At the UN, the Unrepentant Blogger Pronk, a Wink on 14 North Korean Days and Silence on Somalia

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- Jan Pronk, the UN's envoy to Sudan who has been declared persona non grata by Sudanese president al-Bashir, was defended Friday by the UN Security Council and Kofi Annan's head of peacekeeper Jean-Marie Guehenno. Inner City Press asked Mr. Pronk to explain his statement that his blog posting about the low morale of the Sudanese army was meant to tell the rebel not to attack the army. Video on UNTV. Mr. Pronk explained that his point was that because of low morale, reinforcement were being called, including the janjaweed.

            Inner City Press asked Mr. Guehenno is he is aware of such blogging by the chiefs of any other UN peacekeeping missions. Mr. Guehenno did not directly respond, except to repeat the Secretariat's line, that "blogs are personal." Asked about the al-Bashir government sabotaging and delaying the delivery of armored personnel carriers meant for the African Union force in Darfur, Mr. Pronk said yes, APC are delayed, leading to death. Inner City Press asked Mr. Pronk why he didn't post his views on the official website of the UN Mission to Sudan, UNMIS.org. Mr. Pronk said that the UN has never told him to be quiet.  But when Inner City Press earlier asked this same APC question, the response was to "look at Pronk's blog" -- in UN parlance, a link verbale.

            The president of the Security Council, Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, defended Mr. Pronk. Inner City Press asked if any Council members inquired into the envoy-blogging phenomenon. Amb. Oshima answered, no. Video here.

Pronk on his web site

            Earlier on Friday, Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan's spokesman if the UN has any comment on its own leaked report that in Somalia, in violation of the UN embargo, there are up to 8000 Ethiopian troops, and 2000 from Eritrea.  Video here. The spokesman repeated that the UN mission about Somalia does not have this in its mandate. What about the UN expert who monitor the embargo? Speak to them directly, the spokesman said. But they have already declined to speak, at least until they brief the Security Council. When this will happen, no one is saying.

            Inner City Press also asked why the UN has said nothing about Morocco's barring of journalists from Western Sahara, and similar crackdowns on press freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the run-up to Sunday's election. The spokesman had nothing on either topic. By contrast, the spokeswoman for the General Assembly president had an answer to a previous Inner City Press question: the Peacebuilding Commission answers only to the GA, and only once a year, there should be no bureaucracy. We'll see.

            On the sidelines outside the Security Council, the chairman of the North Korea sanctions committee, Slovakian Amb. Burian, said that although the deadline to agree on one of the sanctions list is October 28, agreement by Monday, October 30 at noon will be considered compliant. Since there is no court to oversee or review the Security Council's work, anything goes, apparently...

 

A Tale of Two Americans Vying to Head the World Food Program, Banbury and Sheeran Shiner

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- The four-person short list to replace Jim Morris as head of the UN World Food Program includes Tony Banbury, a Democrat who worked in the Bush Administration for a year before rejoining the UN system and the current head of WFP's Asia operation, Inner City Press has learned.

   As first reported by Inner City Press on September 29, the Bush Administration's nominee for the WFP post is Josette Sheeran (Shiner), formerly an editor of the Washington Times and a 20-year member, until 1998, of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The two other short listers are Canada's Robert Fowler and Walter Fust. Sources say that many senior figures in the Bush Administration could live with Tony Banbury getting the job, given his strong credentials earned in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the earthquake in Pakistan. They simply couldn't or didn't choose to nominate a Democrat instead of a Republican, particularly a Republican with a history with the Unification Church, a sub-constituency.

            Friday, a senior UN official confirmed to Inner City Press that Tony Banbury is on the WFP short list. The list was whittled from eight candidates to four by a five-person panel that included the UN's Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland and  UNFPA's Thoraya Obaid, and well as two representatives from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. Now the finalists will be interviewed by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is currently in New York. It is widely known that Dr. Diouf does not get along with finalist Robert Fowler who has been serving as Canada's ambassador to the FAO in Rome. Dr. Diouf's views on Walter Fust, are not known. Nor are Dr. Diouf's connections with the Bush Administration although regarding these, the coming decision may speak loudly.

WFP's outgoing Jim Morris

 

            On October 25, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, as transcribed by the UN:

Question:  On the World Food Program (WFP) process, we have heard that there is a shortlist.  Is that true?  Who is on it?

Spokesman:  I have said all I have to say on that, and we expect an announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Inner City Press question:  When the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) selected Mr. Guterres they did actually say who was on the shortlist.  Is that not going to be done in this case?

Spokesman:  The process here is slightly different because as opposed to UNHCR this is not an appointment that goes to the General Assembly.  This is an appointment that is made jointly by the Secretary-General and the Director General of the FAO.

Inner City Press question: Will it be a five-year appointment?

Spokesman:  My understanding is that it will be.

            Concerns have been raised about Kofi Annan making five year appointments now that he remains Secretary-General for only nine more weeks. On September 27 at the UN, before the WFP nomination had become public, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters that Kofi Annan's appointment of new UN officials would only be okay if these officials' contracts ended "soon after January 1." Video here, at Minute 4:43.

