THE UN CRIES POOR ON LAWLESS SOMALIA, WHILE ITS EX-SECURITY CHIEF DOES BUSINESS THROUGH RULELESS REVOLVING DOOR
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
Inner City Press, NY
Sept 6 2006
UNITED NATIONS, September 6 — The UN accepts military intelligence
from governments it will not name, because the member states refuse
to provide funds for such intelligence, the head of the UN Political
Affairs Ibrahim Gambari said Wednesday. Inner City Press had asked
about Somalia, and UN DPA’s previous statement that it relies for
information on its office in Nairobi, which says it has no monitoring
mandate in Somalia.
"That it is based in Nairobi is instructive," answered Mr. Gambari,
adding that the UN is keeping a close eye on Somalia and is "doing
the best we can." He explained the lack of plans for any UN force
to Somalia in terms of the lack of financing, pointing to the
African Union’s shortfall for its Darfur mission. "Where is the
financing?" asked Prof. Gambari. He suggested increased use of such
UN agencies and affiliates as the humanitarian unit OCHA and the UN
Development Program.
Mr. Gambari’s response was decidedly more restrained that a recent
online commentary by the ex-UN head of security for Somalia, American
Wayne Long, who last month wrote of U.S. strategy in Somalia:
"in order to win a war like this at least cost in US lives, a true
superpower plays the Great Game. Playing the black hats against the
blacker hats of America’s enemies saves US military lives and treasure
– HELLO!!!"
Call it conflict prevention. The above is online, as of September 6,
at 1PABE9RG9
On September 6 at UN Headquarters, Inner City Press again asked about
the reports of Ethiopian troops in Somalia and how the UN might at
least confirm this. Mr. Gambari responded that "some governments
share some intelligence, I don’t want to mention names.
Otherwise we would have no capacity. Member-states would not
welcome the enhancement of the Secretariat in terms of intelligence
gathering." Video here, from Minute 49:15.
Somalia per UN: Money Can Be Made
On UN Ethics, A Long Hypothetical — Wayne Long, That Is
Inner City Press’ sources in Somalia provide a quite different picture
of member-states’ actions and intelligence gathering in Somalia,
which is recounted here including to serves as a hypothetical for
reform. They say that retired general William Garrison, who commanded
U.S. forces in Somalia in 1993 and for identification purposes was
played by Sam Shepherd in the movie Black Hawk Down, has been plotting
for some time to open a private, for profit airport or landing strip in
Somalia, and more recently to buy and run an airline, Trackmark. They
say that Garrison’s entrepreneurialism, which may also not be unrelated
to intelligence gathering, is being assisted by Wayne Long, who was
previously the United Nations’ head of security in Somalia. Mr. Long
is an American, graduate of Texas A&M.
Apparently unlike the UN Political Office on Somalia, Inner City Press
in pursuing its monitoring mandate remains in contact with informed
sources, and even… consults "open source" resources, otherwise
known as the Internet. Whereon one finds ex-UN staffer Wayne Long,
hiding in plain site. Listing his address, accurately, as Nairobi,
Kenya, Mr. Long on August 3, 2006 posted an exasperated comment of a
(U.S.) true believer:
"in order to win a war like this at least cost in US lives, a true
superpower plays the Great Game. Playing the black hats against the
blacker hats of America’s enemies saves US military lives and treasure
– HELLO!!!"
This is online, as of September 6, at
CJO1PABE9RG9
Slightly more diplomatic, writing as Wayne E. Long he has published
an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune urging the U.S. to beef
up its military with immigrants with green cards; the IHT op-ed,
of March 1, 2006, identified him only as "a retired colonel in the U.S.
Army," nothing about the UN.
Contrary to Ibrahim Gambari’s statement Wednesday that the UN must
rely on unnamed governments for intelligence, some close observers note
that the UN’s operations in Somalia and places like it are "top-heavy
with Americans," in part so that the U.S. can gather intelligence
either on-the-cheap and/or under cover of the UN’s blue flag. The
revolving door profit making comes later (but may also be connected).
As summarized by an Inner City Press source who has seen Mr. Long, in
this case the UN employed as its chief security officer in a volatile
country a gung-ho, red-blooded "use the black hats" American, who since
leaving the UN is reportedly cashing in with dodgy business ventures
in the same country in which he represented the United Nations.
