
and
highly respected non-governmental entity that serves as a coordination
mechanism for civil society organizations. The
organization is also affiliated with the
Organisation of the Islamic
Conference. It has worked with many other UN agencies and international
Non-Governmental-Organizations."
We'll see.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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[at] innercitypress.com
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