In UN Mine Action Service Complaints Of Harassment By Marcaillou Who Counts on Lacroix and Guterres

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive CJR  PFT

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 – In today's UN system, decay and rot are rarely addressed and cleaned up. Rather, those who complain are retaliated against. And if the Press reports on it, it to faces retaliation - in Inner City Press' case, a ban from even entering the UN that now stands at 212 days with no end in sight.  In that context, the leaked just keep on coming. In December Inner City Press reported on complaint against the head of the UN Mine Action Service, Agnès Marcaillou of France, adding that UNSG Antonio Guterres' peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix was seen by UNMAS staff as covering up for Marcaillou.    Since then Inner City Press has learned of more complaints against Marcaillou and of her attempt, which many staff call desperate, to address or shut them up. For the February 1 noon briefing that Inner City Press was again banned from attending in person, it before the briefing in writing asked Guterres and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric (also French) questions including: "February 1-3: On UNMAS please immediately confirm or deny what whistleblowers tell Inner City Press, that there are over a dozen harassment, bullying and abuse of authorities cases filed at UN against head of UNMAS Agnès Marcaillou and  that the cases came to attention to head of DPO rule of law and security ASG Alexander Zuev and Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Francois Renaud Lacroix. Was she politely asked to resign but refused to do so? Confirm / explain her statements: " Today I want to appeal to those of you who have shared their discontent with colleagues, partners, inside and outside the UNMAS/UNOPS circles, to please not break UNMAS; what you have work so hard for; please do not split the strong and capable team that has made UNMAS the worldwide respected entity it is today; do not undermine what most colleagues have worked so hard for in the past 6 years that I have been here with you.   I feel that there is too much for UNMAS to lose!"     

Despite Dujarric's on camera promise to answer such questions, and the written promise of USG Alison Smale, there has been no answer. So here is more of Marcaillou's "address to staff," in advance of a meeting she and other USGs will be attending in Geneva on February 4 - how soon will she be fired? From her address to all staff: "today’s UNMAS team picture is not all pink and rosy.   All is not well in UNMAS when a few of you are unhappy. Unhappy to the extent that they have reached the highest echelons of the Organization, complained about their condition and about their Director on a number of mostly undisclosed grievances.   From what I gather, some of the grievances are related to the fact that my standards are too high; that I am overly demanding; that staff are being victimized and drawn to seek counseling and medical support. Some of you have also made disparaging/belittling statements about me, and also about UNMAS performance, to quite a large and diverse audience; a few of you have even stated, wide and large enough to reach me, that my leadership “was mean on purpose” and “my management ineffective: that they needed to clear their way, and, according to rumors, that because I had not been forced into retirement last Summer, “with some more push I would be ousted soon and even maybe before the end of the year”.   This means a lot to me...   I was obviously blinded by a rising UNMAS, by its accomplishments, good results and the enthusiasm shared by other colleagues; I thought I was coaching an “all- winning team" .. Today I want to appeal to those of you who have shared their discontent with colleagues, partners, inside and outside the UNMAS/UNOPS circles, to please not break UNMAS; what you have work[ed] so hard for; please do not split the strong and capable team that has made UNMAS the worldwide respected entity it is today; do not undermine what most colleagues have worked so hard for in the past 6 years that I have been here with you.   I feel that there is too much for UNMAS to lose! ... I am committed to presenting, at the earliest, in January 2019, to Under Secretary-General Lacroix a forward-looking plan; this requires your inputs. I will also seek his and other UN departments support to help us, his staff, all of us together, to rebuild a unified, strong and happy team. He has always been open to listening and meeting his staff and I do not expect him to react any differently to our demand for support and help... I thank you for your attention.   Agnès Marcaillou   Director UNMAS." So Marcaillou is counting on Lacroix. Inner City Press has tweeted the issue at @Lacroix_UN. Watch this site.