            September 29 at the UN, Inner City Press asked Ambassador Bolton if the U.S.'s position is that Josette Sheeran (Shiner) could be given a five-year WFP term even before Kofi Annan leaves the UN in three month. Ambassador Bolton answered that the appointment could be made before January 1, that "the precedents have differed." Video here, from Minute 8:15, the US mission's transcript:

Inner City Press: On the secretary-general transition and the World Food Program looking for a new executive director, I've heard that the U.S. put forward Josette Sheeran Shiner. Is it your position that this should not be done until January 1st or that she could be appointed and given a five-year term prior to that?

Ambassador Bolton: She could be appointed prior to January 1 or thereafter. And the precedent has differed from reappointment to reappointment.

U.S. Ambassador Bolton added that Josette Sheeran Shiner was "the most qualified candidate."

   As Inner City Press reported on September 29, open-source research reflects that Josette Sheeran (Shiner) was an active member of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church from 1975 through at least 1996. After that date, it is reported that she went "into the world," including into William Bennett's Empower America organization and then the U.S. State Department, in order to spread the Unification Church's message and position. Beyond controversial views on abstinence, mass-marriage and other matters, including the UN, these include business ties with and praise of North Korea.

            The internal U.S. State Department memo obtained by Inner City Press stated that

"For the past several weeks, we have been working with the White House to search for a highly qualified candidate to succeed Jim Morris as Executive Director of the World Food Programme. We now have an excellent candidate in Ambassador Josette Sheeran (Shiner)... Through the course of a distinguished career in government, business and journalism, Ambassador Sheeran has excelled as a diplomat, humanitarian, business leader and development policy leader."

            The reference to journalism is to Ms. Sheeran's tenure as managing editor of the Moon-owned Washington Times.

            In that capacity, in 1992 Ms. Sheeran went on an 11-day visit to North Korea, leading up a feature article commemorating the 80th birthday of Kim Il-Sung's 80th birthday. "Even if the sky is falling down on us, there will always be a hole for me to rise up through," said Kim -- a sentence Sheeran-Shiner later recollected, as recounted by the American Prospect, as "this wonderful thing which I printed in the paper."

            Sheeran-Shiner's interview with Kim Il-Sung painted him as a "self-confident, reflective elder statesman rather than the reclusive, dogmatic dictator he is usually portrayed as in the West."

            Now Kim Il-Sung's son is being portrayed by Ms. Sheeran-Shiner's nominator as a threat to international peace and security. More documents on the North Korea - Moon connection are online here.

            Josette Sheeran's first appearance in the media was in Time magazine of November 10, 1975, in an article entitled "Mad About Moon" --

"One typical worried parent is New Jersey's state insurance commissioner James Sheeran, three of whose daughters—Vicki, 25, Jaime, 24, and Josette, 21—are Moon converts. He wants laws to protect people from 'cruel and exotic entrapment of their minds, souls and bodies.' Late one night last August, Sheeran decided to act when Josette, normally compassionate, showed little interest upon learning that her grandmother was in the hospital. He, his wife and a son drove to Moon's school to seek Josette. Fifteen Moon men materialized, a scuffle ensued, and state police arrived amid mutual charges of assault."

           In fairness or under the doctrine of equal time, Inner City Press has heard a person who states that she "worked with Ms. Sheeran at the Office of the Untied States Trade Representative" and that "she severed her ties with the Unification Church... do you actually think the State Department's security clearance process" who have passed a Unification Church member?

   Well, yes. George H.W. Bush has given speeches extensively praising Sun Myung Moon. But it's duly noted here, this missive from a person who worked with Ms. Sheeran also at the Washington Times, that after 20 years of membership in the Unification Church, it's stated that all ties were then severed. It remains newsworthy, also on the shifting positions on whether Kofi Annnan should be allowed to hand out five-year appointments in the less than three months he has remaining in office. U.S. Amb. Bolton said Annan shouldn't make appointments beyond the end of 2006, then receiving new instructions, said there'd be precedent to give Ms. Sheeran five years right now. Would he and the Bush Administration take the same position on Tony Banbury? We'll see.

 WFP insiders have pointed out to Inner City Press that within the U.S. State Department, of Josette Sheeran (Shiner) it is said, "She is no Al Larson," her predessesor as Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs. These WFP sources note that Ms. Sheeran Shiner has no experience in humanitarian operations, or in emergency relief work, in international affairs, or in managing a large, complex, multi-billion dollar agency.  One argues, "it would still be possible for Kofi Annan to retain an American for the WFP post and to not agree to the Bush Administration's rather unqualified candidate. After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, America learned a lesson: Don't place unqualified political appointees in charge of critical emergency response agencies.  The same lesson applies to leadership considerations for the WFP, the global 'first responder' for floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis the world over.  It is quite critical that the U.S. seek to retain leadership of a vital UN agency and also to place the very best qualified candidate into the post."

            News analysis: we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Developing.