Spinning the Congo, UN Admits Hostage Deal with Warlord That Put Him in Congolese Army

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, July 26, 2006, lightly edited Feb. 7, 2007 -- Four days before the first elections in Congo in forty years, the head of the UN Peacekeeping's Africa Division Dmitry Titov acknowledged that as part of the deal with East Congo warlord Peter Karim that led to the release of seven kidnapped UN peacekeepers, "Karim agreed to avail himself of the amnesty" and "was promised... to have some rank."

            Less than two weeks after releasing the last five of the UN peacekeepers he had held hostage for more than a month, it was announced that Peter Karim would become a colonel in the Congolese army.

UN as colonelizer?

    On May 30, Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan about the peacekeepers, and the Secretary General answered that "Karim and others who get involved in these sort of activities, must understand that they will be held accountable...They will be held individually accountable for these brutal acts." See, video at Minutes 13:40 - 15:25, and the transcript.

  Wednesday Mr. Titov implied that Karim may later be indicted, by the International Criminal Court or the "national criminal system." Mr. Titov said, "We are not in a prosecuting business" but "justice should take its course, eventually." This same approach to time is being taken with the UN's investigation of televised allegations that its peacekeeping force stood by while the Congolese army destroyed the village of Kazana. Asked by Inner City Press when the investigation's results will be released, Mr. Titov was non-committal. Asked if the intent was to wait until after the election, Mr. Titov said no.

            Mr. Titov characterized the protesters outside the UN as lacking in credibility, in light of their "U.S. out of Congo" call. "The U.S. is not there," Mr. Titov said. The protesters point at Kofi Annan's American envoy William Lacy Swing, and at the involvement in resource extraction in the Congo of U.S.-based Dodge Phelps, along with South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti and Australia's BHP Billiton, among others.

            In a wide ranging briefing on the UN's 37th floor, Mr. Titov recounted one version of the run-up to the July 30 elections, on which he said the UN has spent almost half a billion dollars. There were thirty-three presidential candidates, approximately half of whom, those Mr. Titov characterized as minor candidates, have since dropped out. Until asked by reporters, Mr. Titov did not mention the abstention from the election by major UDPS opposition figure Etienne Tshisekedi, nor the calls earlier this week in churches throughout Congo for a boycott of Sunday's vote.

            Asked by Inner City Press about the threat to withdraw of Anatole Matusila, the church-favored candidate, Mr. Titov pointed out that the bishop of Bukavu is supporting Sunday's election. Mr. Titov characterized those who are calling for a postponement of the vote as spoilers and nay-sayers. If the vote is not held on time, said Mr. Titov, we will have suffered a major failure.

            From the UN system's statements, including those from the World Bank and UN Development Program as well as Kofi Annan's envoy William Lacy Swing, some observers diagnose a strain of wishful thinking. More specifically, the UN became some time ago so invested in this election being held on July 30 that now any calls for delay are viewed and portrayed with disdain, including those based on the killing and imprisonment of journalists for such crime as "insulting the head of state."

            Asked by Inner City Press about the unsolved murder of reporter Bapuwa Mwamba, the expulsion of Radio France International's Ghislaine Dupont and the arrest, for insulting President Kabila, of editor Patrice Booto, Mr. Titov said that these are of concern, but that the "scale" was not such that it merited any call for delay of the election.

            Mr. Titov's peacekeeping colleague Kathryn Jones spoke of the UN's concern at reports of demonstrators tear-gassed and beaten by Congolese authorities, but said that the media doesn't report the more positive stories.  For different reasons, the Pentagon and State Department in Washington also wish to downplay the diminished but continuing lawlessness in the DCR. That U.S. government agencies are 100% committed to certain outcomes and time frames, and to spin in their furtherance, is understandable. Such non-objective focus is less appropriate at the UN, and sometimes seems contrary to the genuine commitment of UN staff like Ms. Jones to those Congolese still victims of the often-downplayed lawlessness. A theme continued, hopeful with ever-increasing nuance but not jadedness, on this site. Feedback is appreciated.

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Kofi Annan Questioned about Congolese Colonel Who Kidnapped Seven UN Soldiers

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 24 -- When does allowing a warlord who kidnapped UN peacekeepers to become a colonel in the Congolese national army scream of not only of impunity but distraction, disinterest and lack of attention? At what point does hoping for the best become denial and sweeping under the rug? 

