Follow the Money: US Owes UN $795M, Brazil $75M, First 2 Speakers in GA, Peacekeeping Shorts Rwanda, India, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Pakistan: #Ladsous2013

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 9 -- It's an annual ritual, the UN Controller's report to member states on who much they owe and are owned. But Wednesday morning in the UN's Fifth (Budget) Committee, Controller Yukio Takasu flashed a slide of the two biggest "deadbeats" in paying the UN.

  The US owes $795 million; the second slowest-payer is Brazil, at $75 million. The irony is that these were the first two speakers at the UN's General Debate in late September. (Brazil's Dilma Rousseff slammed the US for spying; Obama delivered a lecture light of Africa, click here for Inner City Press review.)

  Some wonder: should you speak first, if you pay last?

  Takasu also fleetingly disclosed the growing shortfall in or underpayment to UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the position.

  At the end of 2012, states had not paid UN Peacekeeping $2.1 billion. Now? Takasu put the figure at $3.4 billion. It seems fair to ask if among the reasons might not be declining confidence in Ladsous. Certainly, the news of Ladsous' lack of responsiveness has now spread beyond the UN -- click here for an article in yesterday's New Statesman in the UK.

  Ladsous is a deadbeat, too. Given Ladsous' history in the Great Lakes region -- click here for that -- it is problematic that UN Peacekeeping owns $37 million to Rwanda, seemingly its highest per-capita debt.

  UN Peacekeeping also owns India $80 million, Ethiopia $54 million, Bangladesh $50 million and Pakistan $49 million. It's a South Asian thing - plus Abyei, the entire peacekeeping mission in which Ethiopia runs.

  After Takasu's presentation, Inner City Press asked him off-camera about a story it's working on involving stealthy Qatari funding (Inner City Press has asked if Saudi Arabia will be solicited too, a form of competition like in Syria and Egypt, and also for transparency). We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

   

In DC, Ban Calling US "Deadbeat" Recalled, UN Stonewalls on Sex Abuse

By Matthew Russell Lee

WASHINGTON* DC, September 13 -- On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the UN under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was harshly criticized for being weak on human rights and lacking accountability.

Pushing a bill which would make US funding of the UN on on a la carte basis, Rep. Illiana Ros-Lehtinen said the UN adds "insult to injury, as the Secretary-General did two years ago when he came to Congress, as our guest, and called the U.S. the world’s 'biggest deadbeat.' I was there."

Inner City Press was there on Capitol Hill -- the question was, did Ban himself come up with the "biggest deadbeat" line, or did one of his aides, Robert Orr or Michael Myer, write it in advance?

When Ban came out of that closed door hearing, he smiled proudly, or another thought furtively, as he acknowledged to the press that he had called the US a deadbeat.

Shortly after Ros-Lehtinen quoted Ban Ki-moon's past comment, Ban in New York was answering questions pre-screened by JuJu Chang of ABC News in what was called a Social Media townhall. The first question, which Chang called "pointed," asked about modernizing the UN.

Ban blathered about the UN planting one billion trees, flashed a card listing what the UN does "every day," then mentioned without detail "accountability and transparency." How? When?

Earlier this year Inner City Press repeatedly asked how Ban's part-time envoy to Libya Al Khatib was being paid, and how it complied with the UN Charter that he also remained a sitting Senator in Jordan. The UN repeatedly dodged and stonewalled the question, and now Al Khatib's unsuccessful mediation is over.

What ever happened with the Sri Lankan peacekeepers repatriated from Haiti after being accused of sexual abuse of minors, as Uruguayans since have been? No answer. Or with the Beninois peacekeepers sent back from Cote d'Ivoire for buying under-age sex with food? No answer. Transparency? Accountability? When? Watch this site.

* - with reporting from Washington DC.

U.S. "Deadbeat-Gate" Draws Midnight Clarification from UN's Ban Ki-moon: He Said It, But...

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dcban5media031209.html

CAPITOL HILL, March 12 -- As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning, ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen emerged and told the Press that Ban "used the word deadbeat when it came to describing the United States... unbelievable."

Minutes later, Ban stopped and spoke to the three reporters present, including Inner City Press, all three of whom had tape recorders running. He was asked, did you use the word 'deadbeat'? Inner City Press asked, "Ros-Lehtinen seemed to say you did."

"Yes I did, I did," Ban replied, and then smiled impishly. His spokesperson, who also tape recorded the exchange, then said Ban had to go. He rushed away down the hallway surrounded by aides.

At least two stories were written. Then, past midnight, Ban's Spokesperson's office issued a midnight "clarification" --

Subj: To clarify any misunderstanding about the Secretary General
From: unspokesperson-donotreply@un.org
To: Inner City Press [et al.]
Sent: 3/12/2009 12:19:10 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

The Secretary-General said: "The United States generously supports the work of the UN , both in assessed and voluntary contributions".

The Secretary-General also added that while the United States is the most generous contributor to the United Nations, it is also the largest debtor, with more than one billion dollars of arrears owed to the organization.

The Secretary-General enjoys an excellent working relationship with the United States and appreciates the many ways that it supports the United Nations.

New York, 11 March 2009

One problem with this clarification is that it does not address the point raised by Rep. Ros-Lehtinen and the stories, Ban's use of the term deadbeat. Ban's Spokesperson was there with tape recorder running. Ban said that the U.S. has $1 billion in arrears to the UN, "soon to be" $1.6 billion.