Wednesday afternoon Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane
Dujarric for an on-the-record statement about the existence or
non-existence within the present UN, or that UN envisioned by Kofi
Annan’s reform proposals, of any safeguards against revolving doors
by which former UN officials could make money in the locales of their
UN tour of duty, using their UN contacts. A closed place UN source,
insisting on not being identified, said he doubts any current rules
prohibit it, since the rules were "made in the 1950s." Speaking
on-the-record, Mr. Dujarric said he had asked upstairs and would
provide an answer later on Wednesday. After 7 p.m. the following was
provided to Inner City Press as an official on-the-record statement
of the UN on its policy:
"After leaving its employment, the United Nations expects its staff
members to conduct themselves in a manner which would not bring
disrepute to the organization.
"The current UN staff rules and regulations only apply to serving
staff. There are currently discussions in-house focusing on the
subject of post-employment restrictions so as to avoid any possible
conflict of interest. Substantive changes to staff rules would need
to be approved by the General Assembly."
The General Assembly meetings are about to begin. But it does
not appear that Mr. Annan included any anti-resolving door or
post-employment safeguards in his package of proposed reforms.
Developing…
UN-Heard on Uighurs
The UN’s Alliance of Civilizations, or at least its High Level Group,
has met in New York for the past two days. There have been stakeouts
for photographer in the UN basement, on Tuesday, and on 1st Avenue
and 46th Street on Thursday. The main "get," fruitlessly pursued by TV
and print reporters, has been ex-Iranian president Katami. Following
remarks he made in Chicago on his way to New York he has decided,
or it has been decided for him, to not speak to the press.
Appearing for a press conference Wednesday were the co-chairs of
the Alliance, Mr. Federico Mayor of Spain and Mr. Mehmet Aydin of
Turkey. The latter began by demanding that questions relate solely to
the Alliance and its work. Okay then. Back in June 2006, Inner City
Press asked Messrs. Mayor and Aydin what the Alliance was doing to
the East, in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Mr.
Mayor back in June said, good question, and pointed out that there
are representatives of China and India in the high level group. It’s
not just about Muslims and the West, they said.
Now the Alliance’s website uses as two of its three lead examples
precisely this phrasing: the West, or Western societies.
Click here to view. So on Wednesday Inner City Press asked what the
Alliance has done, even in speaking to its Chinese representative
Pan Guang, about the treatment of Uighurs, including those freed
from Guantanamo Bay but now in limbo in Albania. (Most recently, it
is reported that if Albania does not refoule these Uighurs, China’s
Security Council veto may impact the pending status talks on Kosovo.)
"You are absolutely right," said Mr. Mayor, who went on to saying
that in China "the authoritarian mechanisms are still there," and
that the Alliance has to "denounce realities as they are." A fellow
journalist noted that no concrete actions were mentioned in response
(video here, from 30:30 to 31:30). Mr. Mayor said that the Alliance
is deciding what to report and recommend to the Secretary General,
"not only on religion but also on freedom of expression."
On that, note that Uzbekistan has mostly recently denied the right
of counsel to folk singer Dadakhon Khasanov, indicted by the Karimov
government, for his song "Andijan." Click here to hear and download
an MP3 of the song, and pass it on.
Feedback: editorial [at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter’s mobile: 718-716-3540
Search WWW Search innercitypress.com
At the UN, Micro-States Simmer Under the Assembly’s Surface, While
Incoming Council President Dodges Most Questions
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, September 5 — Nagorno Karabakh, one of the world
most frozen and forgotten conflicts, surfaced at the UN on Tuesday,
if only for ten minutes. The General Assembly was scheduled to vote
on a resolution concerning fires in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan. The diplomats assembled, or began to assemble, at 4 p.m..
At 4:15 it was announced that in light of ongoing negotiations,
the meeting was cancelled, perhaps to reconvene Wednesday at 11:30.
Sources close to the negotiations told Inner City Press that the
rub is paragraph 4 of the draft resolution, which requests that
the Secretary-General report to the UN General Assembly on the
conflict. Armenia wants the matter to remain before the Minsk Group
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has
presided over the problem for more than a decade. Leading the OSCE’s
Minsk Group are Russia, France and the United States, members of the
veto-wielding Permanent Five on the UN Security Council, nations which
Azerbaijan claims have ignored its sovereignty as well as blocking
Security Council action, as for example Russia has on Chechnya.
