|
On Somalia, Belated
Disclosure by UNDP, Protest by UN-Funded
Academic
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
of Inner City Press at the UN: News
Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 29 -- In the debate about
Somalia, those who
matter least are actual Somalis. Dozens were for example killed by
supposed peacekeepers, on the day that the new Somali president was
being applauded in Ethiopia. When some media reported on the
slaughter, they were castigated by the UN's envoy for Somalia,
Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, and told they were like Radio Milles Collines
in Rwanda, hate media. Later Ould Abdallah told Inner City Press he
only meant that it was unfortunate that one days of good news for
Somalia, other news was also reported.
Likewise, one of the United States' most --
well, few --
expert professors on Somalia, Ken Menkhaus of North Carolina's
Davidson College, has recently lashed back at media coverage of a
talk he gave across the street from the UN, at the International
Peace Institute. Inner City Press attended the session and asked
Menkhaus two questions, to review Ould Abdallah's and the UN's
performance in Somalia. Later that day, Inner
City Press reported
three of Menkhaus' responses, all accurately, in an article also
noting that just as the UN was refusing to disclose its funding in
Somalia, the head of IPI Terje Roed Larsen declined UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's call to make minimal public financial
disclosure, since he is an Under Secretary General.
UN's Ould Abdallah at the Council stakeup
Menkhaus the next day wrote:
From: Menkhaus, Ken
@davidson.edu>
To:
Inner City Press
Cc: @ipinst.org>
Sent: Wed, 25 Mar 2009
12:32 pm
Subject: IPI Somalia Story
Dear Mr. Lee,
Your Innercity article about
our IPI Somalia presentation was just brought to my attention. I write
to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that you badly misrepresented the
nuanced points Jabril and I made... Maybe you didn’t hear us stress how
incredibly dangerous Somalia is now. Jabril and I have lost close
colleagues to asssassinations in the past because of this kind of
irresponsibility by foreigners. You seem to fancy yourself an
investigative journalist challenging the UN -- fair enough, we can use
more of that. But investigative journalists need to be very careful
with how they present claims and quote third parties, especially in
zones of armed conflict...Please do not ask me to go through your
article point by point -- I am busy.
Dr. Ken Menkhaus
Professor of Political Science
Davidson College
Davidson NC 28035
It is difficult to respond to Menkhaus if,
of the mere
three citations of what he said, he chooses not to contest any of
them. As should be clear, a journalist does not go to a policy
briefing such as those so profitably offered by IPI in order to
transcribe verbatim was is said. For that, Menkhaus writes his own
books.
In fact, he has: in the library of a
major
university in New York City, there is a book by Menkhaus, albeit a
slim monograph entitled "Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat
of Terrorism," circa 2004. The first page, "About the
author," notes that Menkhaus "frequently serves as a
consultant to the UN." With the UN, that means a paid
consultant. One might infer that, while as an academic Menkhaus was
necessarily critical of the UN's performance, for example of UNDP
being seen to take sides with the same security forces which are
engaged in killing civilians, as a past and seemingly future wanna-be
recipient of UN funding, he was troubled to see what he said, online
in print.
Interestingly, Menkhaus' book at page 46 says of a
Somali
Transitional Government that “it succeeded in netting enough aid
(roughly $50 million over two years, mainly from the Gulf Arab
states) to make it a worthwhile venture for some.” There is a
strange resonance here with IPI and its funding sources. Without
comment or critique, Menkhaus mentions that “the management of
several UNICEF municipal piped water systems has been outsourced to a
multi-clan consortium of businessmen, who have run the water
system... as a money making venture.”
Belatedly, UNDP responded to the
simple question
Inner City Press posed just after Ould Abdallah and his spokeswoman
referred to UNDP the issue of the UN system's funding of the Somalia
government. UNDP now writes:
Subject:
Responses
to your queries on Djibouti Start-up Package
From:
UNDP
Spokesman
To: Inner City Press
Sent: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:47
am
Here is our response to
your question “please describe any UNDP role in Djibouti Start-Up
Package."
START
The Djibouti peace process
is led by the UN political office (UNPOS) and funded by various donors,
for which UNDP plays an administrative and logistical support role. As
far as the start-up package is concerned, donors contributed to the
project and their contributions have been channeled by UNDP in 2008 to
provide some basic infrastructure support to the TFG institutions. This
includes computers, office furniture, travel costs to/from Somalia and
some rehabilitation of office buildings. In total, around 6.5M USD has
been disbursed for this project, financed by a consortium of donors
(EC, DFID, Norway, Sweden, USAID, Italy).
END
Was that so difficult?
To be
continued...
A new Inner
City Press debate will appear over the weekend here.
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) 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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN
Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's
mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
, 