          On Monday the UN's Kofi Annan was asked about the Congo, as he rushed by in a hallway to a meeting with corporate executives, and from there to Rome to discuss the Middle East.  Over the weekend in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Mr. Annan's envoy William Lacy Swing said that the UN is "not overly anxious" about violence in Ituri in Eastern Congo in the run-up to the July 30 election. But the problems have gone beyond violence. One week before the vote, churches all over Congo began to preach of boycott, if concerns of vote-rigging for current president Joseph Kabila are not addressed.

            At Monday's noon briefing at UN Headquarters, Kofi Annan's spokeswoman was asked what the UN is doing in the face of the churches' boycott calls, and about the reported stoning of UN vehicles accompanying Kabila in the southern province of Kasai. Very gently, the spokeswoman recounted Kofi Annan's visit to the DRC some weeks ago, including speaking with the churches. But if the churches, now a week before the vote, are calling for boycott, past communications may be not guarantee of future success, as they say.

            Inner City Press asked pointedly if the UN Mission has spoken with the churches which are preaching about boycott. The spokeswoman said she would check.  Near deadline the following was received:

"Matthew, The SRSG in the DR Congo has commented on the call by local priests that Congolese boycott the elections. Mr. Swing has called that move 'untimely.' He has also said that tremendous progress has been achieved in preparing for the election and that the DRC 'is arguably the only sub-region in Africa that has always lacked any centre of political stability and because of the size of this country, with nine neighbors, it is the only country that can give it that stability.'"

            It remains to be seen what Mr. Swing means by "untimely." There is a legalistic meaning, meaning "raised too late." Or he may mean, "raised at an unfortunate time." But the criticisms have long been raised. Wanting stability is not the same thing as achieving it.

Seven UN blue helmets in Congo

            Inner City Press last week asked if the UN was aware, when its seven kidnapped peacekeepers were released earlier this month, that the warlord who took them hostage would be made a colonel in the Congolese army. The response included references to "no ransom" and "we did not try to have any conditions attached." Written requests for on-the-record comment from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations remain outstanding. The election is six days away...

            In that context, Inner City Press waited more than an hour outside Conference Room 7 in the UN Headquarters basement, hoping to ask Secretary-General  Kofi Annan if he knew about Peter Karim.  On May 30 at a then-more-frequently stakeout by the Secretary-General, Inner City Press asked about the peacekeepers, and Kofi Annan named Peter Karim, saying he would be held "personally accountable. From the video at Minutes 13:40 - 15:25, and the transcript:

Inner City Press question: "On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, what's being done for the 7 peacekeepers that were taken hostage in Ituri? And also, over the weekend, the UN military head in Bunia said elections can't really be held in this type of circumstance? What can be done in the run-up to elections to make it more?"

Secretary-General answer: "It is tragic what happened in Bunia and we lost one Nepalese and three are wounded and about seven are missing. And we have been in touch with Karim's group -- we think that is the group holding them, and demanding their release. And hopefully, we will get them released. But Karim and others who get involved in these sort of activities, must understand that they will be held accountable, as Lubanga has been picked up and is now in the hands of the ICC [International Criminal Court]. They will be held individually accountable for these brutal acts."

            Fifty four days later, as Mr. Annan left the Conference Room where he'd been meeting with pharmaceutical executives for more than an hour, Inner City Press approached with a "Congo question." One of two bodyguards motioned to stay back. As Mr. Annan exited from the bathroom, Inner City Press gave him wide latitude, only asking "Peter Karim?"

            Mr. Annan gestured that he was otherwise occupied, that his mind was full. "I've got the pharmaceutical," he said.

            Inner City Press of the week prior's article, "Congo Rebel to Lay Down Arms, Become Army Colonel."  The question in the margin: personal accountability? (May 30, 2006). Or impunity.  And contact information.  We'll see.

  Inside Kofi Annan met with executives from, among others, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck (which for those counting was up fully 4.6% on the day, higher than absent rival Pfizer's 3.4%. One wag said perhaps the trip to the UN was too arduous for Pfizer.

