On Syria, Brahimi Tells ICP Atrocities on Both Sides, "Not in Number But Yes"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- After Lakhdar Brahimi briefed the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Council President Masood Khan of Pakistan came out to speak to the media.

  Inner City Press asked him about the follow up meeting of Brahimi and the Permanent Five members of the Council: didn't this devalue the Council as a whole?

  Khan said no, the P5 meeting could be very valuable.

  When Brahimi came out, the Department of Political Affairs spokesman Jared Kotler is the one who chose the questions. They went one way; afterward Brahimi walked over to Inner City Press, what was the question?

"Did you tell the Council that both sides have committed "equally atrocious crimes"?

Not by numbers, Brahimi said. But yes, atrocities.

During the meeting, a Security Council diplomat told Inner City Press that while Brahimi was pushing for a resolution based on the Geneva declaration, he wants Assad to go. The diplomat, anonymous because not the Permanent Representative authorized to speak on the record, said that made it a non-starter. We'll see. Watch this site.

As Boumedra Says Kobler Ordered False Reports in Iraq, UN Now Denies It: Whose Picture Is Distorted?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 22, updated Aug 23, below -- Alongside disputes about conditions in Camp Liberty in Iraq, there is a more limited UN specific controversy.  

 What to make of the statement by former UN Mission in Iraq human rights officer Tahar Boumedra that current Special Representative of the Secretary General Martin Kobler told him to only send out "positive photographs," and more troublingly to "falsify reports"?

  Inner City Press has been seeking direct UN response to this allegation, from the head of the Mission, and from spokespeople in New York, and has yet to get one. [But see below, Update of August 23.]

  Here's from the public interchange at Wednesday's UN noon briefing, video here from Minute 46 --

Inner City Press: the former human rights official of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq says he was ordered by Martin Kobler to'doctor photographs and fabricate reports.' Is there a direct response to this man – and he’s described as a whistle-blower – his claim that he was ordered to only take photographs of the positive things and essentially file inaccurate reports. Does the UN deny that?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: it’s regrettable that such a distorted picture is being presented of the efforts of the United Nations in Iraq to resolve peacefully the situation of Camp Ashraf. And in fact, the UN Mission, under the leadership of Special Representative Martin Kobler, has worked diligently and impartially to facilitate a peaceful solution that respects the rights and concerns of both residents and the Government of Iraq... with regards to the conditions in Camp Houria, (Freedom), they have all the basics that they need and beyond. kitchens, a fully equipped gym, a mosque, several community centres, a medical centre staffed by two Iraqi doctors working in shifts, two ambulances on constant stand-by, and there’s bottled water brought in for residents, electricity from 19 generators, and residents have cell phone, Internet connection and satellite television.

Inner City Press: I'm even aware that one Security Council member said that people live better there than in their own country – the country of the Security Council member. But I just wanted to know, because it’s kind of a whistleblower case, he’s claiming that he was ordered to do things that he said were inconsistent with the UN Charter and his duty. Is there a response to sort of, that he was told to doctor these reports? Whether the satellite TV is working or not is a separate question — but, it’s strange; I’ve tried to get an answer from Mr. Kobler and others. Do they deny that these orders were given?

Spokesperson: I think I would just go back to what’s already been said, and that’s that it is a distorted picture.

  But what is the UN saying is distorted: the picture of conditions in the camp, or the claim that a UN official, previously in charge of human rights, was told to "doctor" reports?

  Kobler is back and forth between the camps. A knowledgeable person tells Inner City Press that while Boumedra WAS UNAMI's human rights officer, even under Kobler's predecessor Ad Melkert, he'd shifted to become adviser on Camp Ashraf.

  Is it acceptable, if it happened, for the UN to order such an official to doctor reports? We think not, and will keep asking. 

Update of August 23, 11:46 am -- and then this came in:

Subject: Re: Ashraf/UNAMI fact sheetFrom: Jared Kotler [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 11:32 AM
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com

Matthew,  You asked specifically about allegations by a former staff member of misleading use of photos or “doctoring” of reports in connection with the work of the UN on Camp Ashraf.  We would like to state very clearly that such allegations are false.  

