Exclusive: At UNSC, As Abelian Is Promoted Out, Eyes on Kelvin Ong, Transparency Needed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- There will be a vacancy atop the UN's Security Council Affairs Division, now that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has promoted Movses Abelian to the Assistant Secretary-General position in the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management vacated by Catherine Pollard. So who will fill it?

   A possible candidate several sources have independently and exclusively named to Inner City Press is Kelvin Ong, currently Chief of the Security Council's Sanctions Branch.

  Ban's press release identified Abelian as “born in Armenia and a national of Georgia” - clumsily, as it turns out, as he is a dual national and is taking at the ASG position as an Armenian. He was previously Armenia's Permanent Representative to the UN. Why Ban emphasized the Georgia connection is not known.

   We note that “Highlights of Security Council Practice 2015” contains data about the topics of the Council's “Any Other Business” meetings. But we will be pushing for increased transparency, including on such nitty gritty issues as how and by whom it is decided which media can accompany Council trips like the recent one to Burundi, going forward. Watch this site.

At UN, Sudan Says JEM's Gone South from Libya, Bashir's Tripoli Trip Not Raised

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 11 -- With Darfur the topic in the Security Council on Wednesday morning, some were surprised that Sudan's newly independent neighbor South Sudan spoke in the open meeting.

Later it made sense: Sudan's Permanent Representative Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman used part of his long speech to accuse South Sudan of sheltering the Justice and Equality Movement rebels and "seventy nine four by four" technicals.

Afterward Inner City Press asked South Sudan's representative David Choat about the charge and he denied it, saying that Security Council members too know it is not true. But the Council went behind closed doors after the three speeches.

Thus, after Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said that JEM had been supported by Gaddafi and left Libya after the regime fell, there was no public response from any Council member about International Criminal Court indictee Omar al Bashir's recent trip to Libya.

Libya's new leaders' ambivalent relationship with the ICC seems to a topic on which loud ICC supporters like France do not want to speak.

Inner City Press asked David Choat about South Sudan's oil dispute with Khartoum. "This is not the forum for oil," he said.

While Choat kept his speech short, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman went long, even stopping to criticize a "Secretariat official" for having a "side conversation" and not listening to him. Afterward a range of attendees said the jibe was directed at the director of Security Council Affairs, Movses Abelian.

A person close to the incident said that this month's Council president had, as frequently happens, asked the head of Security Council Affairs and his staff a question, and was getting an answer.

Two Council Permanent Representatives told Inner City Press that Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman's criticism was "ridiculous." With the number of diplomats using their BlackBerries -- if they work -- during Council meetings, to call anyone out is decidedly bad form. But as Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman made, make peace or be punished. Watch this site.

Amid UN Council Card Games, Turnover Continues, Olek Matsuka's Rise

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- The UN Security Council late on June 23 resembled a casino or series of card games. In the consultations room there were consultation on sanctions in Liberia. Elsewhere, the new draft resolution to send Ethiopian troops to Abyei was being discussed.

As experts on the Golan Heights mission UNDOF returned from meeting in the UN's North Lawn building, it emerged that Russia had “put into blue” its draft resolution on the topic, not containing the condemnation of violence sought by Western members including the United States.

(Being put in blue ink connotes that a resolution can be voted on within 24 hours. Click here for Inner City Press' previous article about the departure of the Council's long-time and much missed “Mister Blue,” Troy Setiawan.)

Speaking to Council diplomats as they went in and out of the casino, Inner City Press learned that Russia had just circulated a draft resolution seeking to establish a new UN Special Representative on the allegations of organ trafficking in and by leaders of Kosovo.

“It's tied to something else,” one diplomat whispered to Inner City Press. It always is.

If the Council is a casino, its work is held together by a staff of croupiers or card dealers. This staff, called the Security Council Affairs Division, has seen rapid turnover of late.

As Inner City Press exclusively reported, the chief of the UN Department of Political Affairs which oversees SCA Lynn Pascoe, after issuing a disciplinary note to file moved Horst Heitmann from the top job in Security Council Affairs over to DPA's Middle East division.

Norma Chan returned from retirement to fill in at the top, and Loraine Sievers continued in what's called the second spot. After a longer interim period than projected, Movses Abelian came south from being omnipresent secretary of the Fifth (Budget) Committee in the North Lawn to SCA's top spot.

(That the Fifth Committee under Abelian's successor Sharon van Buerle has still not, as of June 24, finished what's called its "May" session is referred to by some, only half in jest, as a tribute to Abelian.)

Now, with Loraine Sievers retiring at the end of this month, a recruitment was held to replace her. Source told Inner City Press that Abelian wisely played no part in the panel, since he would have to keep working with whomever came in second to be second. (Abelian explains this as that the process began before he took up his position.)

The finalists were Oseloka Obaze, who rose to prominence in DPA when former Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari had what's now Pascoe's job, and Oleksandr Matsuka, who despite the Japanese sounding name is listed by the UN as UKR: Ukrainian.

During the selection process, staff were told to send all notices for July 2011 to Matsuka, called Olek. Some thought this indicated in advance who would win. They were not surprised, then, when a belated e-mail went out declaring Matsuka the winner.

There was dark talk that Obaze, who has more seniority, was passed over due to his connections with Gambari, said to not be a selling point with Pascoe's chief of staff Karin Ann Gerlach. Others note that both are qualified, and will be working together in the number two spot to some degree.

After Inner City Press mentioned the transition, presaged by the direction to send July e-mails to Matsuka, in a piece this week about another Security Council member transition, UK Political Coordinator David Quarrey's return to London to a national security job, it was quickly explained to Inner City Press first that both Matsuka and Obaze were getting the e-mails about July.

Then this was modified: Matsuka was receiving July, and Obaze August. While promotions to posts at the UN's D-1 level like this are usually not announced, it was done in this case.

Sievers, after her long service in the Council, will become the co-author of the fourth edition of the standard treatise on the procedures of the Security Council. We wish her well, as the games go on.

We'll aim to have a book review, as well as an update on an overarching question here: what happens with Lynn Pascoe, and with the top spot at the UN Department of Political Affairs? Watch this site.