By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 10, more here -- The on-again, usually off-again Libya talks are being reconvened in Geneva next week, date undefined, the UN Mission in Libya announced on January 10. Nothing was sent out by the main UN Spokesperson's Office in New York.
The UNSMIL press release online, dutifully picked up by unnamed Reuters staff in Tripoli, and by AFP, said that
"the agreement to hold the next round of dialogue was reached after wide and intensive consultations with the parties by Bernardino Leon, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and Head of UNSMIL, over the past several weeks... In order to create a conducive environment for the dialogue, Special Representative Leon has proposed to the parties to the conflict a freeze in military operations for a few days.”
Leon, as Inner City Press exclusively reported, was installed as head of UNSMIL after then-head Tarek Mitri declined to make the UN mission a mere appendage of European / UK diplomacy. Is it working?
UNSMIL's former deputy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania has been moved to head UNMEER, the UN's Ebola mission. Sources in Yemen say Ould Cheikh Ahmed was the UN's “designated security official” when a UNICEF staffer was taken hostage while traveling to the Sana'a airport without the required (and needed) security detail. Some say Ould Cheikh Ahmed was distracted, in Yemen and later in Libya, by side business interests.
But a check of Ban Ki-moon's Public Disclosure website, where his officials are supposed to make rudimentary disclosure of the finances and outside business interests, does not even list Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed (while numerous other Deputy SRSGs are listed). His is not in the most recent database, for 2013 - and may escape any disclosure by become an Under Secretary General with a mere nine month stint at UNMEER. Then what? We'll stay on this.
When the UN Security Council met about Mali on January 6, it was Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, and not UN Peacekeeping official Herve Ladsous, who distributed his speech and came to take Press questions. (Ladsous has a policy against it, here and here.)
Inner City Press asked Diop about the Mali talks in Algiers, and about the impact of Libya. On the latter, Diop said that “in 2012 the Mali crisis started when the war started in Libya and many Malian elements who were part of the Libyan army decided to come back home with the arms and ammunition. This started the destabilization of Mali.”
Diop added, "In the southern part of Libya there is a group that has declared allegiance to the Islamic State.” (When asked to name the group he could not or would not.)
The Libya talks have been indefinitely postponed. A Greek ship near Derna was bombed -- Inner City Press on January 5 asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric by whom; he said the UN does not know. The Free UN Coalition for Access has asked UN Peacekeeping why the speeches of Ladsous, unlike other UN officials, are not made available.
With Libya descending into chaos, when the UN Security Council met about the country on November 11 it was to hear from the International Criminal Court prosecutorFatou Bensouda.
Bensouda said “the continued failure of the Government of Libya to surrender Saif A1-Islam Gaddafi to the custody of the International Criminal Court is a matter of great concern to my Office and the Court... I will assess my options, including whether to apply for a review of the judges' decision upholding Libya's request that the case against Al-Senussi be tried in Libya.”
After her briefing, Bensouda to not hold a question and answer stakeout; Inner City Press caught up with her in the hall and asked if she had been given the entire UN "cover up" report on Darfur, or only part of it.
Bensouda said she had gotten only the summary, and only the day before. Moments later the President of the Security Council for November, Gary Quinlan of Australia, reiterated that efforts are afoot for the Security Council to "take up" the report on Darfur.
Still nothing from the Security Council on the car bomb attack near envoy Bernardino Leon. The UK mentioned the attack -- and tellingly their own Jonathan Powell -- during the ICC meeting. But where is a UNSC Press Statement on the attack?
For days after a bombing in Libya near UN envoy Bernardino Leon, which came after Libya Dawn in Tripoli called him not impartial and persona non grata, still the UN in New York had not put out any statement at all.
Instead, UN Department of Political Affairs' new spokesman merely selectively emailed to some Western media. No statement; nothing on the UNSMIL mission's web site. To new Free UN Coalition for Access, this is a new low in UN (non) communications.
Back on November 4 when the UN Security Council met about Libya behind closed doors, the Press outside at the stakeout was repeatedly told that Leon would come and take questions at the stakeout.
This is what the replaced Tarek Mitri did, each time he briefed the Security Council. With Leon being criticized inside Libya it would seem he'd have all the more reason to speak.
But he did not. When he came out he barely broke stride -- Inner City Press took a photograph, blurred -- while saying the new Security Council Gary Quinlan of Australia would speak later. When Quinlan did, it was a bland "Press Elements."
Still the scribes churned it. At 8:15 pm Agence France Presse bragged that it had "obtained" a French-drafted request to put Ansar al-Sharia, Benghazi and Derna, on the Al Qaeda sanctions list.
"A copy of the French-led request to the Al-Qaeda sanctions committee was obtained by AFP." Wonder how...