Of the fires, Azerbaijan has characterized them as Armenian arson,
and has asked for international pressure to allow it to reach the
disputed territories where the fires have been.
Nagorno-Karabakh, per WFP
At a July 13, 2006 briefing on the BTC pipeline, Inner City Press
asked the Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev about the pipeline’s
avoidance of Armenia. We cannot deal with them until they stop
occupying our territory, Ambassador Aliyev said. "You mean Nagorno
– Karabakh?" Not only that, Amb. Aliyev answered. That’s only four
percent. Few people know this, but Armenia has occupied twenty percent
of our territory.
Both Amenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and UN Ambassador
Armen Martirosian have said publicly in the past month that if
Azerbaijan continues pushing the issue before the United Nations,
the existing peace talks will stop. Armenian sources privately speak
more darkly of an alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova,
collectively intent on involving the UN in reigning in their breakaway
regions including South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdniestria
— examples of what some call the micro-states. Armenia is concerned
that in the UN as opposed to OSCE, Azerbaijan might be able to rally
Islamic nations to its side.
It is not only to predominantly Muslim nations that the Azeri’s are
reaching out. The nation’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov met
recently with this Swedish counterpart Jan Eliasson, the outgoing
president of the General Assembly.
Following Tuesday’s General Assembly postponement, Inner City Press
asked Mr. Eliasson if, in light of his involvement in reaching the
1994 cease-fire, he thinks the GA might have more luck solving the
Nagorno-Karabakh than the OSCE has.
"I hope so," he said. "I’m in favor of an active General Assembly." He
recounted his shuttle diplomacy to Baku in the early 90s. And then
he was gone.
Elsewhere in the UN at Tuesday, the income president of the Security
Council, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis held a press conference
on the Council’s plan of work for September. Inner City Press asked
when the Council will get the long-awaited briefing on violations
of the arms embargo on Somalia. Amb. Vassilakis responded about a
meeting on September 25, at Kenya’s request, on the idea of the IGAD
force in Somalia. Inner City Press asked what has happened with the
resolution on the Lord’s Resistance Army of which the UK has spoken so
much. It will be up to them to introduce the motion," Amb. Vassilakis
replied. He did not reply on the issue of the outstanding International
Criminal Court indictments against LRA leaders including Joseph Kony
and Vincent Otti.
Inner City Press asked why, on Ivory Coast, the long-delayed report
by the Secretary-General’s expert on the prevention of genocide has
not been released. In this response, Amb.
Vassilakis grew animated, saying that one has to choose between justice
and peace. This implies that the finished report identifies alleged
perpetrators, as pertains to genocide, but is being withheld either
to facilitate peace, which has not come, or as negotiating leverage
over some of the perpetrators. To be continued, throughout the month.
Rare UN Sunshine From If Not In Chad While Blind on Somalia and
Zimbabwe, UNDP With Shell in its Ear on Nigeria
BYLINE: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN
UNITED NATIONS, August 29 — In Chad there are ninety political
parties and over seventy rebel groups, with a focus on overthrowing
Idriss Deby. Meanwhile Deby last Friday ordered Chevron and Petronas
out of the country, for failure to pay taxes.
Chad is the fifth poorest country in the world, with countries in
turmoil or trouble along at least half of its perimeter. To the west,
Niger and to the east, on the other side of camps housing over 200,000
refugees from Darfur, lies Sudan. To the south, the Central African
Republic with its own rebel groups. In the tri-border area of the
Sudan, Chad and the CAR is a lawless zone of mercenaries for hire,
and area none of the three governments control.
Tuesday the head of the UN’s operations in Chad, Kingsley Amaning,
provided reporters a lengthy and well-received briefing. He began by
sketching how the situation in Darfur is further destabilizing Chad,
spreading ethnic conflict and banditry across borders. Mr. Amaning
said that alongside 90 political parties, the roster of rebel groups
has grown from 47 to 72. Inner City Press asked, as even invited
political parties have, why the rebels are excluded from Deby’s new
national dialogue. There are a dozen refugee camps in eastern Chad,
each with fifteen to twenty thousand residents, in a region where the
average town size is only three thousand. In fact, Mr. Amaning said,
right now "the quality of life of the refugees is higher than the
quality of life of the local population."
