Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

At UN, Rice on Peacekeeping But Not UN Reform, Obama's Lack of Engagement May End

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 5 -- In a rare press availability at the UN, US Ambassador Susan Rice made much of recent Congressional action which will allow the U.S. to make up its peacekeeping payment arrears, to the tune of $2.2 billion. Neither to the Press nor in her Security Council speech, however, did she mention the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers nor the lack of transparency when disciplinary action is meted out, if ever.

This lack of focus on issues of reforming the UN contrasts not only to previous U.S. advocacy in and about the UN, but even with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's stated goals for her trip to Africa, particularly Goma in Eastern Congo. To talk about UN peacekeeping without any focus on "first do no harm" is a strange position for the U.S. to be taking. Then again, the U.S. hardly contributes any personnel, even military observers or police.

The press stakeout by Susan Rice, and presence of the U.S. Mission's spokesman were both so rare that they drew attention and comment from the UN press corps. Journalists speculate that Susan Rice, so often in Washington these days, would like to return there full time. Some say she's gunning for Hilary Clinton's job, but may have to wait some time.

An overall theory of the Obama administration's seeming lack of engagement with the UN so far this year is that, as with Myanmar and North Korea, they have been conducting a review before doing anything.

US's Susan Rice and spokesman in previous too rare stakeout

Obama's first visit to the UN next month, on climate change and non-proliferation sandwiched around a trip to Pittsburgh where and when the Administration chose to locate the G-20 meeting, smack in the middle of the UN general assembly meeting but hundreds of miles away, will mark a new beginning.

Some say more will be demanded of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Perhaps even UN reform issues will finally be raised. Watch this site.

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For UN Peacekeeping, Lost Horizon of Somalia and Sexual Abuse, Chad Mission Half Staffed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 -- Faced with demands to deploy peacekeepers in Somalia, to stop rape while working with rapists in the Congo

and to police restive crowds in Haiti, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations has produced a report, which a UN official calls a "cry from the heart," called New Horizons.

On July 27 two UN officials who declined to be identified by name described the report and conundrums to a handful of reports on the UN's 37th floor. They called a budget cut of seven percent cut from what they'd asked for "doable," they described trying to get peacekeepers from new countries like Vietnam.

Inner City Press asked what the report is suggesting on the topics of sexual abuse and exploitation, procurement irregularities like the no-bid Lockheed Martin contract in Darfur, and on the human rights records of the troops the UN takes, from countries like Sri Lanka and Fiji or perhaps one day Myanmar and North Korea. Strangely, these relatively obvious issues for UN Peacekeeping are neither the focus nor in some cases even mentioned in the report.

On sexual abuse and exploitation, such as charges against the Moroccan contingent in Cote d'Ivoire or the Sri Lankan troops in Haiti, an official argued that upon repatriation to their countries, the peacekeepers are often disciplined. Inner City Press asked, then why doesn't the UN report on it?

The official said that some countries inform the UN confidentially of the outcomes, but do not consent to make it public. The UN shouldn't be surprised that its reputation suffers. Since the UN pays countries for peacekeepers, why not make the public reporting of discipline a condition of the the payments? It's not in the report, which might thus be called "Lost Horizons," a lost opportunity.

This official has previously told Inner City Press, after a question was left generally unanswered on camera at the stakeout by chief peacekeeper Alain Le Roy that DPKO has proposed that peacekeepers be tried in the communities they are charged in, but under the law of their own country. But member states, he said, shot down this proposal.

He added with helpful but too rare candor that the countries in the General Assembly jealously keep control of UN Peacekeeping, not wanting it taken over for example by the Nordics, with their ideas of a permanent rapid deployment force, or such countries as France, which in Cote d'Ivoire and Chad keeps its own national troops alongside more constrained UN forces.

The officials named as the largest UN missions those in Congo, Sudan and Chad and the Central African Republic. Two hours later, Inner City Press asked Victor Angelo, the chief of the UN Mission in Chad and the Central African Republic which known by the French or feline acronym MINURCAT, how the New Horizons plan would help him get deployment in MINURCAT up from the current less than half. Video here.