At UN, As Guterres Meets African Union, UN's Mistreatment of Press Arises, Cameroon to Come

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 19 – When UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did a photo op at 9:25 am with the African Union's Moussa Faki Mahamat, the conference room was full of name tags. Inner City Press took the (first) photo and was told to wait on the 37th floor until 10 am for a "photo spray." At that time, the room was full with AU officials including Early Warning and Conflict Prevention specialist Frederic Ngaga Gateretse, who to his credit took note of the UN's bad treatment of the Press. Video here and embedded below.

 Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, made aware, came to the end of the table and spoke with ASGs Taye Brook Zerihoun and Gettu, who joked that "The Horn" (or part of it) was represented. New UN Peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix came in; Jeffrey Feltman was in the meeting, but not apparently Stephen O'Brien. 

UNFPA's Babatunde Osotimehin came up late on the elevator. Minutes afterward, the UN announced that Guterres' 5 pm meeting with Egypt's Minister Badr would no longer be open to the media, as his UN is giving Inner City Press' longtime space work space to Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom, whose long absent correspondent rarely comes in, never asks questions. This is today's UN: and it must improve. So too must Guterres' and Mohammed's UN's performance on Cameroon and other AU topics. Watch this site.

  On April 18 when Guterres did a photo op and meeting with Ukraine's deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya, his close adviser Katrin Hett came to tell the assembled staffers they would not be needed, the meeting would be held with only four on each side in Guterres' office overlooking the East River and Queens. Things are getting more and more private: Guterres' spokesman Stephane Duajrric for example has twice refused to answer Inner City Press if as reported Guterres tried to reach Cameroon's president of decades Paul Biya, about the cut off of the Internet there. Others have noticed the rash of German officials getting jobs: Achim Steiner at UNDP and prospectively Horst Kohler on Western Sahara. But some office on 38 now have blank signs. Kyslytsya had just given a right of reply in the Security Council, about Crimea. The mystery and payback for Guterres getting all of the Permanent Five members of the Council on his side to get elected has still not be revealed. But earlier on April 18, Inner City Press which remains evicted from its UN office and confined the UN minders was told, by the minders, that it cannot even work at a table in the UN lobby. This has been raised, yes, to the 38th floor. So they know. There are no rules - a topic, in another context, that Kyslytsya raised in the Security Council.

Back on April 10 when Guterres did a photo op with the Club de Madrid - World Leadership Alliance including another candidate for Secretary General, Danilo Turk, it was impossible not to wonder what might have been. How might other of the candidates fared? What reforms, and reversal of Ban Ki-moon mistakes from Yemen and children and armed conflict to censorship might they have accomplished or at least begun? The ex heads of state barely fit into the photo, Periscope video here, and very little banter was heard before the press was ushered out. On the way in, Guterres came amiably through the hall, turning into the office of Miguel Graca. But where is the requested list of who works on the 38th floor, and who pays them? Is it true, as Inner City Press has heard, that Guterres has interviewed Achim Steiner for UNDP? At the lower profile Department of Public Information, why hasn't the Officer in Charge given any substantive response to simple requests before him, and would any successor at least have to commit to free press due process rules? Why is the holdover spokesman allowed to refuse to answer the Press' questions on Burundi, while engaging others about Sex and the City? We'll have more on this. After 100 days of Antonio Guterres as UN Secretary General, what has been accomplished? Guterres focused early on South Sudan, but as Inner City Press reports today on his 100th day, the Salva Kiir forces are using tanks near Wau while UN Peacekeeping, still under French control, says nothing publicly. The Cyprus talks are set to continue, but we've heard that before. Yemen is as bloody as ever, and Guterres extended Ban Ki-moon's (or Saudi Arabia's) envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed without even getting him to make any public financial disclosure. Discrepancies in Guterres own disclosure filings between 2013 and 2016 have yet to be explainedby Guterres' holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric. What has changed? Not the Department of Public Information's targeted restrictions on Inner City Press, able to cover meeting on the UN's second floor only with a minder, and sometimes (as on the Rwanda genocide on April 7) not at all. Inner City Press has filed a request for reversal with DPI's Officer in Charge, nine days ago, with no substantive response. New Inner City Press song here. We remain constructive, eager to see reforms occur and succeed. But what has changed?

