Inner CIty Press Asks of Afghanistan Coordinating Aid, Where UN & Taliban Meet

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 16 -- After the UN Security Council voted to extended the mandate of its Afghanistan mission for a year on March 16, UN envoy Nicholas Haysom and Afghan Ambassador Zahir Tanin came out to answer Press questions together.

 Inner City Press asked about Tanin's idea that his government should be central to the coordination of aid in the country, and where Haysom has been speaking with the Taliban, and what about. Video here.

  Haysom said, in Doha, about civilian casualties and the UN's methodology for counting them. He said he wouldn't prejudge the UN's review.

  Tanin chimed in to repeated, more diplomatically, what he stopped and told the Press on his way into the Council, that it is time for his government to take the lead.

  Haysom came again to the microphone to say that to be challenged on what value the UN mission brings is welcome. One wonders if the UN missions in the DR Congo and South Sudan feel the same.

  When Tanin spoke inside the Council before the 15-0 vote, he emphasized the penultimate paragraph of 17-page resolution, saying that 

“we welcome the Security Council's request 'that the Secretary-General initiate a process to conduct within six months of the renewal of this mandate, a full examination of the role, structure and activities of all United Nations entities in Afghanistan, in full consultation and engagement with the Government of Afghanistan and key stakeholders, including the donor community, in light of the completion of transition and the beginning of the Transformation Decade and in accordance with the principles of Afghan national sovereignty, national leadership and national ownership.'”

  Inevitably this recalled the UN system's own role in corruption in the country, for example the UN Development Program-run "Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan," which its double payments to phantom police. This is still much to be reported on this, even as former UNAMA chief Jan Kubis takes up his new post atop the UN Mission in Iraq, UNAMI. Inner City Press was first to report this move, as credited in the media in Slovakia, here.

 While Tanin didn't get into it in his March 16 speech to the Security Council, UNAMA's Nicholas Haysom told the Council that “I can also confirm that UNAMA continues a frank dialogue with the Taliban on humanitarian access and on human rights, notably on the protection of civilians.”

  Haysom also told the Council on March 16 that “recent reports have indicated that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has established a foothold in Afghanistan. It is UNAMA's assessment that the group's presence is of concern but that ISIL's significance is not such much a function of its intrinsic capacities in the area but its potential to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rally.”

Back on December 18, 2014 after UNAMA's Haysom briefed the Security Council on December 18, he came to the Council's stakeout and took questions from the Press.

His predecessor Jan Kubis had previously answered about the scandal plagued UN Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, promising a “public accounting;” further back when he was Afghanistan envoy, Staffan de Mistura told Inner City Press he would get to the bottom of the killing of UN staff member Louis Maxwell there.

  Haysom on December 18 said that the Louis Maxwell case was being handled by the UN Department of Safety and Security. On December 19, when to his credit he held a sit-down press conference, he said that the LOTFA issues were more for the UN Development Program -- which has been far from responsive -- and that it is largely a matter of answering the questions from donors. That's certainly part of it. But what about the “public accounting”?

  Some of these issues go beyond Haysom as SRSG. It was up to Ban Ki-moon to push the Karzai government about the killing of Louis Maxwell, and he didn't. UNDP should be answering the questions about LOTFA, but isn't. Still, doesn't this make the UNAMA mission's job more difficult?

  Again to his credit, Haysom said that UNAMA formally reached out to the Taliban, on human rights issues, and meet with them in Doha. He emphasized there can be no (entirely) military solution.

  Inner City Press tried to ask UNAMA Human Rights Office chief Georgette Gagnon if her office works with the International Criminal Court's inquiry into Afghanistan. 

 But it was Haysom who answered, saying yes UNAMA participates constructively but that it is confidential. With the release, even redacted, of the summary of the US torture report, the ICC's Afghanistan inquiry has become all the more interesting. We'll have more on this.

Footnote: in terms of accessibility during his visit to UNHQ in New York, Haysom should be credited. Under Secretaries General like Herve Ladsous and even, less abusively, Jeffrey Feltman rarely speak to the media. Inner City Press for the new Free UN Coalition for Access on December 19 thanked Haysom -- and posits that willingness to answer questions from the media should be one of the criteria by which UN officials are chosen.

   

UNSC Reform Negotiations Delayed a Week, PGA Ashe's Group of 6 Divided, Inner City Press Is Told

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, December 5 -- On ever-elusive UN Security Council reform, today was supposed to be the beginning of a speeded up Inter-Governmental Negotiation triggered by  President of the General Assembly John Ashe naming a Group of Six advisers. 

  Ashe's initial letter did not go online; Inner City Press published it first. (His office said that was a snafu not to be repeated.)

  Now on December 2, Ashe wrote and put online a letter naming December 5 as the beginning of the "IGN" under Afghanistan Permanent Representative Zahir Tanin, and urging flexibility from states, presumably those groupings of states which protested the make-up and mandate of Ashe's advisory group: Belgium, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Sierra Leone, Brazil and Papua New Guinea.

  Ashe in November 6 tried to assuage the critics by saying that, contrary to statements by Brazil and Germany in the Security Council debate on Working Methods, the Group of Six would neither negotiate nor draft.