Angelo answered about stopping child soldier recruitment, which Inner City Press had previously asked about, but did not name any change New Horizon would bring. Lost Horizons, then?

UN's Le Roy and the Lost Horizon

Angelo said that soldiers don't deploy because their equipment is not ready. Inner City Press asked about the case of a French EUFOR soldier shooting an killing a Togolese peacekeeper serving the UN. Angela acknowledged the incident -- the only violent killing of a UN peacekeeper regarding which the UN did not issue a statement, either at the request of France or because the story was too isolated and strange -- and said that the shooter from EUFOR was caught two or three days later and is on trial in France. Will France report the outcome?

New Horizon will be the subject of a Security Council debate on August 5. It will not, the official said, just sit on the shelf, since it is written in prose reminiscent of Hemingway. He acknowledged, however, that despite all this planning ahead, the current renovation of the UN will leave some DPKO staffers twenty minutes away on Madison Avenue.

Inner City Press suggested they speed to meet with Le Roy on a fleet of Segways. The official envisioned bicycles instead: send in the clowns. Back to the future, Lost Horizons, a laudable mission hamstrung by politics, excuse making and lack of follow through. We will cover the August 5 debate.

Footnote: while the UN can unilaterally declare the officials it produces to answer question to be anonymous, what is seen with the eye is still for now on the record. On the 27th floor on Tuesday morning was Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, who only the day before briefing the Security Council the Middle East, but afterwards did not speak to the Press at the stakeout, or to a reporter who tried by the elevators. If the UN has a story to tell...

Also on the 37th floor was UN envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who asked Inner City Press, perhaps as a joke, who had invited it so high. Inner City Press was told that his presence on the Peacekeeping floor on Tuesday was only because they have a big conference room, that the briefing was humanitarian and included John Holmes, who has yet to speak on Sri Lanka's backtracking on commitments to release its detainees or its self-exoneration in the murder of 17 aid workers from Action Contre la Faim.

In an attempt to get something at least on the record, Inner City Press at the subsequent noon briefing ask if Ould Abdallah will have a media availability on July 29 after he briefs the Council. Video here, from Minute 18:07. He has been in New York for some days, the official answered -- Inner City Press saw him in the increasingly empty UN cafeteria on Monday -- and he will be asked to speak to the Press. We'll be here.

As UN Budget Committee Moves to Trim Missions, Croatian Ambassador Under Fire

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

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 -- The UN's Budget Committee, already weeks overdue in appropriating funds to the UN peacekeeping missions, has arrived at a formulaic cut of half a percent in each mission.

The European Union, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and South Korea had demanded a 2.5% cut in operating budgets. But in the final deal emerging, there is an increase for the Chad and Central African Republic mission, MINURCAT, and lesser cuts for others.

The Haiti Mission (MINUSTAH) for example faces a cut of $6.5 million out of $600 million, according to diplomats involved - a bit more than one percent.

Meanwhile in other money news around the UN, Croatia's Permanent Representative in New York Neven Jurica is under fire for financial irregularities. With funds allegedly misappropriated in New York, the Croatian foreign ministry is looking back into Jurica's previous tenure running his country's mission in Washington.

UN's Ban with Croatia's President Mesic and, on shoulder, "Perm" Rep Jurica

An inquiry with the Mission in New York yielded that

Hi Matthew, Ambassador Ranko Vilovic, the Deputy Permanent Representative, is charge'd affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Croatia to the UN. Any questions pertaining to Ambassador Jurica's status need to be directed towards Mr. Mario Dragun, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration.