  When Guterres held a brief photo opportunity and meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it was Guterres' first in a while, after several rounds of travel. And it was over quickly: the media was told to leave before a single word was said. There were complaints about that, and more substantive complaints about a lack of transparency. There are no read-outs of meetings. On April 5 Inner City Press reported on inconsistencies even in Guterres' own public financial disclosures from 2016 and 2013 (his Yemen envoy makes NO public disclosures). On April 6 Guterres' holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric declined to offer any explanation of the differences. As noted, under Ban Ki-moon he had Inner City Press thrown out of the UN Press Briefing Room and UN, where it is still restricted even as the Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe UN bribery case it was covering is coming to trial. Is the UN reforming? Watch this site.

  Back on March 23 when Guterres met UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, unlike in other recent meetings with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tajikistan, there were women on Guterres' side of the table (Periscope video here): Katrin Hett and the Chief of Staff, who had just met with Alain Leroy, former head of Peacekeeping now with the EU. Also on Guterres' side of the table was OCHA's Stephen O'Brien, who greeted and was greeted by Boris Johnson. Will the UK, and separately O'Brien, hold onto the OCHA post? The emergence reported by Inner City Press of outgoing Dutch Labor Party foreign minister Burt Koenders as a candidate for UNDP, over David Miliband, may help O'Brien. But with budget cuts looming, the increasing lack of transparency in the UN Secretariat's business is a problem. And this: according to at least one senior official on the 38th floor on March 23, Guterres "has no interlocutor" in Washington, to which we'll soon turn. Watch this site.

  As to Boris Johnson, after four pre-selected questions all on the London attacks, Inner City Press audibly asked about Cameroon's Anglophone's Internet cut, what the UK is doing. We'll have more on this too.
Back on March 15 when Guterres met with Bahrain's foreign minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa and a delegation that appeared to include that country's former president of the General Assembly, Guterres began by apologizing for keeping them waiting. Periscope video here. His previous appointment had been with a delegation called "United Cities and Local Governments." Guterres' holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric has met to answer Inner City Press clearly on why some meeting and calls are not disclosed, such as a call with the King of Morocco and a working lunch with Michael Bloomberg, nor how some media were handpicked to memorialize Guterres' most recent trip to Kenya and Somalia. Video here. If these happened, as it has, in Washington there would be an outcry. And perhaps one is growing in Turtle Bay.

  Earlier on March 15 in the UN's basement, Bahrain human rights defender Maryam Alkhawaja spoke. She was not on the 38th floor; Guterres' interlocutors at Human Right Watch, after they met with him, refused to give any read-out of what issues they raised. It seems clear these did not include, from the UN spokesman's non-answers, that the cut-off of the Internet by the government in Cameroon's Anglophone areas, now 57 days and counting, nor the UN's censorship and restriction of the Press. We'll have more on this.

  On March 13, before the snow day in New York, Guterres met another Gulf foreign minister, United Arab Emirates' Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. UAE Ambassador Lana Zaki Nusseibeh asked of Guterres' recent cultural moves in New York City. After a pause, Guterres cited art shows in Chelsea and at the Frick. Not mentioned at least at that time was former UN official Bernardino Leon, who negotiated a job at the UAE Diplomatic Academy while at the same time representing the UN in Libya, much less any mention of Yemen. Will there be a read out? There was no read out of Guterres meeting with Tanzania's foreign minster Mahiga, about which Inner City Press asked Guterres' holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric on March 13; he also had no answer on Cameroon, where the Anglophone areas have had their Internet cut off by the government for 56 days, almost contemporaneous with Guterres' tenure of 72 days. We'll have more on this.