Mr. Amaning, originally from Ghana and having previously served the
UN in Guinea, has been in Chad for a year and a half.
During that time, rebels marching on the capital N’djamena were
stopped only by a bomb dropped by the French air force. A colleague
of Mr. Amaning, OCHA Chad desk officer Aurelien Buffler, noted in
an interview that the official description of the French bomb was a
"warming shot." He added that Chad is not even on the agenda of the
Security Council and that raising funds for development is difficult,
since donors don’t know where the money goes. Later this week 25
donors led by Canada will meet with Mr. Amaning in UN Headquarters.
The dichotomy seems to be that while emergency humanitarian funds
can be raised, long-term funds for development are more difficult. Mr.
Amaning said, "Humanitarians get resources, but we don’t follow up
political solutions with development so that people have jobs."
Refugees in Chad per UNHCR
Inner City Press interviewed Mr. Amaning after the briefing, and asked
him first about specific vulnerable refugee camps near the border with
Darfur, Am Nabak and Ouve Casson. Mr. Amaning confirmed that these
camps will be moved, belated, to a lot north of Biltine, now that
it’s thought there is underground water on the government-owned site.
Turning to history, the UN Security Council, history and one of its
veto-wielding Permanent Five, Inner City Press asked about France’s
involvement. Mr. Amaning said that the UN principles are to oppose
violent takeovers and to encourage dialogue. "I tell the French
Ambassador that instead of trying to explain what type of intervention
that was," Mr. Amaning said, referring to France’s bomb-drop in
support of Idriss Deby, "they should say they did it on behalf of
the international community, so there would be no violent overthrow."
Speaking more generally, or regionally, Mr. Amaning said, "If we do
not stabilize Darfur," weapons will continue to spread throughout
the region. "It’s a line that’s going to join up… from DRC through
Central Africa to the northern part of Uganda, to Chad and the Sudan —
where are we going?" At least Mr. Amaning is asking.
For weeks Inner City Press has asked all and sundry in UN Headquarters
to confirm or deny that Ethiopian troops are present in Somalia. Kofi
Annan’s representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, skirted
the issue despite six questions from Inner City Press last time he
was in New York. Mr. Fall’s spokesman has told Inner City Press to
look elsewhere, since his office does not have a monitoring mandate
in Somalia. In a stakeout interview, the head of the UN’s Department
of Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari responded with generalities. An
email followed, that DPA relies for information on Mr. Fall’s office —
which has not monitoring mandate.
Kofi Annan’s spokesman’s office suggested that Inner City Press
contact the members of the group monitoring the UN’s Somalia arms
embargo. Group member Joel Salek confirmed receipt of Inner City
Press’ request, but said he would "give floor to Bruno [Schiemsky],
the Chairman of our Group, to answer your questions." Time passed,
Inner City Press sent a second request. Mr. Schiemsky responded,
"Sorry, at this stage I have no comments. I need first to brief the
Sanctions Committee" of the Security Council.
Tuesday at the Security Council stakeout, Inner City Press asked
UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry who in the UN can speak regarding
Somalia. Amb. Jones Parry responded that the UK is working on a
resolution. Video here.
But when Inner City Press five minutes later asked the President of
the Council, Ghana’s Nana Effah-Apenteng, about Amb. Jones Parry’s
resolution, the Ghanaian Ambassador said no resolution has been
introduced. Video here. Meanwhile the Horn of Africa slides toward
regional war.
Earlier this year at the African Union summit in Banjul, Kofi Annal
pulled back from involvement in Zimbabwe, saying he was deferring
to the new mediator Ben Mkapa. Now documents from the AU submit
show that Mkapa never accepted the role of mediator. Tuesday Inner
City Press asked Kofi Annan’s spokesman if this now means that the
Secretary-General will re-engage. Video here, at Minute 21:50.
The spokesman said he will respond; this has not taken place by 6
p.m. deadline.
Nor as the spokesman answered Inner City Press’ question of Monday,
about why UNDP took funding from Shell Petroleum to write a report on
human development in the Niger Delta, where Shell has a long record
of violating human rights. I will get you an answer, the spokesman
said. We’re still waiting [this remains true as of September 6, 2006 –
still no answer.]
.html