We hope to have more on this. For now, on and from DPKO, this:

Subj: regarding your question yesterday on a proposal in the Fifth Committee to cut the UN peacekeeping budget
From: DPKO Spokesperson's Office
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 6/11/2009 12:15:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time

You had asked at the Noon Briefing yesterday about the proposal to cut the UN peacekeeping budget... As the discussions on the UN peacekeeping budget are ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment on a matter that's still being discussed by Member States and on which no decision has been made. From a broader perspective - I think you're already aware, so do forgive me if I state the obvious - our peacekeeping operations do need to be fully financed if they are to be able to carry out the mandates set for them by the Security Council.

And even then...

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UN's $8.2 Billion Peace Budget Faces 2.5% Cut, S. Korea Puts Congo Drones on Block?

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

UNITED NATIONS, June 8 -- Anyone can call for peace, but who will pay for it? That question was being debate, or at least discussed, in the basement of the UN past 10 p.m. on Monday night. The UN's Fifth (Budget) Committee had passed its end of May deadline and still the $8.2 billion peacekeeeping budget was in dispute.

The U.S, Japan, European Union and surprise Westerner South Korea are proposing a 2.5 percent across the board reduction in all peacekeeping missions' budgets. The phrase, taken from the Western Sahara draft of June 6, was a decision "to reduce the Mission's overall operational costs by a further 2.5 per cent to be accommodated through efficiency savings." The Group of 77 and China are resisting.

Take for example the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known by its French acronym MONUC. The Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions' "recommendations on the financing of MONUC would entail an overall reduction of $66,818,200 or some 4.7 percent of the Mission's overall budget," mostly due to the local elections MONUC will support being put back into 2010.

The African Group, on the other hand, "is concerned that the cuts proposed by the ACABQ could negatively impact on the effective functioning of the Mission."

These quotes are from public speeches. Consider, however, the confidential presentation of the Secretariat to ACABQ, the slide script of which Inner City Press has been given by a well-placed source. The Secretariat argued that "the budget before you is not a maintenance budget based on routine operations." Instead the Secretariat proposed "an increase of $235 million compare to 2008/09... 168 new posts and positions directly related to the surge in troops."

This "surge" is the 3,000 additional personnel called for the Security Council during the CNDP fighting in the Kivus, before the house arrest and Nkunda and incorporation of indicted war criminal Jean-Bosco Ntanganda into the Congolese Army, where he has worked in connection with UN-supported operations according to Congolese records. While troubling, this should at least save money, no? No. The Secretariat still proposed ever-increased spending.

The surge will come, the document says, from "troops from Bangladesh, Egypt and Jordan... The new Egyptian battalion will be deployed to South Kivu and the Bangladeshi will be deployed to Ituri... while the Jordan Special Forces company will be positioned in North Kivu."

Interestingly, the budget includes "$18 million additional requirements for 2 UAVs" -- unmanned aerial vehicles, the drones MONUC chief Alan Doss requested at the turn of the year.

UN's Ban and Doss (not Mountain) in DRC, budget cuts not shown

Several Fifth Committee sources emphasized to Inner City Press the news value of South Korea's position. Here you have Ban Ki-moon, one source spun, putting his name on proposals to increase peacekeeping budgets by almost five percent, while his home country South Korea has joined the push to instead cut the budgets by 2.5 percent.

The source asked, "who's kidding who?" All we could say is "whom." (On this front it must be said that the Secretariat's presentation to ACABQ has some laughable typos. It refers for example to "the Pakistanese battalion." But we digress.)

Upstairs in the Delegates' Lounge, a proponent of the Haiti mission's budget told Inner City Press that MINUSTAH, as it's known, spends 100% or more of its budget. Mission head Hedi Annabi is called Napoleonic. Other missions, in their start up phase or even earlier, like Somalia, might face even steeper cuts.

During all of this, the chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy is slated to travel from June 9 to 23 to West Africa. He will stop first in Nigeria, where 27 peacekeepers have been sentence to jail for life for protesting not being paid after a UN mission. Another peacekeeper, female, says she was pressured for sex while on mission. As a now-dead rapper sang, More money, more problems.