  On March 10, Inner City Press was blocked from covering a 38th floor photo op others were allowed to. No reasoning was given, just as no rule was cited when Inner City Press was evicted from the UN by the Department of Public Information's Cristina Gallach, and still remainsrestricted to minders more than a year later. Some thought the era of a lawless and censoring UN would be over by now. When?

  Back on March 3, when Guterres met with Gabon's FM Pacôme Moubelet Boubeya on March 3, it came before when the UN called a two day trip by Guterres to Kenya, from Sunday to Thursday. Last Friday when Inner City Press e-mailed Guterres' holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric with the simple question of where Guterres was, Dujarric never answered the e-mail. When on Monday Inner City Press asked in person in the noon briefing, Dujarric said, Portugal. And this time? Why be murky?

  That is becoming a theme. Who is working on the 38th floor? How are they being paid? Inner City Press asked and was promised a chart, including a list of who is "seconded" from countries' mission. It has not been provided. On March 3, Dujarric who previously played a role in Inner City Press' eviction and continuing restriction for covering the Ng Lap Seng UN bribery case refused to answer its last question, saying "Tomorrow" (which is Saturday) and "I'm lazy." Video here.  And so it goes.

  Dujarric told Inner City Press there was no read-out of Guterres' telephone call with Morocco's King in the name of quiet diplomacy. But why wasn't Guterres' working lunch with Michael Bloomberg put on his schedule, as a meeting days later with Gordon Brown was? Both, Dujarric answered, are still UN special advisers, as apparently is Han Seoug-soo despite being on the boards of directors of UN bank Standard Chartered and Doosan Infracore, which sells equipment to countries where Han gives speeches as a UN official.

  Also this week, Guterres' Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed arrived and within two hours of being sworn in did a four question stakeout. Inner City Press asked about the Green Bond of Nigeria, and if she and Guterres will work to make the Security Council more representative. UN reforms are sorely needed. Is the pace fast enough? Watch this site.

  (Gabon was at the UN on World Wildlife Day. Inner City Press, still restricted, was one of only three media to ask questions of CITES and Interpol, about the illegal trade of primates from Guinea. The UN needs more coverage, more access, not less. This too much change.)

Back on February 21 when Guterres met with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Guterres joked that having two UN flags and none from Ukraine was "UN chauvinism." Klimkin replied, "It's the kind of chauvinism we can tolerate. Otherwise..." Periscope video here.

  Earlier in the day Guterres in the Security Council expressed his condolences at the death of Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, saying he had been flying back from Lisbon (and Munich before that) when the commander of the plane passed a note that Churkin was dead. Klimkin on the other hand blocked draft a Presidential Statement, and confirmed it at a stakeout in which Inner City Press asked if he would urge Guterres to invoke Article 99 of the UN Charter more, to raise issues.

  While Guterres has rightly scheduled a press conference for February 23 on South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria, those are on the Security Council's agenda, the latter in connection with Boko Haram. The plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh, on the other hand, is barely mentioned by Council members. Is this a test for Guterres?

  On transparency, too, Guterres has opened the process for finding new Under Secretaries General of Management and Public Information - the departing one Cristina Gallach evicted Inner City Press from its office which sits unused and restricts it still, with no hearing or appeal, for covering the UN. That has yet to be reversed, and it is unclear if the USG position for Humanitarian Affairs will be opened to applications, as UNDP has. Watch this site.

  Back on February 8 when Guterres held a photo opportunity and meeting with Cote d'Ivoire Foreign Minister Marcel Amon-Tanoh, on the UN side of the table was Tanguy Stehelin, until quite recently the French Mission's legal adviser.

  That's how it is in the UN, at least as to Peacekeeping and former French colonies. As Inner City Press has exclusively reported, now "competing" to replace Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop UN Peacekeeping, are Jean-Maurice Ripert, Jean Pierre Lacroix and likely winner Sylvie Bermann, now Ambassador in London, previous like Ladsous in Beijing. It's the French Connection.