The irony is that Ban is widely viewed in the UN as, if anything, too pro-United States. Another Republican who spoke to the Press outside the meeting on Wednesday, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, said he prefers Ban to Kofi Annan, noting that Ban supported Israel by speaking about and publicizing Hamas' rocket fire.

One interpretation of Ban's laughing statement that he called the U.S. a deadbeat is that Ban was trying to show some "street cred," that he is not in the pocket of the Americans. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee on international organizations, Massachusetts' William Delahunt, told the Press he think Ban is right, that the U.S. should pay all its arrears before it criticized the UN.

In this context, it appears to some far to defensive and craven for Ban's Office to issue this midnight clarification. "If you said it, you said it," one source argued. "Stand behind it. And if you put out a clarification, at least address that quote you are trying to clarify."

Ban's promised monthly press conference, already delayed, is now scheduled for Thursday at 11 a.m.. Inner City Press is still in Washington and cannot ask these questions. Most current UN correspondents, it seems, would agree with Ban's word choice if not his midnight retreat. Will the issue come up and be clarified by the man himself? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/dcban5media031209.html

UN's Ban on Capitol Hill Grilled about Reform, Praised as Hardworking, Darfur Raised

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dcban4media031109.html

CAPITOL HILL, March 11 -- The UN's Ban Ki-moon, beginning his second day in the U.S. capital, swept with his entourage down a windowless hallway of the Rayburn Office Building to one of the conference rooms of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He had met with the committee's chairman Howard Berman, but now faced Republicans including Ranking Member Illeana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and Joe Wilson of South Carolina. On his way in to room 2255, Ban stopped and joked to Inner City Press, "You are accredited here too?"

The head of Ban's Department of Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe chided, "You'll have to shoot your White House source for yesterday, Myanmar wasn't mentioned." He may have misread the Inner City Press news analysis: the source spoke just before Ban's closed door meeting with Obama. No UN correspondent was allowed to the subsequent press availability, at which in any event there were no questions. The analysis was of how the Obama administration is changing its Myanmar policy based on lobbying from oil and gas firms.

While the House meeting, too, was closed-door, three Representatives emerged and spoke with the Press. Democrat Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts talked about a study he had commissioned from the GAO for the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight that he chairs, which concluded that supporting UN Peacekeeping is cheaper for the U.S., for example in Haiti, than the U.S. "doing it itself."

Rep. Delahunt was asked if Ban Ki-moon is viewed as an effective leader. "He is hard-working," Rep. Delahunt answered after a time. And his views are consistent with those of many members.

Rep. Joe Wilson added that Ban's visit to southern Israel, in a show of solidarity "about Hamas' rockets," was positively viewed. Rep. Wilson compared Ban favorably to Kofi Annan on this score. He said he'd raised to Ban "nuclear proliferation and Iran." Inner City Press asked him if North Korea had been raised. I should have raised that, Rep. Wilson said. One might have added Sri Lanka, as Wilson serves on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and head UN Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy later told Inner City Press that the words Sri Lanka were not raised in the House meetings, nor with President Obama.

Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen took a decidedly different tack. She said that while Ban claimed to be moving on "transparency, accountability and reform... we all tend to raise our eyebrows when we hear this."

Inner City Press asked if whistleblower protections had arisen. Yes, I brought up the UN Development Program, she answered, Ban is going to select a new Administrator for UNDP who should be expected to improve UNDP's whistleblower protections and ethics programs.

Ironically, some now express concern that Ban may simply promote the current Associate Administrator Ad Melkert, who oversaw much of the retaliation against whistleblowers on which Rep. Ros-Lehtinen has spoken, as early as Thursday.

When Ban Ki-moon emerged, to his credit he stopped briefing to speak to the Press. On climate change, he said he is urging Senator John Kerry and Rep. Ed Markey to pass climate change, or cap and trade, legislation before the December conference in Copenhagen.

Inner City Press asked what Ban is urging the U.S. to go about the situation in Darfur, from which 13 large NGOs have been expelled. Ban cited President Obama's statements of the evening previous, then said with some passion that "humanitarian work has nothing to do with the ICC," the International Criminal Court, and that "we provide 1.2 million people with humanitarian assistance."

Ban was asked if he had, as Rep. Ros-Lehtinen had said, called the United States a "deadbeat." He indicted that he had used the word. Ros-Lehtinen had expressed anger at this, wondering why by contrast Ban is so diplomatic about human rights violators. The Myanmar situation again came to mind. But, to be clear, the word Myanmar was not uttered in either of Ban's meetings.

Ban's Spokesperson indicated that he had to go. His entourage, including his Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff Kim Won-soo -- who was not listed as present in the previous day's pool report -- and the American Robert Orr, Lynn Pascoe and the chief of the UN Information Center in Washington Will Davis, hustled down a stairway to the waiting limousine and mini-bus.

Alain Le Roy trailed behind, answering questions to the end. He confirmed to Inner City Press that the issue of which bank UNRWA uses had been raised -- by Ros-Lehtinen -- and that Ban had said he would have to look into it. He confirmed that neither Sri Lanka nor Madagascar had come up, "unfortunately." He said that while the previous administration was in favor of UN Peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the current one says it needs to study the issue. And then the bus and limousine sped off.

To some it appears that, under these Democrats, UN reform issues have fallen off the table. Even Ban's supporters, when asked about his effectiveness or charisma, answer only that he is hardworking -- which is undeniable. We'll have more on this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/dcban4media031109.html