            While waiting, rudimentary research shows that Peter Karim was described as a thief of the DRC's resources in the 2002 UN Report " Uganda's illegal resource exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," S/2002/1146, at Paragraphs 98 and 116 --

"98. The elite network operating out of Uganda is decentralized and loosely hierarchical, unlike the network operating out of Rwanda. The Uganda network consists of a core group of members including certain high-ranking UPDF officers, private businessmen and selected rebel leaders/administrators. UPDF Lieutenant General (Ret.) Salim Saleh and Major General James Kazini are the key figures. Other members include the Chief of Military Intelligence, Colonel Noble Mayombo, UPDF Colonel Kahinda Otafiire and Colonel Peter Karim. Private entrepreneurs include Sam Engola, Jacob Manu Soba and Mannase Savo and other Savo family members. Rebel politicians and administrators include Professor Wamba dia Wamba, Roger Lumbala, John Tibasima, Mbusa Nyamwisi and Toma Lubanga. 

"116. Trinity Investment’s local transporters in Bunia, the Savo family group among others, carry agricultural products, wood and cattle from Bunia to Kampala exempt from UPDF toll barriers and export taxes. Trinity investment also works with another front company under the name of Sagricof to fraudulently evacuate wood from North Kivu and the Ituri area. Tree plantations have been raided in the areas of Mahagi and Djugu along the north-eastern border with Uganda. Concerned citizens and research by local nongovernmental organizations have identified Colonel Peter Karim and Colonel Otafiire, in addition to the Ugandan parliamentarian Sam Ngola, as key figures in the illegal logging and fraudulent evacuation of wood."

At the UN Poorest Nations Discussed, Disgust at DRC Short Shrift, Future UN Justice?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 20 -- The plight of the 50 least developed countries on Earth was the topic of discussion Thursday at the UN, at the margins of dueling stakeouts between the Ambassadors of the U.S. and Lebanon, Israel, Peru and Kofi Annan's band of three envoys to the Middle East.

  In from the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the UN's Charles Gore spoke with passion and at length about how countries in Africa are now inundated with food exported by more developed countries which subsidize its production and export.

  While not responding directly to Inner City Press' request for his analysis of the World Trade Organization regime and protectionism and subsidies by Europe and the U.S., Mr. Gore noted that fully 47% of aid actually transfers capital to the beneficiary nation. For the U.S.'s aid, said Mr. Gore, only 10% involves capital transfer. The rest is debt cancellation, emergency and food aid and "technical assistance," which is often just a transfer to the donor nation's own technocrats, as Ugandans have complained of the UNDP's aid.

Afghan Herat per UNHCR

          The reported increase in aid is largest attributable, Mr. Gore said, to Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC. Out on the second story's main floor, the DRC and its looting for resources for armed insurgent groups was on the Security Council's agenda. Due to the Lebanese crisis and briefing by Kofi Annan, the DRC agenda was by all accounts rushed through. A three page draft resolution was perfunctorily dropped by the head of the sanctions committee Oswaldo de Rivero, the UN envoy from Peru.

            Amb. Rivero also came to the stakeout, to speak of Lebanon. He sounded suspiciously Boltonesque, stressing that it is impossible to negotiate a ceasefire with a terroristic group. Earlier Amb. Bolton went further, asking what a ceasefire would mean to any non-elected government. Given the number of UN member states, including U.S. allies, which are not democracies, it seemed a loaded question.

            At Amb. Rivero's stakeout, Inner City Press asked what countries were pushing-back on the proposals for a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. He answered non-committally that the Council is united, at least on matters humanitarian. After the stakeout, at he re-entered the Council chamber, Inner City Press asked him why Peru had abstained from the Gaza resolution on July 13.  "Because these two are connected," Amb. Rivero answered, gesturing into the Council.

            "Gaza and Lebanon?"

            "Exactly. They have to be solved together," he said.

            "It wasn't that you thought the resolution should be directed less at Tel Aviv?"    "No, no," Amb. Rivero insisted. "It was because Lebanon had to be included. That's the only reason we abstained."

            Perhaps... Substantively on the Congo, while still awaiting straight answers, more information emerged Thursday about the UN's negotiations with Peter Karim, who parlayed the kidnapping of seven UN peacekeepers into a job as a colonel in the DCR army. Not only did Karim demand shoes, and lots of them -- he also insisted that his motorcycle be returned to him by Congolese authorities. The bike was returned. And then, Peter Karim was offered a position as colonel in the Congolese national army.