   Watch this site.

In Central Asia, UN Ban Blind to Corruption, Skips Prisoners Rights and Water Wars

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
www.innercitypress.com/ban1centas040310.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 3 -- As the UN's Ban Ki-moon traipses Central Asia, what of political prisoners, UN hiring scandals and simmering cross border conflicts? Apparently for the UN Secretary General, these don't exist. Before Ban started his trip, Inner City Press asked why the UN was not even to solve the dam-based conflict between Tajkistan and Uzbekisan. Don't call it a conflict, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said. What what should it be called?

As Inner City Press has reported, Uzbekistan opposes the Tajik dam so much it shut the country's border. Why isn't the vaunted Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia involved?

A UN source alleging corruption in the UNRCCA notes

On the website of the Center, there is not a single word about the Dam. but there is a tender announcement for the fitness equipment for the gymnasium at the UNRCCA building - the former elite Demiryolchy Hotel. The question is whether the procurement of the fitness equipment is reconciled with the UN budget rules and regulations, or whether it is a good UN background for the unsolved Dam conflict.

http://unrcca.unmissions.org/ the left click Tenders http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=4319

At Tnders page you could see translation: The Regional UN Center (UNRCCA) announces the tender: Fitness equipment for the gymnesium)

http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=4319&ctl=Details&mid=4408&ItemID=8098

http://unrcca.unmissions.org/portals/unrcca/gym.pdf is set of pictures.

Meanwhile

Miloslav Jenca (Slovakia), SRSG and head of UNRCCA, has published an article “Developments in Central Asia and the role of the UNRCCA” in International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy AffairsIssue no.02 /2009, Publisher: Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA)

The curiosity is that it can be read only if the reader would pay 25 Euro (€) in advance (from each the price of Jenca’s article would be taken). Click here. the UN staff in general and of Jenca’s status in particular are not supposed to publish the UN related staff for money (not saying about other connotations).

Turkmenistan would be the first country in the SG tour – 2 April (would SRSG Jenca inform the SG of the fitness equipment tendered – especially of the ball to play at the beach?

In the Fall of 2009, Inner City Press asked and was given the run-around about a hiring scandal in this Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia. Inner City Press posed this question in writing:

In a message dated 8/27/2009 3:50:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, montas [at] un.org writes:
Please refer your DPA questions to Jared Kotler

I've been referred to you for a response to the allegations below concerning hiring in the Regional Center in Turkmenistan (the United Nations Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia).Also, please tell me when Jan Egeland's job with DPA ended, what he did during his tenure and how much he was paid.

on the RCPDCA, while here is more to this story, but let's start on deadline with confirmation or denial of the below:

During 2005-2007 Mr. Miloslav Jenca, Slovakia , worked in Tashkent as the OSCE Head of Office/OSCE Project Co-coordinator in Uzbekistan together with Ms. Polina Pomogalova , Uzbekistan , as his local general support staff:

http://www.osce.org/uzbekistan/photos.html?lsi=true&src=22&limit=6&pos=36

Mr.Jenca at OSCE, Uzbekistan

http://www.osce.org/documents/eea/2007/10/27048_en.pdf

Ms. Polina Pomogalova at OSCE, Uzbekisan, page 3

In December 2007 the UNRCCA ( United Nations Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia) was inaugurated by Lynn Pascoe, DPA in Ashgabat.

In April 2008 Mr. Miloslav Jenca was appointed UNRCCA Head and SRSG, (“…Mr.. Jenca, currently the Director of the Office of Slovakia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, recently served as head of mission for the OSCE centre in Tashkent , Uzbekistan …”)

Soon after this Ms. Polina Pomogalova was appointed the Personal Assistant to the SRSG Jenca at UNRCCA: see the UNRCCA web site:

http://unrcca.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1995

“…Ms. Polina Pomogalova, Personal Assistant to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Ambassador Jenca…”

Question: How could it be that Polina Pomogalova without a single day of the UN experience was shortlisted for an interview by PMSS while other candidates with the extensive UN experience in Central Asia and technically cleared to the positions of this category were not included? How could it be that the UNRCCA interview board recommended exactly Polina Pomogalova? The answer seems clear: she was the protégé of SRSG Jenca and it was he who had arranged everything.

