By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 10, updated -- Before and now after Myanmar's November 7 election, the UN's Good Office on Myanmar unit under Vijay Nambiar has remained full of propaganda but increasingly empty of staff.
Three days after the election, widely viewed as fraudulent, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about criticism of Nambiar's work, and to confirm or deny the transfer of Good Office on Myanmar staff time to other UN Department of Public Affairs (DPA) projects in Asia oversee by Tamrat Samuel.
Haq said he would “not confirm” the transfer of staff time, but read out a prepared statement about and perhaps by Nambiar, referring on Myanmar to the “next phase of its transition” and saying the leaders “in the past year failed to respond to [UN] efforts to be engaged.” Video here, from Minute 8:50.
The fact remains that Nambiar has not been to Myanmar, despite heading the Good Office on Myanmar unit.
Perhaps because the unit has done so little, despite its establishment as a stand alone unit by the General Assembly, Inner City Press is told that staff and staff time of the Good Office on Myanmar unit have been transferred for example to work concerning an upcoming election on a small island, sources say.
The island work of the UN Department of Political Affairs is hardly transparent: while Tonga has not made any formal requests for UN help -- directing those instead to such countries as New Zealand -- apparently fungible UN DPA staff are analyzing the likelihood of violence as 147 candidates vie for 17 seats in Parliament, to be followed by the election or selection behind closed doors of a Prime Minister. If there is a tie, there will be the toss of a coin.
That would be more fair than Myanmar's election, in which for example the NLD party of Aung San Suu Kyi did not participate.
ASSK is slated for belated release on November 13 -- if it happens, little thanks are expressed to the UN's Good Office on Myanmar unit, with its eyes on a far away coin toss.
