By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/cerf1somalia120909.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- The UN's humanitarian coordinator John Holmes, in his previous life a UK diplomat, on Wednesday told the Press that he is "not aware that the UK government has followed [the] example" of the United States in slowing aid to Somalia following concerns of diversion. Video here, from Minute 4:48.
But on December 8, the Office in Charge for Somalia of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Graham Farmer, told the Press that not only the U.S., but also the UK have slowed their aid based on these concerns.
The UK's Minister of State for International Development Gareth Thomas, speaking to the Press earlier on December 9, was asked for the UK's position on the claim by the African Group that they had been promised the number two post in the UN Development Program. He declined to comment on the fact that the UNDP top was given this week to Rebecca Grynspan, a decidedly non African Costa Rican.
In response to another question, about his praise of Fair Trade certification for the Nestle Kit Kat chocolate bar despite non governmental organizations' call for a boycott of Nestle for child labor, water overuse and breast milk issues, he said the government is trying to get UK supermarkets to source six percent of their goods from Africa. Video here, from Minute 13:12.
He also would not comment on the UK's attempts in the UN's Fifth Committee to change the "scale of assessment" to pay relatively less into the UN's budget.
On Holmes' office's chart of donors to the UN Central Emergency Relief Fund, the UK is on top, albeit paying 15% less in 2009 that in 2007 and 2008. At the bottom of the list are several relatively small countries such has Tuvalu, Benin and St. Lucia which have given one or two thousand dollars. Holmes said these are signs of political support.
The Maldives, much in the news these days for having its ministers meet underwater to publicize climate change, pledged a thousand dollars in both 2007 and 2008, but has not paid on either pledge. El Salvador pledge two thousand dollars in 2007 but still has not paid. The other "deadbeats," as reporters called them, are Djibouti, Haiti and Mongolia. The last of these has sent doctors to Darfur.
On the corporate side, HSBC Bank Middle East Limited contributed $10,000. Inner City Press asked Holmes about it, and he said "I think there's a link there probably to Gaza." Video here, from Minute 6:14.
HSBC is known to have branches in the unregulated Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Meanwhile, UNICEF uses a bank on the terror sanctions list, just as UNRWA was exposed as doing earlier this year. Watch this site.