Again, there is more to this story, but let's start on deadline with what is the UN's / DPA's . the Center's response?

The majority of the above was simply never responded to, just as the UN's Department of Political Affairs refused to respond to or address nepotism and hiring scandals in its Africa II unit and the Central African Republic. This lack of accountability extends to the UN's approach to human rights.

As Ban left on April 1, Inner City Press asked his Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq if Ban would visit political prisoners:

Inner City Press: In terms of the Secretary-General’s trip through Central Asia, I’m wondering, various groups, including Human Rights Watch, have said this is an opportunity for him to address issues such as, in Uzbekistan, the failure to prosecute anyone for the Andijon massacre, as well as the abuse of political prisoners, religious minorities and others. What is the place of the issue of human rights in the Secretary-General’s trip, and specifically, is he going to raise Andijon while he is in Uzbekistan?

Associate Spokesperson Haq: I’m not going to get ahead of the Uzbekistan portion of the trip before it happens. What I will say is: it’s always clear whenever the Secretary-General visits countries that human rights, international humanitarian law and other norms are always part of what he discusses with his interlocutors. He certainly plans to do that over the course of his trip to Central Asia. And one of the things that he is going to do in the various countries that he visits is to reach out to civil society. As you know, civil society organizations have been developing in many of these countries. We will provide you with the details of those visits as they transpire. There is nothing really to say about them just yet.

Inner City Press: There are fairly high-profile, what are called political prisoners, although the Governments disagree in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and I am wondering, does he have, when he says he’s going to reach out to civil society, can you say whether he’s actually asked to meet any imprisoned political figure?

Associate Spokesperson: I wouldn’t give the itinerary, the precise itinerary, of his meetings just yet, but we’ll provide those details as they arise. But certainly, he will be meeting with civil society, and the sort of concerns he brings on all of his trips he will also bring on this one.

But what, for example, of the HIV activist imprisoned by Uzbekistan which called his UNICEF-funded pamphlet blasphemous? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/ban1centas040310.html

At UN, Rebellion and Retaliation in Political Affairs Unit, Pascoe's Transfer Questioned, Faces French - Obama Switch?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/undpa1filenote100809.html

UNITED NATIONS, October 8, updated Oct. 9 -- The UN Department of Political Affairs, charged with working internationally for peace, has devolved into some internal warfare. On October 8, DPA chief B. Lynn Pascoe wrote an angry "note to file" about two of his directors, who rebelled against what many of Inner City Press' sources in DPA call a flawed and even corrupt hiring process. The note to file, after DPA's response, is being published by Inner City Press here.

As Mr. Pascoe's Note to File about "Unacceptable Conduct by Messrs. Martinovic and Heitmann" has it, "a P5 level staff member in my office volunteered for the internal mobility exercise. I reviewed the Vacancy Announcement that was posted for the P5 in the Subsidiary Organs [of the Security Council] Branch, and I deemed that she was qualified for the post."

There was only one problem: public notice of this P5 post has already been published, and three candidates from outside the UN had already applied. They were told that a test would be administered to make the process competitive and merit-based. Then they were told that the examination was canceled "for technical reasons."

One of the suddenly disqualified finalists, from Germany, came to New York and demanded of Mr. Aleksandar Martinovic to know what these "technical reasons" were. Another internal candidate, already expert on sanctions, was also sidelined by Mr. Pascoe's unilateral decision to place his colleague Michele Griffin into the vacant P5 post, effective October 20, 2009.

