By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 18 -- As Myanmar moves to bar foreign journalists and elections observers from its impending November 9 polling, the UN on Monday churned out a prepared statement that did not directly engage with the exclusion of the media.
Inner City Press asked acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq to confirm or deny that staffers of the UN's “Good Office” on Myanmar operation, set up by General Assembly resolution, have been even at this critical juncture been redeployed to other non-Burma work within the UN Department of Political Affairs, despite being in GA voted budget lines not supposed to be changed by DPA.
Haq said he wouldn't comment on “budget lines,” but said that the prepared statement showed that Good Offices work continued. That wasn't the question, of course. And the UN's Myanmar and other such statements are largely cut and paste.
Inner City Press is informed by well placed sources that the Department of Political Affairs under B. Lynn Pascoe had “made a play” for staffers of the UN Good Offices on Myanmar, “under-occupied” with Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambair "monlighting" in the position since the departure for Darfur of Ibrahim Gambari. These staffers have been assigned work for Tamrat Samuel of DPA.
There is a problem, however, the sources say. The Myanmar office is not directly under DPA, and its resources, specifically approved by the General Assembly, are not supposed to be redeployed in this way. It is unclear why Haq feels it is legitimate, in this context, to minimize and refuse to answer “budget line” questions.
These are questions of separation of powers -- and of coddling a dictatorship. Under Ban Ki-moon, these sources say, the GA's Myanmar office has been turning into a husk. Watch this site.
