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With UN's Gambari In Myanmar, Than Shwe and His Money Not
Questioned
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, February 2 --
While UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar on
Sunday,
the UN in New York declined to confirm reports that she told him that
Ban
Ki-moon should not come until she and other dissidents are released.
Inner City
Press asked if Ban will consider going before these conditions are met,
but his
Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe did not answer this question. Video here,
from
Minute 16:01. She said that Ban will
meet Gambari in Asia later in the week, and decisions will be made.
Gambari has met with ministers but not Senior Leader
Than Shwe. It is
not clear if he has questioned the 2008 Constitution, pushed through in
the
wake of Cyclone Nargis, or if he has looked into the UN's acceptance of
currency
losses by accepting Than Shwe's exchange rate between dollars and
Foreign Exchange
Certificates. In response to Inner City
Press' December 2008 story about
Nigeria, which Gambari used to represent as UN Ambassador, giving
$500,000 with
no strings attached to the Than Shwe government, Gambari said he had
nothing to
do with it.
But in response to Inner City Press' reporting, picked
up in Nigeria, the Human
Rights Writers'
Association of Nigeria has "carpeted the Federal Government for the
recent
reported gift of a whooping sum of $500,000 to the military regime in
Myanmar
(former Burma). The group demanded an immediate explanation from the
President,
Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to Nigerians and the sack of the Minister of
Foreign
Affairs, Mr. Ojo Maduekwe, for what it called total breach of several
pro-democracy sections of the 1999 Constitution." Click here
for that.
UN's Gambari in Myanmar, Than Shwe and money not shown
The UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes was
asked on January 19 by Inner City Press about such contributions made
outside
the structure of the UN's formal appeals -- but, in this case, made
inside the
UN building, in the penumbra as it were of the UN.
We prefer it through us, he said, so it can
be tracked. Video here.
It appears clear that Nigeria never informed the UN about the
contribution. And now that they know?
Footnote:
at UN headquarters last
week during a press conference on the Responsibility to Protect -
Engaging
Civil Society project, Inner City Press asked a speaker from Mindanao
in the
Philippines about the application of "R2P" to Myanmar. He said he
favored it; another speaker said that a natural disaster should not be
used as
a pretext. Click here
for video of that press conference, here
for a January 28
Inner City Press debate about R2P including in Myanmar.
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.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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USA
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Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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