  At this photo op, after Amon-Tanoh's long vistors' book signing, no works were spoken until Guterres' "merci." His spokesman Stephane Dujarric, a holdover from Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan before that, has stopped giving read-outs of such meetings. His Office called the end of day "lid" with no reference to a balance, and without answering Inner City Press' question from noon about Burundi. Yes, it's the French Connection.

  Still even working from a small booth, still evicted and restricted by UN censor Cristina Gallach after one year, for seeking to cover an event in the UN Press Briefing Room, Inner City Press is hoping a more transparent UN

Exclusive: Three French Names for UN Peackeeping, Bermann, Ripert or Lacroix, Dumping

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Series

UNITED NATIONS, February 8 – Who will run UN Peacekeeping, and why? Two days after Antonio Guterres assumed office, Inner City Press named among the (French-only) candidates Sylvie Bermann and Jean-Maurice Ripert, disclosing some history with the latter.

  We can now name a third name in the mix, according to Inner City Press sources: Jean Pierre Lacroix, who was previously France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN.

  Amid calls to reform UN Peacekeeping and the selection process, or at least make it more transparency, it appears that the same old game, in which France which has owned the Department four times in a row merely submits three names so that one can be selected is being stuck to.

  Back in 2012, Inner City Press exclusively reported that Jerome Bonnafont had been the choice over three time loser Herve Ladsous - until Bonnafont bragged in India, where he was posted, about getting the job. Ban Ki-moon didn't like flashy officials; France made him take Ladsous and the rest, decay in Peacekeeping, is history. (The UN let Ladsous refuse to take Inner City Press' questions, as is being accused and derided now in DC).

  As to Ripert, in fairness, we can now add to our recounting of what Pakistan's ambassador called his failure in that country the detail that Ripert told his then boss Lynn Pascoe, I don't do floods, as his reason for not going there. 

  What scandals await one of these three? Well, as Inner City Press has exclusively exposed, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in Central African Republic is dumping waste negligently leading to malaria. This is what a UN memo leaked to and exclusively published on February 3 by Inner City Press has shown.

 On February 7 Inner City Press put the question to the UN Ambassador of France, which has controlled UN Peacekeeping four times in a row not, and prospectively a fifth. See below.

  Ambassador Francois Delattre told Inner City Press "I will take a close look at it, it is a high priority for us." Video here.

  On February 6, in a classic UN noon briefing cover up, holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric when Inner City Press asked about its February 3 exclusive said he wouldn't speak to the authenticity of the leaked memo but that the UN is looking at possibilities of moving or somehow improving the dump.

  Then the memo showed up as "removed" from Scribd -- NOT by Inner City Press - so we uploaded it to our own server, now via PDF here. 

(Likewise, eviction by Dujarric and the UN's current head of communications Cristina Gallach has hindered Inner City Press from putting up video of Dujarric's evasion. The high-speed cable in the office Gallach evicted Inner City Press from sits entirely unused by the Egyptian state media Akhbar al Yom she seeks to give it to.)

  For the UN to try to cast doubt on the leaked memo while seeking to dodge its contents with vague assurances of improvements is typical. 

  The UN has known about this dumping and malaria for months. Who will be help accountable?

  The memo states that "following complaints by the local population living in the vicinity of the dumpsite" a UN investigation found that the dumpsite sludge dams breed insects which result in sickness. Eighty-one percent of the UN's victims are children, the memo says.

  The report, under "Community Discontent," cites malaria. It notes that when concerns were raised, "police force was used to quell the dissent."

  Later on February 3, an "anonymous" UN Peacekeeping officials spuns wire services about DPKO's same-old claims to reform itself, which include Ladsous visiting the Haiti mission he has mis-managed. 

  But this CAR negligence will be a test of the commitment to reform expressed, among other places, in the US Senate confirmation hearings. How can Ladsous (or MINUSCA as constituted) remain in place? How can France keep this UN Department?
]  
   By the same token, how could corrupt censor Cristina Gallach remain in the UN system, in a post other than Public Information of which she had made a mockery? We'll have more on this.