Le Roy will head to Cote d'Ivoire, where Laurent Gbagbo keeps putting off the promised election. When will the mission draw down? The force in Liberia, too, is called larger than needs be. In the basement, however, it is a question of whose ox is gored. Watch this site.

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At UN, Near Final Draft on North Korea Leaked to Inner City Press, Arms Export Ban and Cargo Inspection Added

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press: Exclusive-Must Credit

UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- Thirteen days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, a near-final draft resolution emerged behind closed doors at the UN Security Council.

The six-page draft, a copy of which Inner City Press obtained and puts online here as a must-credit exclusive, has more than thirty operative paragraphs, compared to the mere 14 paragraphs of the three-page draft Inner City Press similarly obtained and published on May 28. (AP, Japanese and other media appropriately credited Inner City Press).

This time, Inner City Press is told by its sources that the draft was circulated to the capitals of the Permanent Five Plus Two -- these last are Japan and South Korea -- with the deadline for comments on June 5 at 10 a.m. New York Time.

The provision allowing North Korea to import light weapons, in Paragraph 10, is attributable to Russia, according to a well placed Inner City Press source who calls it the Kalishnikof or AK-47 clause.

Beyond the cargo ban, other provisions are weaker than the proponents wanted. Paragraph 19, for example, merely calls on "member states and international financial and credit institutions not to enter into new commitments... except for humanitarian and developmental purposes." Paragraph 17 prohibits "bunkering services, such as provision of fuel or supplies" to vessels. Paragraph 22 calls for reports within 45 days.

At UN, media chases news of draft now published by Inner City Press

While the draft resolution seems unlikely to change North Korea's course, it has been the subject of intense journalistic interest for nearly two weeks now at the UN in New York, particularly by Japanese media, who have remained camped out in front of the Security Council during meetings on Somalia, Bosnia and Tribunals and on June 5, Sudan and Sri Lanka.

Non-permanent members of the Security Council complained to the Press that they were kept in the dark throughout the days of negotiation.

On the morning of June 5, Inner City Press obtained the draft resolution that, as a must-credit exclusive, it puts online here. Watch this site.

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Sri Lanka Denies IDP Reduction Reported by Inner City Press, Raises to UN

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

UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- The Sri Lankan government has denounced a story about "missing" internally displaced people which Inner City Press, based on discrepancies in UN documents and statements from UN sources, published this week.

Beyond denying that any IDPs have been removed from the UN-funded camps in Vavuniya, which Inner City Press visited on May 23, the government has said that it is raising the matter with the UN. "Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations," according to a pro-government web site.

On June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson publicly denounced Inner City Press for its reporting, but denied she had discussed "complaining to Google News" about it, presumably to stop its distribution or censor it. The next day she recanted, click here. Click here for Inner City Press (on NYTimes.com) on tensions in Sri Lanka.

Inner City Press' story noted that even the UN, in a May 30 report, acknowledged that its number of IDPs in the camps decreased by over 13,000.

While the public report by UN OCHA ascribed this sudden drop -- from May 27 -- to "double counting," local UN sources, on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation not only by the Sri Lankan government but also by the UN, told Inner City Press that as with the satellite photos of the conflict zone and casualty figures, some in the UN were seeking to downplay this potentially troubling information.

In Vavuniya IDP camp, UN's Ban on government's banner

OCHA's May 30 report states that "276,785 persons crossed to the Government controlled areas from the conflict zone. This represents a decrease of 13,130 IDPs since the last report (Sitrep No.18) on 27 May 2009. The decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required."

But earlier, OCHA had praised the "improved, systematic registration being undertaken in the camps."

The article continued that UN sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other purposes, as UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews

Shouldn't the UN look into this more closely, given multiple and credible reports of people being "disappeared" from the UN-funded IDP camps? The UN so far has done nothing in this regard.

To expedite matters, one hopes, Inner City Press now publishes a list of some of the places where the UN -- or perhaps a less compromised body -- should look for missing people:

Pallekelle near Kandy; Ambepussa, Boosa and, it is said, the Army training camp at Diya-talawwa.