Returning to Mr. Pascoe's disciplinary version, after he "issued a note to all DPA staff announcing the move, plus one other transfer, on 2 October, 2009" suddenly Mr. Martinovic and Horst Heitmann, the head of the Security Council Division, informed Mr. Pascoe's Special Assistant Karin Ann Gerlach that "they no longer required the post, did not need the staff member I had laterally re-assigned."

This was a protest of Mr. Pascoe's circumvention of an already begun recruitment process, sources tell Inner City Press. But rather than reconsider his actions, challenged by two respected directors in DPA, Pascoe fired off a note to their personnel files, calling it a "direct contravention of... the instructions I issued as head of the Department... unacceptable conduct for senior managers."

For the head of the UN Secretariat's main diplomatic unit to resort to managing his directors by vituperative notes to personnel files strikes some as a bad sign.

Less documented than the above but not entirely unrelated, well placed sources in the UN say that the United States is mulling taking over the Department of Peacekeeping Affairs, thereby displacing its current chief Alain Le Roy, but in exchange giving DPA to Le Roy's native France. They noted, however, that India too is making a claim to the Peacekeeping post. Watch this site.

While there is no mechanism, it appears, for a "note to the personnel file" of Mr. Pascoe, his circumvention of an already begun recruitment exercise, disregard for the protests of two long time directors, and notes to their files do not reflect well on him. Pascoe concludes, "I have asked Mr. [Haile] Menkerios to duly note this incident on both e-PAS' for the 2009/10 cycle."

Mr. Menkerios is known as Pascoe's "go-to" guy for African issues, totally sidelining Pascoe's predecessor as DPA chief Ibrahim Gambari. But with Menkerios reportedly up to replace Rodolphe Adada in Darfur, will he continue as the e-PAS hatchet man against two of his directors?

A month ago, Inner City Press posed a simple question to DPA and its spokesman, about a hiring process. It took more than three weeks to get it answered, and even then, only partially. While that story is finally in preparation, the report above, supported by two documents with Mr. Pascoe's signature, does not require any three week wait. Pascoe's note to file says "they will have an opportunity to respond in writing should they wish." So, on that or Pascoe's response, we have have more. Watch this site.

Footnote: On October 8, the day Pascoe signed the above quoted note to file, Inner City Press asked him questions on the record about both Somalia and Guinea. On the former, both on and off camera, Pascoe presented himself as unaware of the specifics of the United States' curtailment of aid to the UN World Food Program due to questions about the applicability of anti-terrorism laws to aid in the Al Shabaab controlled portions of Somalia. Video here from Minute 7:47.

On the latter, Pascoe expressed outrage about the rapes in Guinea, and said he hoped for an election, to which the UN would provide help. Video here, from Minute 11:29.

Hopefully clearer than in Afghanistan.

Then Inner City Press obtained a copy of Pascoe's note to file, which seems an equally or more accurate reflection of current DPA diplomacy.

Update of October 9, 2009: rather than the more that three weeks it took to answer a simple question about an office overseen by the Department of Political Affairs, this time DPA sent a response the next day:

Subj: in response to your blog posting of today
From: Jared Kotler [at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 10/9/2009 12:03:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

Under USG Pascoe’s leadership, DPA is undergoing a process of strengthening and renewal which includes a mobility exercise intended to broaden the experiences of staff members, consistent with broader efforts to create a more mobile and well rounded Secretariat. The staff transfer you refer to on your blog today was taken in that context. Incidentally, you may be unaware that, as established in ST/AI/2006/3, it is entirely within the authority of a Department head to transfer staff laterally within a department. The reasons for the note to the file you refer to on you blog are well summarized therein.

Jared Kotler
Office of the Under-Secretary General
UN Department of Political Affairs

And so, we publish the note to file, here and above. The protest / refusal to go along of two long standing and respected directors in DPA remains noteworthy. Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson, who Inner City Press asked about this on October 9, said that Ban would have not comments on the specifics. The question was and is, does UN "mobility" allow for a hiring process so irregular that long time and respected directors protest it? And is the answer to fire off vituperative notes to file? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undpa1filenote100809.html