At UN, Even Basic Financial Disclosure Refused by Peacekeeper Ladsous, Meece of the Congo, Candidates for Human Rights & Security

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 14 – Two years ago, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon claimed that 99% of his officials had made public disclosure of their finances. 

  As Inner City Press showed, it wasn't true then. And it is not true now.

As of February 14, 2013, the most recent data set of disclosures on the UN website was of 2010 finances, disclosed in 2011. In this data set, for example, Ban's main political adviser Jeffrey Feltman is not even listed.

  Ban's chief of Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous has refused to make even minimal disclosure, stating, "in accordance with General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/238, I have chosen to maintain the confidentiality of the information disclosed in my financial disclosure statement.”

   Ban's big claim is that he would lead by example, and his top officials would make public disclosure. One would think Ban could condition giving a top post on making disclosure. 

   But in the case of Ladsous at DPKO, for example, France made the decision of who got the post. And France put in a non-discloser.

    Likewise, Ban's envoy to the Congo, Roger Meece, has refused to disclose. How can the UN preach for example mining disclosure to the Kabila government if Meece won't diclose? Neither does ASG Franz Baumann. 

  Why wouldn't OCHA chief Valerie Amos disclose? Or Achim Steiner of UNEP?

   By contrast, Ladsous' deputy Edmond Mulet did make at least basic disclosure, of equity funds with Templeton and Franklin, and outside service as “Advisory Board Member, Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, Social Science Research Council, New York.”

  

That's how easy it is. So why wouldn't Ladsous do it? After months of refusing all Press questions, on February 6 he finally partially answered one. It was appreciated: but then stonewalling continued on the follow-ups.

  Also still listed in the most recent UN financial disclosure data set but not reporting is Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, a former minister of strongman Ali Saleh in Yemen who, we can now report, is trying to take over the Deputy position to Navi Pillay at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. 

  Pillay discloses; why should a deputy be selected who not only served a dictator, but refuses to disclose?

   Kevin Kennedy, listed in his former position as deputy in Haiti, declined to disclose. Thursday he was given a tour near the Security Council, in his new post as acting chief of UN Security. Why not disclose?

  Now gone Haiti mission chief Mariano Fernandez did disclose. Ban nominated a candidate Honore from Trinidad and Tobago, who got blocked. (Click here for that Inner City Press exclusive.) Will Ban's new nominee commit to disclose?

  Some forms, like that of UNDP's Helen Clark, don't appear to work. Click here. This is Ban's transparency?

Footnotes: On February 7, Ban doled lunch and quotes to 13 members of the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, an organization which spent most of its meeting in 2012 trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN (initially for reporting involving Sri Lanka and, who else, Herve Ladsous). 

 Documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act show Voice of America, saying it had the support ofReuters' bureau chief Louis Charbonneau and Agence France Presse's Tim Witcher, asking the UN's Stephane Dujarric to "review" the accreditation of Inner City Press.

 This gave rise to a request from the NY Civil Liberties Union for disclosure of the UN's due process rules, which has still not happened.

  In 2013, they or most of them have been engaged intearing down free speech flyers, mocking an alleged victim of sexual harassment, using two counterfeit social media accounts.

  Why does Ban meet and "partner" with this UNCA, as his main or only interlocutor on press issues? Why has neither side released a transcript or recording to other journalists at the UN, including those who have launched the new alternative Free UN Coalition for Access? Ah, transparency.

On Yemen, Saleh Crony Alsoswa to Present at IPI, Roed-Larsen to Bahrain

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 13 – Who's presenting the Yemeni national dialogue today across the street from the UN at the International Peace Institute?

  Well, it's a former minister of strong man Ali Saleh, Amat Al Alim Alsoswa. Despite her roots in despotism, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deployed her as his interface with the Arab Spring for a time.

  Now she reappears at IPI, run by semi-UN official Terje Roed-Larsen who recently visited Bahrain for IPI. Before that, he visited with a UN staffer, but said it wasn't a UN trip. It's a murky world, but the Yemen “roundtable” pitch is online (though not on IPI's website).

  IPI is very selective: it doesn't like tough questions. So UN envoys like Bert Koenders, who doesn't want to answer questions about covering up the killing of IDPs and UN inaction in Cote d'Ivoire, go across the street to IPI, where access is controlled to exclude critical UN correspondents, rather than speak at the UN.