Reuters issued a breathless report with unnamed diplomats at 8:19 pm. Both have tried to get smaller investigative Press thrown out of the UN - see documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, here andhere - and this request by Reuters to censor one of its complaints to the UN from Google's Search.
Back on August 27 amid airstrikes in Libya, when outgoing UN envoy Tarek Mitri briefed the UN Security Council, the airstrikes weren't even mentioned in his more than six page prepared text distributed by the UN.
Inside the Council chamber, improvising but only a little bit, Mitri mentioned the strikes, but not who did them. Back on August 19 and once again since, Inner City Press asked the UN if it knew anything about who was behind them:
Inner City Press: Who did the air strikes? General Haftar? What's the UN, either Mr. León or Mr. Mitri or whoever is currently in charge, what's their sense of who's doing air strikes in Tripoli?
Spokesman Dujarric: I don't… I think we reported back with the Mission yesterday, if there's anything more I'll share it with you.
Spokesman Dujarric: I don't… I think we reported back with the Mission yesterday, if there's anything more I'll share it with you.
But in the days since, the UN has said nothing. Now the Libyan Dawn group has taken over the Tripoli airport despite the airstrikes and alleged that the strikes have the involvement of Haftar's (or Hiftar's) supporters, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. What does the UN -- or now Bernardino Leon -- know and say about that? Watch this site.
On Leon: To try to counter Libya's lawless power struggle, the UN engaged in one of its own.
And unlike most of the member states that make up the UN, and most other inter-governmental organizations, this UN does not answer questions, at least not directly.
After Inner City Press repeated asked about it, including at the UN's noon briefings on August 11 and 13, on August 14 the UN said Bernardino Leon will take over as its Libya envoy on September 1.
When Inner City Press asked if that is really Leon's starting day, given that he's said he'll go to Tripoli as early as next week representing the UN, Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said Leon is merely "familiarizing" himself with the work he will be, and Mitri remains in place until September 1. Really?
Ignoring the previous questions and the power-play, wire services like Reuters merely retyped ("reported") the UN's August 14 announcement that Leon will start September 1. And now?
Back on August 1, Inner City Press exclusively reportedthat UN envoy to Libya Tarek Mitri was being "pushed out" of the post, including by UK envoy to Libya Jonathan Powell, and cited his brother Lord Powell's extensive business in Libya through Magna Holdings.
The UK mission, usually responsive, did not provide comment on written Press questions on this; at UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant's August 4 press conference Inner City Press asked about Powell's and Mitri's relationship, without direct answer, see here.
Then the UK's Ambassador to Libya Michael Aron hasannounced, on Twitter no less, that Mitri is out and Ban Ki-moon has installed a new UN envoy, former Zapatero diplomat Bernardino Leon Gross.
The UN, at least at its August 8 noon briefing and in emails since, has not announce anything about replacing Mitri, much less by whom.
Ban Ki-moon's office said that for August 9 and 10, "Spokesperson on call: Mr. Farhan Haq." So Inner City Press wrote to Farhan Haq, as well as to lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric:
Hello. Now that the UK Ambassador to Libya, and others, have announced that Ban Ki-moon has appointed Bernardino Leon to replace Tarek Mitri as Ban's representative to Libya, head of UNSMIL, this is a request on deadline - today - that your Office confirm that this appointment or nomination has been made.
Has the letter been sent to the Security Council?
Is Leon already confirmed?
If not, how it is appropriate that P5 countries are saying he already has the job? On deadline, today.
Given many of the ongoing Afghanistan leaks are about UN DSS and UNAMA, not UNDP, there will be further questions. But the above is on deadline for today. Thank you in advance.
But more than four hours later, by "close of business" in New York, the "spokesperson on duty" had not answered, had not even acknowledged receipt of the question.
What does it mean to be the UN's "spokesperson on duty"?
Isn't it for Ban Ki-moon to make this announcement? In fact, in 2011 when France had already gotten its Jerome Bonnafont in place to replace its Alain Le Roy atop UN Peacekeeping, Bonnafont's bragging about it in India, where he was French Ambassador, led to Ban rescinding the "offer."
France countered with three time loser Herve Ladsous, Inner City Press reported each step -- including Bonnafont in July 2011 being tapped for the post, and evencongratulation cards to Bonnafont, here, and threats from AFP then the UN Correspondents Association -- and the rest is, well, a type of history (coverage in UK New Statesman, here).
France countered with three time loser Herve Ladsous, Inner City Press reported each step -- including Bonnafont in July 2011 being tapped for the post, and evencongratulation cards to Bonnafont, here, and threats from AFP then the UN Correspondents Association -- and the rest is, well, a type of history (coverage in UK New Statesman, here).
Ladsous refuses all Inner City Press questions, video compilation here; Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq on August 8, alluding to Ladsous and now UNDP, said it is because of "people skills." Or reporting?