  Still, France's Deputy Permanent Representative said France looked forward to the Advisory Group drafting. 

 Now Ashe has had to write and go online again, cancelingtoday's beginning of Inter Governmental Negotiations and putting it back a week to December 12.

  Sources exclusively tell Inner City Press this is due to even Ashe's Advisory Group being divided after their December 3 session. 

   In a General Assembly session on December 4 about revitalization the GA's work, Egypt complained that the UN provided budget for Ashe's PGA Office is too low. This results in the Office being dependent on outside support and secondment. Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access asked for disclosure and transparency in this regard, and continue to await it. 

  Among the dozen speakers on GA revitalization were three of the Security Council's Permanent Five members: Russia, China and the US. Inner City Press asked why France and the UK did not speak.

  The UK to its credit responded, that the European Union spoke for both of them. Inner City Press tweet-reported this, but asked and asks: do EU members agree on the Security Council taking up issues in the bailiwick of the General Assembly? Many non-P5 countries protest this. 

  The EU statement, which the EU tweeted at Inner City Press, didn't directly address this issue. Some say: agreed position are bland positions. To what degree is the EU dominated by its two P5 members? Watch this site.

Footnote: Across the hall in the UN's North Lawn building during the last debate, Bolivia became the head of the Group of 77 for 2014, as Inner City Press reported. The meeting, which G77 asked to be on UNTV, was delayed because UNTV still showed it as closed. 

 The Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info asked why, after the delay hit half an hour. It subsequently went on UNTV and FUNCA offered thanks -- as well as a photograph. This is how problems get fixed in real time. Again, if only Security Council reform were this straight forward. FUNCA will continue.

   

Skepticism Greets UN's "Implausible" Tale of Kabul Killing, Even with Video Not Yet Seen by US' Rice and Other Dips

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unleak9afgh042710.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 27 -- The UN's "implausible" explanation of the death of its staffer Louis Maxwell in Kabul last October drew skeptical reviews from diplomats at a South African reception Monday night. One Asian Ambassador, who had watched the UN webcast of Under Secretary General Malcorra summarizing a report she would not release, said sarcastically, "So they are saying he was shot while on the roof, then just happened to fall dead while surrounded by Afghan police?"

At Monday's press conference, Ms. Malcorra said both that Maxwell as killed by a bullet fired at long range and that it was definitely him in the cell phone video falling dead while next to Afghan National forces who neither flinch nor look up.

See cell phone video, here, esp. at Minute 1:01 to 1:04

Inner City Press asked the Ambassador's question to a senior UN official who said he was involved in the report-related last minute writing. No, the official stammered, we are not saying that he died, and then died again. There are a lot of open questions. We are counting on the Afghan's help at this point.

This help seems unlikely. It has already been made clear that the Afghan government did not assist with the UN's Board of Inquiry. This is now explained by the UN as a product of the Karzai government's anger at not being able to be a formal co-sponsor of the investigation rather than as obstruction.

It can be and has been said: Louis Maxwell's was an inconvenient death.

Afghanistan's Ambassador Tanin was at the South African reception, and Inner City Press asked him about the report. I have passed it on to Kabul, he said. He met Monday morning with the UN's Alain Le Roy, Susana Malcorra and top security official Gregory Starr. Normally unflappable and impeccably dressed, Ambassador Tanin did not seem worried in the least on Monday evening.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, however, said that the Afghans are very worried. Inner City Press asked her about the Maxwell report, as well as about Sudan and Congo. On the latter, she requested off the record treatment. But on the Maxwell report, after saying she had been otherwise occupied on Monday -- presumably with the NPT and/or Iran -- she asked, "I take it you can't see in the video who is standing next to him?"

It seems the U.S. Ambassador has not seen the video. It is here. As more people do, the story the UN spun on Monday will become less and less tenable, the Asian Ambassador predicted. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unleak9afgh042710.html

Afghanistan's Karzai Wants Warlords in His Tent, UN Ambassador Says, Rejects Ashdown

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un3afghan070109.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- While Paddy Ashdown, who had been slated to be the UN's "Super-envoy" to Afghanistan until President a shot down the idea, says that the war against the Taliban is being lost, Karzai's Ambassador to the UN Zahir Tanin on June 30 wry told the Press that "people have different views." He became more expansive when Inner City Press asked, "Some are saying that President Karzai is assembling a war lord ticket, Mr. Fahim in particular, and that ministries have to promised to supporters." Video here, from Minute 501.

Ambassador Tanin said, "This is what we read. There are political players in Afghanistan... Whether you call them warlords or not... Any candidates including President Karzai try to have their support... if not with Karzai, other candidates will try to have them with him."

Tanin went on, "they have "influence.... if they support one or another incl President Karzai, it is very different than the idea of warlords on one side and non warlords on other."

While Tanin left the stake out after this statement, it seems fair to summarize it as a preference by the Karzai administration to have the warlords inside his tent rather than outside. But how far does this go?

The UN's envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide briefed the Security Council, but walked by without stopping at the stakeout microphone where Tanin was to speak. Part of a UN envoy's job is to speak and explain his positions. His deputy Peter Galbraith has also yet to speak to the press. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un3afghan070109.html