            Improvements in staff justice? Thursday afternoon there was a sparsely attended briefing by the Redesign Panel on the UN Internal Justice System. Five of the members of the Panel presented their proposal, which would they said provide faster and more professional justice. Inner City Press asked if the cases and results would be public, unlike the current system. Mary Gaudron, currently a judge for the International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal, answered the hearings would be public as would be results, unless the judge "in the interest of justice" decided otherwise.  Inner City Press asked about some current cases; a colleague correspondent of shall we say school boyish charm asked about bringing the corrupt to justice. With questions still unasked, the briefing was brought to a close. One of yesterday's questions, however, received a one-line answer. "In response to your question from yesterday: the Deputy Secretary-General met with members of the Iraq Revenue Watch as part of his briefings to understand better the issues related to the preparation of the International Compact for Iraq." Alright, then. To be continued.

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At the UN Wordsmiths Are At Work on Zimbabwe, Kony,  Ivory Coast and Iran

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 19 -- "That's what we do here, we smith words," said John Bolton, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, on Wednesday afternoon. He was referring to a draft Security Council resolution on Iranian nuclear issues, but he could just as easily have been referring to the ten days spent on the North Korea resolution that passed Saturday, or North Korea's second written response to the resolution, distributed today. Or to his own non-answers about the Lords Resistance Army:

            "President Bush is meeting Thursday with Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan. Will he be discussing the Lords Resistance Army, and what is the U.S. position on the offer of amnesty to Joseph Kony?" Question at Minute 5 of this streaming video.

            "I'm sure the President is going to cover the full range of issues and as to the specifics of what he is going to cover, I really think it is up to him and to the White House to announce."

            But the White House's summary of the upcoming meeting, which listed five issues, did not mention the LRA peace talks taking place in Juba, or that the vice president of South Sudan, Riek Machar, was photographed handing thousands of dollars to Joseph Kony, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Smithed words in Cote d'Ivoire

            Meanwhile in much slower smithing, the UN Development Program finally provided a response to a question one week old: why does UNDP fund Robert Mugabe's Human Rights Commission, when NGOs and the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights are boycotting it?  The answer, provided at arms length through Kofi Annan's spokesman's office, runs as follows, in full:

"Facilitating the protection and promotion of human rights and the upholding of rule of law is part of the UNDP mandate under its practice area on governance. There is an agreement between UNDP and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to work together on the promotion and protection of civil and political as well as socio-economic rights as state in the High Commissioner’s Action Plan. Supporting and facilitating protection of human rights can be done in various ways and UNDP has in other countries facilitated the setting up and strengthening of human rights institutions.

"UNDP is working to facilitate dialogue on human rights in Zimbabwe generally and more specifically on the proposed National Human Rights Commission, with the participation of and at the request of  Zimbabwean Civil society, as represented by NANGO, the independent governing body of non-governmental organizations in the country .

"On the National Human Rights Commission, UNDP is not a decision maker nor a participant in the debate but only a facilitator of the dialogue. UNDP is not a 'funder' of the Human Rights Commission. UNDP in its facilitation role has made financial resources available for the dialogue with civil society organizations and for the Government to be exposed to National Human Rights Commission systems of other countries in Africa through study visits (example: a recent Zimbabwean ministerial delegation under UNDP auspices to study the Kenya National Human Rights Commission).

"A request was made by Government for UNDP to play an advisory role in the Human Rights Commission and this is still being considered. UNDP believes that the decision of government to establish the National Human Rights Commission presented an opportunity for dialogue and as part of its mandate seized the opportunity to bring Government and civil society together as aptly requested by the parties themselves.  UNDP believes further  that it is part of its mandate to facilitate processes that will lead to the greater protection and promotion of human rights in the country. And in its engagement with the government and civil society, UNDP has consistently emphasized that international set standards on national human rights institutions contained in the Paris Principles must be adhered to and are the yardstick for a truly independent, effective and transparent human rights commission."

   By contrast, the article linked-to above, "Civic groups to boycott human rights conference," quotes the executive director of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights that "groups resolved that they would not attend the meeting because they did not want to be seen as supporting the state's proposed human rights commission." The article reports that "the conference, organized in consultation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was initially scheduled for this weekend but had to be  postponed to the 14th or the 21st of this month after civic groups indicated they needed more time to study the proposals.... The spokesman of the National Association of NGOs, Farai Ngirande, said civic groups wanted the government to draft a new constitution before setting up the commission. 'We want wholesale constitutional reform. You can't talk of a human rights commission without addressing issues pertaining to freedom of expression and association,' he said."

