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In Somalia, UNDP Said to Take Sides, No
Financial Answers, UN Post Intrigue
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
March 24 -- Optimism about Somalia
is a new trend in and around the in UN in New York. Days after the country's
new foreign minister -- himself British -- told the Press outside the
Security
Council that one month of receipts from the Mogadishu port portends
well for
the paychecks of the Transitional Federal Government's ever multiplying
number
of parliamentarians, the International Peace Institute presented two
experts,
both upbeat about the negotiations in Djibouti and the UN which
sponsored them.
As at the
Council, however, no one would say
how much the UN paid, from or to whom. IPI's
two presenters, Ken Menkhaus of Davidson College and Somali expert
Jabril Abdulle,
both said that the Shabaab rebels are on the run, the port is in
government
hands and the future is rosy. Inner City Press asked for an assessment
of the
performance of UN envoy Ahmedou Ould Abdallah and the UN's Group of
Experts on
sanctions. The former called for a moratorium on reporting from
Somalia; the
later reported a few years ago that Somali militants were in South
Lebanon for
training, which made more Somali-watchers laugh.
Menkhaus
defended the Group of Experts recent work, dismissing the Lebanon error
-- circa 2006 -- as "in the distant past." He did, however, sound a
cautionary note about the role of the UN Development Program, which he
said has
been paying the salaries of security forces in Somalia. Abdulle added
that the
UN paid to transport the bloated Somali TFG contingent from Djibouti to
Mogadishu. On Friday, Inner
City Press' question to Ould Abdallah about what
the UN pays for in Somalia was referred, through his spokesperson Susie
Price,
to UNDP. Four days after promising an answer, UNDP has still not
answered.
Somalia's FM in UNSC on March 20, financial
disclosure not shown
Menkhaus
noted the attack on UNDP last year, and said the agency is perceived as
taking
sides. Perhaps this partiality is mirrored in an unwillingness to
provide
basic
financial information about what it spends in Somalia, and on what.
Footnote: The head
of IPI, Terje Roed Larsen, was
not in attendance on Tuesday. Inner City Press has asked UN
spokespeople for
reaction to Syria's critique of Roed Larsen as exceeding him mandate as
UN
envoy under Security Council resolution 1559. Roed Larsen is also one
of the
most senior UN officials who has rebuffed Ban Ki-moon's call to make
basic public
financial disclosure. Now, Roed Larsen's wife Mona Juul is rumored as a
closed
but failed candidate for the vacant Assistant Secretary General post in
the UN
Department of Political Affairs vacated by Angela Kane. The post,
sources say,
is slated for UNDP's previous Middle East operative, Oscar Fernandez
Taranco, well imbued in UNDP's culture.
We'll see.
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
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
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
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[at] innercitypress.com
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