UNITED NATIONS, February 25 – On Myanmar, Japan's ambiguous position was highlighted back in October 2017 when UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee urged the country, still then on the UN Security Council, not to block a Council resolution, here. Now Japan's Embassy in Yangon has announced a program that is all about "the humanitarian-development nexus," eschewing human rights. Embassy press release here., citing among others UNFPA (which gave radio equipment to a station in Burundi run by strongman Pierre Nkurunziza, here).
This downplaying of human rights by Japan has drawn criticism from, among others, the International Commission of Jurists which says, "it's time for Japan to step up and urge Myanmar to respect human rights in Rakhine State." But to some it appears that today's Japan is playing a different game. When Japan's foreign minister Taro Kono was at the UN in September, Inner City Press asked him about his country's future with UN Peacekeeping. He indicted that no new PKO deployments are planned for now. Instead, Japan is focusing on funding and some training for others' troops, for example with the International Peace Support Training Center in Karen, Kenya. Japan's "Yen diplomacy" was also on display at this weekend's New York retreat of the UN's African Group ambassador, where Japan was one of the few non-African countries seen present, photo here. African sources point to some Japanese hard power, citing a Japan Self-Defence Force deployment of 180 personnel at a military naval base in Djibouti, by Camp Lemonnier, the US military's base adjacent to the country’s international airport. After the killing of the Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, and another hostage, Haruna Yakwa, by ISIS in February 2015, Japan has gotten more active. But African sources want more. "This ain't no Belt and Road," one of them said. On Japan's major military focus, in the face of North Korea sanctions, the UN in December 2017 used the sanctioned Foreign Trade Bank and Russia's Sputnik Bank to release EUR 3,974,920.62 into the country, documents obtained by Inner City Press and exclusively published on February 21 show. The US announced new sanctions on February 23, and has now asked the UN sanctions committee which approved the UN's own transfer to adopt the US list. Japan has chimed in on three: Belize's Wan Heng 11, North Korea's Yu Jong 2 and Dominica-flagged Yuk Tung. Significantly, though, the UN on February 23 refused to answer basic questions about its hard currency dealings in North Korea. At the February 23 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I sent you these in writing, but I wanted to ask you, I guess, not having gotten any answers, to factual questions about the transfer of hard currency into DPRK, North Korea. The letters that we obtained and published is about one quarter [of 2017], but is there a way to know what the the euro or dollar volume for the year 2017 is? And has the UN conducted any audit of its activities, because there's no country plan, at least none that's public? Spokesman: "I will see what we can… what we can get." Hours later Dujarric called his end of day and week lid, without providing any of the information. This is called a cover up. On February 21, Inner City Press asked the Dutch chair of the UN Security Council's 1718 Sanctions committee about the exemption. He refused to comment, saying the issue did not come up in the meeting he had just exited. Video here.
But a letter from Sputnik Bank stated that "unauthorized person (I.V. Tonkih) led negotiations with Korean party on interbank correspondent relationship." Photos here, more documents in PDF now published on Patreon, here. On February 22, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric about how Sputnik Bank, given its admission, was selected, and then additional questions in writing, below - which Dujarric would not answer or confirm. Video here.
From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you quickly about a thing in North Korea. I've learned yesterday and published the documents of a waiver sought by the UN system, he UN Resident Coordinator, Tapan Mishra. To use a, some say little-known, but, in any case, not a prominent Russian bank as a correspondent bank to send €4 million into North Korea in December. And I wanted to know, first of all, how is the bank… there's a document that's… that's part of the request that shows that the Russian bank acknowledges that an unauthorized person even negotiated the correspondent bank relationship. How does the UN system choose which correspondent bank to use? And is this comment… is this… it seemed like they presented this as an emergency for third-quarter disbursements of 4 million euros into North Korea…Spokesman: Listen, I don't know the details of the agreement. What I do know is that the UN operates, has humanitarian presence and has a presence in Pyongyang. We abide… the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], as you know, is under very strict sanctions from the Security Council, which include issues of the banking sector. We do need to get money to pay staff and to run our programmes. I think it's only normal that we go through the Sanctions Committee to get the waivers. We don't want to be… obviously, the Secretariat doesn't want to be in violation of Security Council resolutions. To say that dealing with the banking sector in terms of banks that are willing to do business legitimately in the DPRK is challenging would probably be an understatement. But whatever rules there are, I have no doubt that they were followed. Inner City Press: So, simple question, is this… is this put out… is there a procurement for this? I'm asking you because there's some questions about how the bank was selected even from… their own documents acknowledge some irregularities. So how… can you look? Spokesman: As I said, I don't have further details. I can look into it, but I know we're working in a very challenging environment in trying to follow the rules and regulations to the 'T.'" To the T?
