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UN's Ban "Did Not Know of
Fowler" as Niger Envoy, Diplomat Says, Alleging Fraud
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, March 1 -- Ten
weeks after Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler disappeared in Niger while
ostensibly serving as UN envoy to that country, in New York a diplomat
of a
Permanent Five member of the Security Council told Inner City Press
that
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "didn't know about Fowler's appointment
as
an envoy when he was asked," after Fowler's disappearance.
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity as was the
case in
Inner City Press exclusive and subsequently video-verified report a
month ago
of Fowler being alive, said this means that mine-related business
was being done
through the UN without Ban's knowledge.
"You have a layer of quasi-UN people," he said,
"supposedly working for a dollar a year and the like. It is fraud."
He added that attempts to delve into l'affaire
Fowler are "being blocked... there are interests on the other side."
The diplomat approached Inner City Press at a
reception on February 26
at the East 62nd
Street residence of Yukio Takasu, Japan's
Ambassador to the UN. Takasu served a Security Council president for
February, and held an
end of the month reception as is the custom. The previous
anonymous diplomatic
scoop, that Fowler "est vivant,"
came a month prior, at the end of presidency reception held at the
French
mission to the UN. Inner City Press hopes that further inside
information does
not have to await the end of March, when Libya's time at the Council's
helm
will end. Watch this site.
Photo of hostages in the region, AFP via Jeane
Afrique
Meanwhile, a second video of Fowler and Louis Guay,
as well as their UN
Development Program driver, has reportedly been seen by AFP. Jeane
Afrique runs
a photograph of hostages. The Canadian
Dominion
reports on previous interventions by past and present diplomats from
Ottawa in mining business disputes in Niger, including between
Canadian and
Chinese companies. The read-out given of the meeting last week between
Prime
Minister Harper and Ban Ki-moon, before Ban left for Africa, was vague
if not
evasive.
That business may be run through Ban Ki-moon's
office without his
apparently knowledge is raised by sources for another Inner
City Press story
this weekend, that a switch was quietly made in which the top post
at the UN
Office in Nairobi can be switched from Tanzanian head of UN Habitat,
Anna
Tibaijuka, to director of the UN Environment Program, Achim Steiner.
Locals note
that Ban's Under Secretary General for Management Angela Kane is
German, as is Steiner.
As in their shifting responses to questions about
Fowler's appointment
and mandate, even on this rule change Ban's Spokesperson's office was
evasive.
At the UN's noon briefing on February 27 Inner City Press asked
Inner City
Press: in yesterday’s Journal there was an announcement in a new
Secretary-General Bulletin about how the UN Office in Nairobi is
organized. And it is my understanding
that it actually would result in currently the most senior of HABITAT
or UNEP
is running the Office in Nairobi, and that the new policy the
Secretary-General
would get to choose between the two. Is
that accurate and is it his intention to switch Nairobi from Ms.
Tibaijuka to
Mr. Achim Steiner?
Deputy
Spokesperson Okabe: If the
Secretary-General’s Bulletin is what you read that’s all I have for you
right
now.
Inner City
Press: Well, what’s the rationale of changing the existing policy under
which
an African official runs the Africa office of the UN to a policy that
would
have it the other way?
Deputy
Spokesperson: I have nothing beyond what
you read in the Bulletin.
Watch this site.
Click here from Inner City Press' Feb. 26, 2009 debates about the UN
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here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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reports are
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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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