By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 4 -- Amid news that Ali Abdullah Saleh is leaving Yemen, under the immunity deal he has three times before rejected, the United Nations' engagement with Saleh's thirty year rule has come into focus.
Inner City Press has repeatedly asked the UN Development Program about its director for Arab states, Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, who previously served as a Saleh minister and has since “been the UN's face” in the region, according to UN sources critical of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's performance during the Arab Spring.
In April, Inner City Press asked UNDP:
“On Yemen, please state whether former Saleh minister Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa has recused herself from consideration of Yemen programs. Please also state, on deadline, whether Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa or any family member... would be covered by the immunity deal negotiated between Saleh and the Gulf Cooperation Council.”
Days later, UNDP's spokesman responded that
“UN staff are all international civil servants who act in accordance with the United Nations’ standards and norms. Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa assumed her post as Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau of Arab State in 2006 after leaving her official functions with the Government of Yemen. Ms. Alsoswa is not part of any political discussion or agreement taking place in or on Yemen.”
Inner City Press followed up:
“On Yemen, I wanted to know if she is involved in UNDP's program for Yemen, if she or her brother are covered by the immunity negotiated by the GCC.”
UNDP's spokesman responded that she had not recused herself:
“Regional Bureaux perform an oversight function over country programmes. They review the programme and the evaluation plan, based on the quality criteria, to provide in-house quality assurance of the programme. The Director of the Bureau endorses the quality of the evaluation plan prior to the submission to the Executive Board. Ms. Alsoswa and her brothers are not part of any immunity deal.”
The deal, which some say was developed with the input of the US Embassy in Sanaa, doesn't specifically name all of the Saleh associates who would be covered by it.
Earlier this year, even as Saleh has started ordering the use of life ammunition against protesters in Sanaa, UNDP's Helen Clark visited the country accompanied by Amat Al Alim Alsoswa. In UNDP's statements, democracy and the right to peaceful protest were absent.
UNDP promoted the joint visit of Helen Clark and former Saleh minister Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on UNDP's Yemen web site. A visit to the site on June 4 found that it had not been updated for a month, and said virtually nothing about the killing of protesters.
Likewise, the UN's Syria website has been fun of happy talk -- until it disappeared from the Internet on June 3 as part of Assad's crackdown on the 'Net. But why block access to the UN when it is aligned with the dictators? Watch this site.