            This last is from the same NANGO with which UNDP claims to be working "more specifically on the proposed National Human Rights Commission, with the participation of and at the request of  Zimbabwean Civil society, as represented by NANGO, the independent governing body of non-governmental organizations in the country ."  We'll have more on this UNDP wordsmithing; in the interim we note that the date this UNDP statement was provided, the Mugabe government locked up demonstrators and journalists, click here for more. Our question with UNDP is what its standards are.

    In similar cognitive dissonance news, on Wednesday the Ambassador of Syria denied his government excluded UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch-Brown on the other hand said Roed-Larsen was kept out, but called the matter moot since his team was returning to New York anyway. A reporter called this Orwellian and Malloch-Brown looked on bemused. The UN's write-up later diplomatically said that l'affaire Roed-Larsen "seemed to be a matter of some contention" -- more wordsmithing.  Earlier in the day at the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about the purpose of MMB's meeting with Revenue Watch. The spokesman didn't answer, then or now by press time.

            Mr. Malloch-Brown had come down to speak in the place of the long-traveling Kofi Annan. Wednesday at the noon briefing, Inner City Press asked if Mr. Annan had made any statement about the North Korean missile tests, or had placed a call to North Korean leaders. "No," was the answer. He's spoke with the president of Sudan. Why not North Korea?

            A statement was distributed Wednesday to the press. In it North Korea, which Saturday used the pithy term gangster-like, became slightly more diplomatic, stating that "It is entirely unreasonable and brigandish act that the U.S. brought to the UN the DPRK's missile launch nothing contradictory to any international law after branding them as a violation." It might not made sense, but the word brigand is a thesaurus greatest hit. The DPRK statement ends, "We will firmly defend our own way the ideology and system chosen by our people, true to the Songun policy, a treasured sword."  Say what?  Many thought "gangster-like" worked better.

            Something, however, was accomplished. Or at least a Presidential Statement issued. It concerns Ivory Coast, and it states in part that the

"Council underlines that it is fully prepared to impose targeted measures against persons to be designated by the Committee established by paragraph 14 of resolution 1572 (2004) who are determined to be, among other things, blocking the implementation of the peace process, including by attacking or obstructing the action of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), of the French forces which support it, of the High Representative for the elections or of the IWG, responsible for serious violations of human rights and international law committed in Côte d’Ivoire since 19 September 2002, inciting publicly hatred and violence or in violation of the arms embargo, as provided in resolutions 1572 (2004) and 1643 (2005)."

            As supporters of president-in-overtime Gbagbo disrupt the identification process that must precede election, it's worth noting that a step yet to be taking on the Cote D'Ivoire arms embargo is an audit of revenues related to cocoa. There's also a still-handing issue about untaxed black market cocoa, which we wordsmiths here are Inner City Press are calling "Conflict Chocolate." More on that to follow.

UN Stasis as World Unravels Gives Space to Ivory Coast's Gbagbo and Others

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 -- The world, it is reported here and elsewhere, is unraveling. And as the UN Security Council remains this Friday night on hold, canceling a meeting scheduled for 5 pm so that the Permanent Five Plus Japan can meet at the U.S. mission, in the wider world there are grabs to take or cling to power. In Cote D'Ivoire, for example, the process of identification for the already-postponed election now slated for October 30 was supposed to begin this week. It did not however begin.

            At the UN, Inner City Press asked the Security Council president Jean-Marc de La Sabliere about events in Ivory Coast. The French mission provides this transcript:

Inner City Press Q: On Côte d’Ivoire, the identification process has been suspended. Do you have a comment?

Amb. de La Sabliere A: "This is a great concern. What the Council has done this month is to listen and react to a briefing from Mr. Guéhenno who was in Banjul and Yamoussoukro with the Secretary General. We are now preparing a PRST to support the conclusions of the Yamoussoukro meeting where new commitments were made. We want those commitments to be implemented. The PRST will be adopted, I hope, very early next week. Next step: the GTI will meet in Abidjan on the 20th of July. The Council will meet on the 26th.

"Going back to your question: the identification is a major element of the agreement. It was agreed upon by the parties of Côte d’Ivoire that identification and disarmament would go along. So, we cannot organize elections if the identification process is not done. So, identification is important, and the Council will have to assess what happened yesterday. As French Ambassador, I can say that the PRST will take that into account.

Q2: As French Ambassador, would it be your view that if elections are not held…?

A2: "My answer is that there will be a Summit in September. We will see what happens then."