  Inner City Press has long questioned Ladsous, for example about his linking of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers to "R&R" or rest and recreation, here. Ladsous replies, "I don't answer your questions, Mister."

  Now under new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, many are interested who will replace Ladsous. While other Under Secretary General posts like Cristina Gallach's atop the Department of Public Information are now subject to public vacancy notices, DPKO has not. Why not? Inner City Press asked, but UN holdeover spokesman Stephane Dujarric didn't answer.

  Sources will Inner City Press France is trying to hold onto DPKO for the fifth time in a row, albeit with a women, on information and belief Sylvie Bermann, since 2014 France's ambassador in London. Five times in a row? Given this kind of mismanagement, in a former French colony?

Exclusive: UN Waste In Dump Caused Malaria in Central African Republic, Report Leaked to Inner City Press S... by Matthew Russell Lee on Scribd

  This concerned the Kolongo dumpsite in Bangui. Related memos refer to the UN in Mali as well.

  Tellingly, this UN memo warns of litigation, "taking into account lessons learned in the Haiti case." But was did the UN learn?

  Ban Ki-moon, who after leaving the UN on January 1 has found his campaign for South Korea's Presidency implode amid corruption charges, dodged legal papers about Haiti for years. In his last month he promised millions but so far less than $2 million have been raised, more than half of it blood money from South Korea.

  In the Central African Republic, UN peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse, including of minors. The UN itself recently accused 25 Burundian peacekeepers of sexual exploitation and abuse, but UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, the fourth French national in a row to hold the position, determined to continue to pay the Pierre Nkurunziza government for 800 more troops.

  New UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is considering who will replace Ladsous. He should consider and act on this as well.

  UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, while declining to explain Ladsous' reasoning, recent answered only two and a half of 22 questions Inner City Press posed in writing. UN Department of Public Information chief Cristina Gallach evicted Inner City Press from its UN office without due process, confining it still to minders to cover the General Assembly.

  The UN reflexively covers up its abuses. Even after killing 10,000 people with cholera in Haiti, these practices continue in the Central African Republic.

  Other memos have been leaked to Inner City Press. Meanwhile even the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, rather than dealing with the substance of a UN Ethics Office memo Inner City Press published, has Tweeted a press release saying it is all unsubstantiated. Really? The UN must be reformed.

How General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim Spends Money Is Questioned as Part of Reform by France and Indonesia

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2pgafunding031908.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 -- The day after the President of the General Assembly Srgjan Kerim acknowledged to Inner City Press that his rent and salary is paid by the Government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and called for a reform in which this would be prohibited and funds provided by the UN itself, two Ambassadors on the Security Council raised questions about Kerim's proposal. France's Deputy Permanent Representative Jean-Pierre Lacroix said "there is already an envelope" of funds given to Kerim's office, "it's more a question of how is it used, frankly." The General Assembly has voted $280,000 a year for the Office of the President of the General Assembly, which Kerim's spokesman has told Inner City Press is devoted only to "travel and representation as well as transportation, communication and security related costs."

"I didn't know that was the arrangement," Indonesia's Permanent Representative Marty Natalegawa told Inner City Press. He said that before any hasty decision is reached to give the President of the General Assembly more money, a broader context must be considered, the possible precedent it would set for such posts as the "chairs of various committees, forums and processes."

While Ban Ki-moon has spoken of the need for transparency and reform to try to bring about greater public confidence in the UN system, when Inner City Press on Wednesday asked his spokesperson Michele Montas if he believes the President of the General Assembly should be funded by the UN, or by outside parties, she replied that "we don't have to comment on this... this does not have anything to do with the reform program."

Told of Kerim's position that currently no rules apply to whom he takes money from, Amb. Natalegawa asked rhetorically, "So all options are open, then."

