Eritrea
Asks
If UN Can
Bribe Its
Officials For
Info But Gets
No Hearing,
Unlike DPRK
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 18 --
Months after
the UN
Security
Council imposed
more
sanctions on
Eritrea
without
arranging for
its president
to
address the
Council before
the new
resolution was
finalized, "in
blue,"
Eritrea's
Mission to the
UN has for
what it's
worth
raised
questions
about the
Sanctions
Committee's
sourcing.
If
this were
being
reported
elsewhere,
Inner City
Press might
not. But at
the UN a
silence
surrounds the
treatment of
Eritrea. The
simultaneous
meeting
of the North
Korea
Sanctions
Committee drew
much interest
though that
committee's
chair said
very little
afterwards,
declining even
to
confirm that
Japan has
submitted a
list of new
sanctions
targets.
Meanwhile
Eritrea
could not get
such coverage
of its defense
to its (and
Somalia's)
sanctions
committee. And
so we run this
quote:
The
vitriol
that the
Monitoring
Group
routinely
produces
against
Eritrea
emanates, by
its own
admissions,
from four
principal
sources:
i)
Foreign law
enforcement
agencies; this
begs the
question on
who
these agencies
are? Why are
their
testimonies
accepted
without
checking the
ulterior
agendas that
they may
harbor? Do we
have
assurances
that
testimonies
from
intelligence
agencies that
have
hostile
agendas
against
Eritrea are
excluded or
meticulously
corroborated
with accounts
of other
neutral and
credible
bodies?
ii)
The second
category of
sources of the
Monitoring
Group is
'former
Eritrean
military or
diplomatic
officials.'
Again, what
are the
assurances
that
testimonies of
elements who
may be
fugitives from
the
law or who may
be involved in
subversive
activities
against the
country are
credible and
not
politically
motivated
fabrications?
iii)
The third
sources are
"active
Eritrean
Government
contacts".
This provokes
other deeper
questions. Is
it lawful for
the
Monitoring
Group to
foster
clandestine
contacts with
Eritrean
officials?
What are the
financial or
other
inducements?
And can
testimonies of
this type be
considered
valid?
These
strike us as
good
questions, and
should be
answered.
Watch this
site.
, 