   Unless of course there are other higher profile crises in September... In the run-up to the 90 p.m. let down, at 5 p.m. the press corps assembled for a scheduled Council consultation. Then cell phones and Blackberries went off, announcing the meeting was cancelled. In the lull before the 9:40 conclusion (see above), the stakeout scuttlebutt, at least among reporters, was that the U.S. veto on Thursday emboldens China to veto the draft Chapter 7 resolution on North Korea. Also in the lull, some drifted over to stakeout the U.S. mission. Others retired to the Delegates' Lounge, where Inner City Press Friday interviewed the Permanent Observer from Palestine, Riyad Mansour, who confirmed Inner City Press' finding that the U.S. government's Overseas Private Insurance Corporation insured the Gaza power plant, since Enron built it, click here for that story.

UN's Corporate Partnerships Will Be Reviewed, While New Teaming Up with Microsoft, and UNDP Continues

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 13 -- The UN under Kofi Annan has increasingly worked with corporations. Questions have been raised about background checks and safeguards. A day after Inner City Press reported that the UN's Geneva-based refugee agency had not known that Swiss banker Ivan Pictet is on the UN Investment Committee when the UNHCR Kashmir Relief Note placed money with the Pictet Funds India Equity fund, the agency's spokesman mused, "Isn't the UN Investment Fund based in New York?"

            Inner City Press asked if it would have been helpful to UNHCR if the UN system had a database of the companies controlled by the outside business people who serve on bodies like the UN Investment Committee. A Google search for that committee and Pictet found close to nothing. It appears that there is no easy way to find who is on the UN Investment Committee.

            UNHCR's Ron Redmond answered that that it would "have been helpful to have that type of information... For UNHCR to look it up is labor intensive, with all the possible company names." He later added in writing, "Any additional information on prospective corporate partners is of course always welcome; it would facilitate our screening processes." Mr. Redmond states that UNHCR was never required to ask SocGen to cease using the UNHCR visibility logo, in part because the brochure that it was on was only intended to be used for a brief period. But records show that individuals high in UN Headquarters chided UNHCR for the use of such terms as UNHCR "teams up" with SocGen. Despite this in-house chiding, or perhaps because the chiders refuse in their defensiveness to comment for the record, this practice continues in the UN system to this day, literally. Click here to view the UN's World Tourism Organization's July 12, 2006 press release, "UN tourism agency teams up with Microsoft," which was published on the UN News Center just as UNHCR SocGen-derilab's April 5, 2006 press release was. They just keep teaming up.

            As the UN increasingly has intercourse with corporations, basic safeguards are still not in place. Inner City Press has previously reported on the lack of background checks when corporations are allowed to join the UN Global Compact, and has twice been rebuffed in requests to interview or ask questions of corporate CEOs who have come to meet the Secretary General or on other Global Compact business.

            At Thursday's noon briefing, spokeswoman Marie Okabe was asked if any of the individuals in the Secretariat who were asked to comment on the UNHCR - Pictet - Societe Generale transaction had in fact spoken or provided guidance. We're still working on it, Ms. Okabe answered.

            Near six p.m., Ms. Okabe called Inner City Press and said she had spoken about the matter, as requested, with Under Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown. "They are aware of the issues," Ms. Okabe said. "This case highlights the complexities of the UN's partnerships with the private sector and so current guidelines and practices of various funds and agencies and programs will be reviewed" to try to avoid "potential conflicts of interest" and misuses of UN logos.

            Great. But what about the continued "teaming up," now with Microsoft? There's more work to be done.

[A note on UNHCR's work about Uzbekistan: the agency managed to visit in Kazakhstan with Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident threatened with refoulement back to Tashkent, and has, its spokesman said, gotten a commitment to be able to review Uzbekistan's extradition request.]

Zimbabweans

            On the issues surrounding UNDP, the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General managed to get some response from UNDP to a question Inner City Press asked UNDP in writing more than a week ago: why does UNDP help the government of Uzbekistan to collect taxes, given the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' finding that this government shot and killed its own people in Andijan in May 2005. Here now is UNDP's response:

"As far as your UNDP/Uzbekistan questions from the other week, here's what I can tell you... in Uzbekistan and most of the 140 developing nations where UNDP operates, UNDP works with government and civil society on a broad range of governance projects, including economic reforms, of which tax administration and fiscal policy are a significant component. Other governance projects in Uzbekistan focus on gender equality, internet access, and public administration reform. It may be worth noting that UNDP works in a wide range of political environments, from Costa Rica to North Korea, with the belief that UNDP's mandate as a development agency is to work constructively on behalf of the people of the developing world wherever and whenever possible."