On June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson while again publicly denouncing Inner City Press for its reporting, denied she had discussed "complaining to Google News" about it, presumably to stop its distribution or censor it.

The next day, Ms. Montas confirmed that both legal action and "complaining to Google News" were discussed at a meeting she had with four top UN officials, including Mr Ban's speech writer, who also traveled to Sri Lanka on May 23, the UN's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien, Angela Kane and the head of UN "Public Information," Kiyotaka Akasaka, previously of the Japanese foreign ministry.

Following a failure by these officials to respond to requests that they explain how the strategy they discussed comports with the free press Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Inner City Press has asked for action from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, click here.

Footnotes: During this week's back and forth about the UN threatening legal action against the Press, and to complain to Google News about Inner City Press' coverage, a high UN official, again anonymous due to fear of retaliation even at his level, approached Inner City Press to say that the attempt at censorship or expulsion was being pushed by what he diplomatically called "a member state." Asked if this meant Sri Lanka, he nodded.

Meanwhile, in a show of retaliation, the UN has taken the step of seizing and checking the UN e-mail of staff members who they believe have been sources for Inner City Press. Some say that when the UN went to Sri Lanka, rather than seek to hold the government to a high standard of human rights, the effect was to make the UN (even) more like the administration of the Rajapaksas...

Guard in Manik Farm camp, (c) M. Lee May 23, 2009

The article below quoting that "Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations" takes issue with Inner City Press quoting that

"UN sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other purposes, [as] UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews."

Contrary to the (intentional?) misinterpretation below, Inner City Press was not saying that all Sri Lankan nationals are Sinhalese -- rather, that within the UN's staff in Sri Lanka, those who are of the majority Sinhalese group are seen by their Tamil colleagues as in some cases using their positions in the UN to advance, as some phrase it, "the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist cause." Inner City Press did not invent these divisions, and the article's and minister's statement that all is now well in Sri Lanka is, at best, wishful thinking. Within the UN, some recall the way in Rwanda a Hutu staff member named Callixte Mbarushimana was allowed to use his UN position and materiel to further the Hutu extremist cause which has since been acknowledged as genocide. The UN continued employing and paying Callixte Mbarushimana for many years. Some wonder, will that happen with the UN in Sri Lanka?

On June 5 outside the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked the Special Adviser of the Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, if his Office will do any work on Sri Lanka. "We try to follow what is going on, the post-conflict developments," he said. "It's been going on for twenty five years, you don't just...." His voice trailed off. "One phase ended, presumably, but....". And his voice trailed off again. Of course, it's been "going on" for far longer than 25 years.

The article:

Sri Lanka rejects ICP report on IDP disappearance

Fri, 2009-06-05 18:06

By our Colombo Correspondent

Colombo, 05 June, (Asiantribune.com): The Sri Lankan government today totally rejected a claim in a Inner City Press (ICP) quoted by a pro LTTE website, that 13,000 people from Internally Displaced camps have disappeared, and described it as a malicious attempt to discredit the Colombo government.

Highly placed government sources said that the Tamil Diaspora overseas working for the LTTE were now engaged in a disinformation campaign to discredit the Government unable to bear the crushing defeat of the LTTE and its' terrorism.

Rehabilitation Ministry sources expressed anger and surprise over the pro-LTTE canard that is being spread through internet websites misquoting figures of the number of displaced persons.

They said the ICP report was aimed at creating a rift between communities now living peacefully as one people of one country." That is why they have quoted Sinhalese as Sri Lankan nationals knowing well that Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic country", they added.

Explaining further about the contents of the ICP report quoted by a pro-LTTE website, a ministry source said that if Sri Lanka nationals were only Sinhalese as claimed, there could be no Tamil displaced persons in the country.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management,Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations as the ICP report from the pro-LTTE website had quoted unnamed UN sources in Colombo to claim such disappearance of a large number of displaced persons, which, the Sri Lankan government has totally rejected.

Watch this site.

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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