 Also on Yemen at the UN on Wednesday, the Iran Sanctions committee will be meeting at 3 pm. The last Yemen session of the Security Council was hijacked, at least in the media, by the allegation of Iranian arms, now repeated with regard to Somalia.

  Forget Somalia and its problems - it's all about Iran! Just ask IPI. Watch this site.

Footnote: Sources tell Inner City Press that Amat Al Alim Alsoswa may be gunning for an even more surreal post: deputy human rights director of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which offered Ali Saleh immunity. Is Amat Al Alim Alsoswa covered by that immunity deal? Inquiring minds want to know.

Ban Ki-moon's Syria Task Force Under Former Saleh Minister: UN Democracy Now?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, February 2 -- As the UN Security Council continued battling on Syria whether to "fully support" or merely "take into consideration" the Arab League plan, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is setting up a UN system Task Force on Syria, meeting today, Inner City Press has learned.

But, of concern to democracy advocates, Ban has selected as the chair of his Syria task force a person who served as a minister and ambassador for Ali Saleh, Yemen's dictator: Amat Al Alim Alsoswa.

What is Ban saying, these whistleblowing critics asked Inner City Press, by put in charge of the UN's response to Syria a person who served another dictatorship and, they say, has even now been lobbying for the UN to not be involved in or monitor the promised democratization in Yemen?

Serving as Amat Al Alim Alsoswa's deputy, the sources say, will be Oscar Fernandez Tarranco, now with the UN Department of Political Affairs but previously working with Amat Al Alim Alsoswa at the UN Development Program.

On the same day, Yemenis and others scheduled a protest against Saleh's immunity in front of the Ritz Carlton -- and, incongruously, Lebanon's Mission tweeted a photo of the protest, here. "Retweets are not an endorsement, indeed," one wag said. But this wasn't a re-tweet: it was reporting. Watch this site.

Footnote: At Thursday's UN noon briefing, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky began at 12:10 and then ended abruptly at 12:25, leaving even question that were in-queue not responded to. Even those that were allowed to be asked were not answered, including a request for an answer promised 10 days ago; not even an explanation for the lack of follow-through has been provided. We aim to have more on this.

Former Saleh Minister Is UN Face in Arab World, UNDP Yemen Website Dormant

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 4 -- Amid news that Ali Abdullah Saleh is leaving Yemen, under the immunity deal he has three times before rejected, the United Nations' engagement with Saleh's thirty year rule has come into focus.

Inner City Press has repeatedly asked the UN Development Program about its director for Arab states, Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, who previously served as a Saleh minister and has since “been the UN's face” in the region, according to UN sources critical of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's performance during the Arab Spring.

In April, Inner City Press asked UNDP:

“On Yemen, please state whether former Saleh minister Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa has recused herself from consideration of Yemen programs. Please also state, on deadline, whether Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa or any family member... would be covered by the immunity deal negotiated between Saleh and the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

Days later, UNDP's spokesman responded that

“UN staff are all international civil servants who act in accordance with the United Nations’ standards and norms. Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa assumed her post as Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau of Arab State in 2006 after leaving her official functions with the Government of Yemen. Ms. Alsoswa is not part of any political discussion or agreement taking place in or on Yemen.”

Inner City Press followed up:

“On Yemen, I wanted to know if she is involved in UNDP's program for Yemen, if she or her brother are covered by the immunity negotiated by the GCC.”

UNDP's spokesman responded that she had not recused herself:

“Regional Bureaux perform an oversight function over country programmes. They review the programme and the evaluation plan, based on the quality criteria, to provide in-house quality assurance of the programme. The Director of the Bureau endorses the quality of the evaluation plan prior to the submission to the Executive Board. Ms. Alsoswa and her brothers are not part of any immunity deal.”

The deal, which some say was developed with the input of the US Embassy in Sanaa, doesn't specifically name all of the Saleh associates who would be covered by it.

Earlier this year, even as Saleh has started ordering the use of life ammunition against protesters in Sanaa, UNDP's Helen Clark visited the country accompanied by Amat Al Alim Alsoswa. In UNDP's statements, democracy and the right to peaceful protest were absent.

UNDP promoted the joint visit of Helen Clark and former Saleh minister Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on UNDP's Yemen web site. A visit to the site on June 4 found that it had not been updated for a month, and said virtually nothing about the killing of protesters.

Likewise, the UN's Syria website has been fun of happy talk -- until it disappeared from the Internet on June 3 as part of Assad's crackdown on the 'Net. But why block access to the UN when it is aligned with the dictators? Watch this site.