            One wag wondered if UNDP's programs in Uzbekistan might involve technical assistance on not putting political dissidents in boiling water, as the U.K.'s former ambassador in Tashkent has testified takes place. And see above, that UNHCR has managed to visit in Kazakhstan with Gabdurafikh Temirbaev, the Uzbek dissident threatened with refoulement back to Uzbekistan, where he would face torture -- perhaps with tax funds UNDP helped to collect. UNDP has still not even purported to answer the week-old question about UNDP's funding of Robert Mugabe's purported "Human Rights Council." Now the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has called for a boycott.  What was that again, about UNDP working with civil society? To be continued.

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Conflicts of Interest in UNHCR Program with SocGen and Pictet Reveal Reform Rifts

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS, July 12, 11:45 am, updated 7 pm -- Eager to "team up" with banks Societe Generale and Pictet & Company, the United Nations' refugee agency allowed SocGen to use the UN logo in a way subsequently criticized by UN legal staff, and to invest Kashmir Relief Notes funds in a Pictet & Cie fund despite owner Ivan Pictet being a member of the UN Investment Committee. Criticized by other UN units, UNHCR agreed to cease renting out the UN logo, but said nothing can be done about the investment with Pictet et Cie.

    Inner City Press first raised these matters in April 2006. Earlier today UNHCR in Geneva finally responded, confirming but defending the investment in a Pictet fund.  UNHCR's Ron Redmond wrote to Inner City Press that

"based on the information available to us, there is no conflict of interest created for Mr. Ivan Pictet, managing partner of Pictet & Cie, and ad hoc member of the UN Investments Committee, by the fact that Pictet Funds Indian Equities is one of the funds in which KRN funds are invested. Societe Generale, the issuer of the Note, is solely responsible for choosing the funds and this selection is based on recognized risk management and hedging criteria; UNHCR plays a purely passive role as the recipient of a donation and has no interest in the performance of the Note. Moreover, Mr. Pictet's membership in the UN Investments Committee was unknown to all parties involved in drawing up this investment product, and we trust therefore that the decision to include a fund managed by Pictet & Cie was taken in good faith."

         Whether this is in keeping with current and proposed UN standards of ethics and transparency will be seen in coming days. Whether the stated lack of knowledge of Mr. Pictet's membership on the UN Investment Committee comports with minimal corporate or competence standards is also in question. The problem is a wider one: in a defensive internal memo reviewed by Inner City Press, UNHCR lawyer Helmut Buss argues that UNICEF similarly partners with FIFA and NIS Petrol Co, and that the World Food Programme does the same with TNT Airways and the World Rugby Board. Nevertheless, UNHCR has agreed to drop the logo use and the "teams up" language deployed in its April 5 press release.

            The investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee UNHCR defends, including by pointing out that Morgan Stanley's Francine Bovich is also on the UN Investment Board, while the UN does much business with JPMorgan Chase. (Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, despite the comment reference to Pierpont, are not related companies.) The UNHCR memo's argument is that it's too complicated or burdensome to avoid conflicts of interest. UNHCR's earlier justification to Inner City Press argued that "we are not talking about the usual procurement procedure," when talking about an investment in a fund controlled by a member of the UN Investment Committee.

            This conflict-or-reform debate has included at least in the carbon copies Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown, who appears to have agreed that UNHCR's actions were improper. The paper trail may be important. The story began with a UNHCR press release on April 5 of this year, headlined "New corporate investment scheme helps fund UN quake relief efforts" and stating that "the United Nations refugee agency has teamed up with two Swiss investment companies in a scheme that will benefit its earthquake relief operation in Pakistan. The joint project launched by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Zurich-based Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, and derilab s.a., a derivatives company, will allow investors to participate in a financial product that affords a unique opportunity to support reconstruction and relief efforts."

   Inner City Press inquired into the release and published a round-up article on April 11 questioning the partnership: "It might well be on the level. But it's not yet clear that if it weren't, the scheme would not proceed. It would help if the follow-up questions were answered."

Other Inner City Press reports are archived on www.InnerCityPress.org - 

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Other Inner City Press reports are archived on www.InnerCityPress.org - 

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