Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

UN Western Sahara Report Delayed After Leak, TCC Postponed, France Against Human Rights Monitoring

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 12 -- A week after Inner City Press published the drafts of the UN's report on Western Sahara on which Morocco and France have been lobbying to exclude any human rights monitoring mechanism, the final report has still not been issued.

A meeting of the Troop Contributing Countries of the UN Mission MINURSO, scheduled for the morning of April 12, was canceled pending release of the report.

On the morning of April 12, Inner City Press asked Morocco's affable Permanent Representative Loulichki when the report would be published. “You know better than anyone,” he replied as he entered the Security Council chambers, in one room of which the Council was in closed door consultations.

On April 8, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky to respond to statements in Moroccan state media that the Secretariat had been lobbied at the highest level to condemn as “unfortunate” the publication of the draft report, calling it an “internal working document.”

Nesirky angrily declined comment, telling Inner City Press “you've made your point.” But it was a question: how can the UN call a document it has shown to Moroccan, allowing it to lobby, an “internal document”?

When UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Alain Le Roy took questions on Cote d'Ivoire on April 8, Inner City Press asked him to describe DPKO's role in the Western Sahara report. We all make proposals, Le Roy said, but the Secretary General makes the final decision.

Is DPKO proposing not a human rights mechanism but to welcome Morocco admitting special rapporteurs? “I don't have to answer that,” Le Roy said.

DPKO sources on April 12 indicate that the report is still “blocked” between Le Roy and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, leading to the postponement of the TCC meeting. Meanwhile the so-called “Group of Friends” has started negotiation the MINURSO resolution, under the chairmanship of the United States.

France is fighting hard, sources say, to keep human rights monitoring out of the resolution -- while citing human rights as the basis of its actions in Libya and Cote d'Ivoire. Watch this site.

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On W. Sahara, Not Answering on Morocco Lobbying, UN Decries Leaks to Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- A day after the UN refused to take questions about its draft Western Sahara report, on April 7 Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky had a written statement ready.

Inner City Press asked about Morocco lobbying the UN Secretariat to ensure no human rights monitoring mechanism for the MINURSO peacekeeping mission, and what Ban's position was:

Inner City Press: There is a report that’s due of the Secretary-General on the situation on Western Sahara. Various leaked copies of it have circulated. And I have heard that there was some extensive lobbying of the Secretariat by Morocco to have paragraph 119 not ask for human rights monitoring mechanism but rather for, welcome Morocco inviting in special rapporteurs. So, I wonder if you could describe, some of these accounts come from within the Secretariat; could you describe what the communications, what the process is for creating such a paragraph? Who the Secretary-General has spoken to and what his thinking is on having a human rights mechanism in the MINURSO [United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara] mission.

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Well, what I can tell you is that we are aware that an internal working document pertaining to the situation in Western Sahara was leaked and published electronically. This document is not a final report. It has not been endorsed by the Secretary-General and, therefore, it has no status. The United Nations finds it regrettable that internal working documents of the Organization have been leaked and published. Thank you very much.

Inner City Press: Are you being lobbied by Morocco, as someone inside the Secretariat has told me? I mean, just yes or no?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Matthew, I said one last question and you’ve asked another question. I have answered your question.

But the initial question, which Nesirky refused to take on April 6, was about the lobbying of the Secretariat and its Department of Peacekeeping Operations that Morocco is allowed to do -- and Nesirky still hasn't answered it.

Ban and Nesirky in North Lawn, Morocco lobbying & answers not shown

Rather, Inner City Press has now learned from multiple sources, after Inner City Press left the briefing room Nesirky stayed loudly complaining about Inner City Press somehow “speaking over” him. But Inner City Press had said it had a question to ask about Western Sahara - and the lobbying Ban allows, at least from one side - and will continue to ask the question until it is answered.

Footnote: while the UN's Western Sahara report was slated to be released on April 6, by 6 pm on April 7 it had still not been released. Watch this site.

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On Western Sahara, Draft Reports Published as UN Refuses to Take Morocco Q

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 6 -- For days, senior UN officials have been telling Inner City Press about aggressive lobbying by Morocco about the specifics of the forthcoming UN report on Western Sahara, a leaked copy of which Morocco was given from within the UN Secretariat.

Inner City Press on April 4 wrote about the topic -- having also obtained a copy from diplomatic sources -- and on April 6 repeatedly told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky that it wanted to ask a Western Sahara question at that day's noon briefing.

“I have a question on Western Sahara,” Inner City Press said, ceding first to another journalist on Haiti. But Nesirky then declared without explanation he would take only one more question, on another topic. Inner City Press repeated, “I have a question on Western Sahara.” But Nesikry stood up, declaring his briefing over. Nor does he respond to or even acknowledge the majority of e-mailed Press questions.

Diplomatic sources tell Inner City Press that Ban's final, post-lobbying report is due out. And so, Inner City Press now published a scanned version of the draft to obtained, both with Paragraph 119 as urged by Morocco and a proposal by the Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which proposes a human rights mechanism for the UN's MINURSO mission.

Click here and here.

Even those close to Ban say that the level of pressure -- which Ban has apparently given into -- was extreme. At the same time, Ban is closely linked with France in military action in Cote d'Ivoire.

A day after French foreign minister Alain Juppe said that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon agrees that Laurent Gbagbo must sign a letter ceding power to Alassane Ouattara, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky if that is, in fact, Ban's position.

“I don't speak for the French Foreign Minister,” Nesirky said.

“But you do speak for the Secretary General,” Inner City Press asked. Is it Ban's position or not?

Nesirky would not answer, saying he would not characterize the Secretary General's communications with Juppe. Then he refused repeated requests that he answer a question about Western Sahara.

Thus does the UN thumbs its nose at transparency and lose credibility, by being used by France and Morocco, not only in Cote d'Ivoire but Western Sahara too. Watch this site.

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

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

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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