From UN, US Mission Ambassador for Budget Torsella to Leave at Year's End, of Audits & Sri Lanka, Clean Slates and Free Press

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 16 -- Last week before Bolivia was elected to head the Group of 77 in 2014, Inner City Press reported it and the prediction that this would sharpen issues between the Group, representing developing countries, and richer countries especially the United States.

  When Inner City Press asked the US Mission to the UN's budget and reform ambassador Joseph Torsella about it he smiled and said, you're the G77 guy.

  Now on November 15 the US Mission's Ambassador Samantha Power announced that Torsella will be leaving by the end of 2013.

  Inner City Press immediately tweeted it, along with the suggestion of 21 audit salute, since Torsella focused on the issue of releasing UN audits, pushing forward from where things were under his predecessor at the US Mission, Mark Wallace.

(Wallace went, notably, to United Against a Nuclear Iran which appears dis-united on the issue of new sanctions, with president saying no but spokesperson saying members say yes.)

  Torsella pushed for Fifth (Budget) Committee proceedings to be on UN Television. The Group of 77 responded that other committees like the Second on development and Fourth which included decolonization and work on the rights of Palestinians should also be filmed. 

  Both have happened -- improvements in technology are also involved -- and it's all to the good.

  Last week the G77 meeting at which Bolivia became as Inner City Press first reported the successor to Fiji was not initially televised; when Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access complained, the UN official in charge said it was belatedly on, check before asking.

   But it was UN staff which also complained, and this automatic defending of the UN is one of the things wrong, in the bigger picture for example on the UN bringing cholera to Haiti. Where does Torsella stand on that, before he leaves?

  Torsella, charged with saving money, raised a number of issues, for example the specter of interns flying business class. Some derided this; Inner City Press would point out for example Ban Ki-moon's proposal to create yet another Under Secretary General position for his long time (and American) associate Robert Orr. What example does this set? What is Torsella's position?

Torsella to his credit wasn't just about the money. The issue of lack of accountability in Sri Lanka got delegated to him, in part because military figure Shavendra Silva was cynically put on Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations.

  (Click here for longer form reporting on Sri Lanka and this weekend's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.)

  In classic UN form, Ban stayed away telling Inner City Press it was a decision of the member states. Without saying more, Inner City Press can report Torsella worked on this. One reason more can't be said is that the US Mission so often puts things off the record, sometimes after the fact. 

  Even the farewell for Ambassador Susan Rice was said to be off the record. Inner City Press complied, but scribes more obsequious to the US uploaded selfies of themselves with Rice, and left them up, while attacking investigative journalism and free press at the UN. 

 This too is an issue in the purview of Torsella and whoever his successor will be. The US should do more on this -- with spying undermining privacy, claims of freedom of the press are one of the definitely US values. Let that be pushed at thelawless UN, not only in 2014 but by Torsella before he leaves. 

  Torsella said the US is opposed to "clean slates," without competition, in UN system elections. But in the recent elections for the Human Rights Council, there was no competition to France and the UK in the Western Europe and Other Group, of which the US is a member. There's more work to be done at and on the UN -- much more. 

  Here's one, in the spirit of reform and transparency: cost cutting proposals in the UN system, largely supported by the US Mission, would involve Americans losing their jobs to off-shoring. Is this the US being selfless? Or just hoping no one puts the contradiction together? 

  American Tony Lake at UNICEF is doing it - but he can say he is an international civil servant. The US State Department and Mission - isn't their job to advance American (and Americans') interests at and in the UN? Watch this site.

   

At UN for Human Rights Council, Only Africans and Latin Group Have Competion, Of France & UK Dominance, Jordan Walks Away

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 12 -- Among the UN system's five regional groups, only two have any competition in the election of their members this morning to the UN Human Rights Council.

  The Asian / Pacific Group was going to have competition, before Jordan dropped out. From Eastern Europe, two candidates for two seats. The West European and Other Group, which talks a lot about democracy and against "clean slates," has a clean slate: two candidates, the UK and France, for two seats. As if the UK and France don't already over-dominate, with their veto wielding seats on the Security Council.

  The Latin American and Caribbean Group has Cuba, Uruguay and Mexico vying for two seats. The African Group, for four seats, has five candidates: Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and South Sudan.

On Monday late afternoon, after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech to member states in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, South Sudan's Permanent Representative Francis Deng, himself a former UN official, was seen heading to the Delegates Lounge in last-minute campaigning.

  Also campaigning was a Togolese diplomat running for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The Permanent Representative from another African country told Inner City Press, it's a competitive race, and some "Europeans try to undermine African candidates for the ICTY."

  Down in the UN lobby, Morocco had arranged to have a display in support of its candidacy. In the General Assembly last week, it defended the exclusion of the Frente Polisario from the Security Council stakeout, saying this is only for member states. (The UN told Inner City Press it is only for "participants" in Security Council meetings, a different standard.)

In essence, only two countries will be left exposed as "losers" Tuesday morning. (This is prevalent at all levels of the UN, locking in the lack of reform.) But to compete and lose is one thing -- to through weight around, as is WEOG, is something else. Watch this site.

   

As Sweden Congratulates ECOSOC Winners Including Sudan, Secret Ballots

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, November 9 -- How does the UN work? How should it? On November 8, Sudan won a seat on the UN's Economic and Social Council, with 176 votes in favor out of 192 cast.

  Earlier in the year, much pressure was brought to bear to get Sudan to drop out of the race for the Human Rights Council. But for ECOSOC, which controls among other things the accreditation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate in the UN, Sudan ran unopposed on a clear slate.

  The Geneva-based NGO UN Watch quickly took to Twitter, urging US Ambassador Susan Rice to denounce Sudan's election, and asking the European Union's Catherine Ashton to explain how at least ten (and probably more) EU members voted for Sudan.

  These are secret ballots, but one might expect countries that are loud on human rights to reveal and brag about their votes. But on November 8, Sweden's Mission to the UN tweeted a congratulations to all those elected to ECOSOC.

  Inner City Press replied, Including Sudan? Was Sweden one of the abstainers? There has been no response.

   At an event in the UN Friday with UN Watch, Inner City Press asked if it or its co-presenter the Human Rights Foundation knew who the abstainers were. The response was a suggestion that an enterprising reporter should spend two or three hours and ask all 192 voters how they cast their ballot.

   Inner City Press covers elections at the UN, for example predicting within two votes the margin of victory for current President of the General Assembly Vuk Jeremic. Click here for the pre-vote tweet. People talk, but on condition of anonymity.

   Why don't the countries which brag about human rights, or that they do not engage in vote trading, make public their votes?

   In the UN's North Lawn building on the morning November 9, a Sudanese diplomat joked to Inner City Press, "We got more votes than the United States." The UN vote tally for the US reads 171. And how DID the US vote?

    In a race of five for three Human Rights Council seats on November 12, the US and Sweden are competing with Germany, Greece and Ireland. How did these five vote on Sudan for ECOSOC?

  In the Fifth (Budget) Committee on November 9, the vote among five African candidates for two seats on the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) went two rounds of secret ballot. Inner City Press had predicted that Eritrea, despite sanctions, would get a seat -- and it did, in the form of its Fifth Committee rep Tesfa Alem Seyoum. Babou Sene of Senegal beat incumbent chairman Collen Kelapile, who got 65 votes in the first round, 64 in the second -- all secret. Ah, rotation. We wish him well, and we'll have more on all this.