By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 9 -- When an Ethiopian military plane full of weapons was burning today on the tarmac of the airport in Mogadishu, journalists trying to take photographs were refused entry and told to leave. What does the UN have to say about it?
It must be noted that the UN's own sanctions panel, the Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group, in its most recent report at page 319 linked the Ethiopian National Defense Forces to violations of sanctions in Somalia:
according to data received by the Monitoring Group, the Ethiopian air force has operated in January and February 2013, three military cargo flights to Baidoa, without prior notification of the Committee. On 22 April 2013, the Monitoring Group sent a letter to the Government of Ethiopia requesting clarification and additional information, for which no reply has yet been forthcoming.
19. Information obtained by the Monitoring Group from several UN sources indicates that these flights may be related to supply of military equipment to Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) operations on Somali territory, and therefore constitute a potential violation of the arms embargo on Somalia.
So will the SEMG have access to the plane? And what DOES the UN say?
The SEMG report also has the UN itself violating sanctions. And the UN Mine Action Service's David Bax,despite spoon-fed attempts to rehabilitate him, not only played a role in the sharing of genetic information from bombs in Somalia with the US FBI, but ran around Mogadishu, not only on the day of the attack on the UN compound, with weapons of dubious origin - click for Inner City Press's first exclusive and now most recent story. What does the UN say? The Free UN Coalition for Access has asked. Watch this site.