Sources told Inner City Press that its story about Kerim's acceptance of rent in Essex House and a salary have summoned an inevitable comparison to what is paid to legislators and the president in FYROM, and its UN Ambassador in New York. Talk has begun that FYROM sought recoupment from Kerim's employer, the WAZ media group -- if so, Amb. Natalegawa would be right, all options have been open. Questions have arisen regarding whether the proper authorizations were obtained before these payments to Mr. Kerim began.

From the Balkans, it can be viewed that Kerim masterfully deflected an inquiry into what funding he has been and is taking into a broader called for reform, delivered to Inner City Press by Kerim's spokesman:

"President Kerim has always maintained that all costs related to the post and functioning of the General Assembly President should be covered through the regular UN budget... rather than the makeshift arrangements that currently exist.

"This would ensure each elected President has an equal opportunity to deliver results -- whether from a developed or developing country, no matter how large or small. An entirely UN funded budget would enhance the independence of the President, and increase transparency and accountability to Member States."

Lost in this proposal, seen from the Balkans, are the specifics of what has been received. Developing.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2pgafunding031908.html

At UN, Reticence to Vote Confines Kosovo to Private Meeting, No Room for Transparency on Budget and No-Bid Contracts

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unprivate121407.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 14 -- In the run-up to the Security Council's December 19 meeting about Kosovo, even the format of the meeting has been in dispute. On December 12, Italian Ambassador Marcello Spatafora, this month's Council president, said that in that day's discussion, which he called a tour de table, the disagreement was whether Kosovo would be allowed to speak for itself, or only, as the current legal framework dictates, would be spoken for by the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK. Amb. Spatafora, always upbeat, emphasized that there had been unanimity that the meeting would "not be in the consultations room" and that it would be "transparent."

On Friday Amb. Spatafora returned to the same microphone and announced that Kosovo would speak for itself, in the main Council chamber -- but that the meeting would be "private." That means, no attendance by the public or the press. How then is it transparent? Inner City Press asked, and the response was to emphasize that the meeting is being held in the big room, the chamber, and not the consultations room. Video here. So at the UN, does the concept of transparency depend more on which room a meeting is held in than on whether the public and press can hear what happens?

Ambassadors, at least some, at the UN can be reached with questions. Inner City Press asked the UK's Permanent Representative John Sawers for his view on the meeting being private. "Our priority was the representative of Kosovo speaking at the Council," Amb. Sawers said. "Russia tried to prevent that [but] in the end gave in, in return for a private meeting." But what about transparency? Inner City Press asked France's Deputy Permanent Representative Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who explained that "what we had to come to was an agreement, a consensual one." He said "Russia knew we had the votes" so "the Russian came up with this proposal" to have Kosovo speak for itself, but only in a private meeting. "What prevailed was the sense that if we can resolve through consensus, let's do it... we can have it without resort to the vote."

This aversion to voting is at work on the UN budget as well. It is said that the while negotiations continue among staff experts in the Fifth Committee's meetings in the basement of the UN, around $100 - $150 million, the U.S. is calling around at the level of ambassadors and even capitals, promoting the idea of merely extending the current budget for six months, until the Secretariat some up with a proposal that is not "piecemeal," and not, from the U.S. perspective, such a large increase. On Friday several insiders told Inner City Press that yes, the budget is the big story at the UN, not covered because both the Secretariat and most of the member states, even those which temporarily go public, like it that way. But when public business is conducted in private meetings, the press must ask questions.

As has previously been emphasized to Inner City Press, in connection with the review of the UN's no-bid $250 million contract with Lockheed Martin, at the UN transparency may only mean disclosure to states, in closed meetings, not to the public. At Friday's noon briefing, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe said that she does not speak for the Department of Peacekeeping Operation's Number Two, Edmond Mulet, who Thursday declined to answer Inner City Press's request for a description of the responses given to the budget committee's questions about the contract. Video here, last Minute. He referred to another split-off unit, the Department of Field Support, for which Ms. Okabe also seems not to speak. So who speaks for these UN departments? To be continued.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unprivate121407.html