As UN Looks Into DR Congo Claims, Dodges on Press Crackdown in Egypt & Syria

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 30 -- Better late than never? For weeks Inner City Press has been asking the Office of the Spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about abuses and irregularities in the Congolese elections.

At first they said they'd have no comment until after the results were announced; then they said a probe might be in order, "for the future."

On December 30, the UN belated answered Inner City Press' question about the looting of the headquarters of opposition figure Etienne Tshisekedi by saying "MONUSCO is investigating the alleged involvement of members of the national security forces in this looting incident."

The UN also provided answers to Inner City Press to questions about crackdown on journalists, and complains by the opposition:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Questions
To: Matthew.Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com

On UDPS meeting with MONUSCO: On 29 December, MONUSCO senior officials met a delegation of opposition political parties, led by Mr. Vital Kamerhe of the UNC political party who was accompanied by the Secretary-General of the UDPS and Director of UPDS leader Mr. Etienne Tshisekedi’s Cabinet, Jacquemain Shabani. The meeting was held at their request.

The following issues were raised: the restrictions on Mr. Tshisekedi’s freedom of movement and communication, the resumption by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the legislative elections results compilation process and human rights violations committed against opposition supporters. MONUSCO informed that it was conducting investigations into a number of reported human rights violations by national security force personnel and agreed to follow up, as appropriate, and in accordance with its mandate, with relevant Congolese authorities on a number of issues raised.

On DRC journalists: Since the beginning of the electoral campaign on 28 October, MONUSCO has documented 22 cases during which journalists have allegedly been intimidated, threatened or attacked in relation with their work. These alleged incidents took place mostly in the Kasai Oriental and Maniema provinces as well as in Kinshasa. The alleged perpetrators are members of the national security forces and provincial authorities. MONUSCO is following up with relevant Congolese authorities on a number of these reports.

By contrast to the UN's response on attacks on reporters in the DRC, also on December 30 the UN dodged or deferred answering questions about the killing of a civilian journalist in Syria, and the imprisonment of a blogger in Eygpt. Inner City Press asked:

Does Ban Ki-moon have any comment on the killing, presumably by Syria government forces, of citizen journalist Basil al-Sayed, who died in the hospital Thursday of wounds sustained after filming at a checkpoint in the district of Bab Amr in Homs?

What is Ban Ki-moon's response to the requests that he finally speak up and call for Egypt to release jailed blogger Michael Nabil, 26, sentenced by a military court to three years in prison in April for insulting the armed forces and who has been staging a hunger strike since August, now in "dire" condition?

To these two questions, Ban's spokesperson's office answered:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Questions
To: Matthew.Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com

On Egyptian blogger: We are checking for more specifics on this case. More generally, the Secretary-General has been clear in calling for human rights, including the right to expression, to be upheld in Egypt's transition.

On Syrian journalist: We are checking for more specifics on this. If we have more we'll let you know.

But the Syrian killing of Basil al-Sayed is well documented. Watch this site.

UN Says Probing Sudan Bombing of S. Sudan & Darfur, Nothing on Khartoum U. Crackdown

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 30 -- The UN seems barely able to keep up with events in Sudan, despite having two peacekeeping missions there, nor in South Sudan with one UN mission.

On December 29 and 30, Inner City Press asked the UN about reports on 17 killed in South Sudan by the Sudan Armed Forces, about fighting in Darfur and the alleged entry of the Darfur JEM rebels into South Sudan, and about the tear gassing of protests at University of Khartoum by Darfuri students, related to SAF's killing of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim (as well as displacement for a dam near Dammir.)

On the afternoon of December 30, the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon provided answers to some of these questions, but nothing about the protests in Khartoum:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Questions
To: Matthew.Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com

On Sudan: UNAMID has received multiple reports of armed groups manoeuvring in the Adilla, El Daein and Geraida areas in South Darfur in recent days. The Mission is verifying the reports and has stepped up its patrolling in these areas. The intentions of the armed groups are not yet known.

Further, UNAMID and UNMISS are investigating the veracity of reports that JEM elements have crossed from South Darfur into Northern Bahr Al Ghazal and that Sudanese Armed Force aircraft have dropped bombs in Western Bahr Al Ghazal. The reports have not yet been confirmed.

Meanwhile, the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth and least competent Frenchman in a row to hold the post, appeared on the UN's web site on December 29 with a monologue bragging about DPKO's accomplishments.

For months Ladsous had dodged the press, canceling Q&A stakeouts and refusing to answer questions about Haiti, Rwanda and his role as chief of staff to disgraced former French foreign minister Michele Aliot-Marie in her flying on aircraft of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali.

Now, without any questions allowed, the UN on December 29 put online a nearly four minute monologue by Ladsous, recorded on December 5, bragging about the UN's deployment in Abyei (where UN peacekeepers stood by as civilians were killed), about the elections in Liberia and, of course, France's pet project, the toppling of Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast. Video here.

Even in this propagandistic format, Ladsous could not come up with anything to say about the $1 billion mission in Darfur. Watch this site.

At UN, US $100 M Savings Is Offset by Tax Equalization Fund, FOIA Stalled 10 Months

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 29 -- Five days after a $5.153 billion two-year budget was adopted by the UN General Assembly, the US Mission to the UN on December 29 put out a "fact sheet" declaring that "when factoring in the difference between the likely budget level based on historic patterns and the budget approved last week, this budget represents a savings to American taxpayers of as much as $100 million."

Even this inflated savings figure, however, is entirely offset by $100 million that had been due to the US Treasury from the UN, but that the UN was stealthly allowed to keep early this year, the so-called "Tax Equalization Fund." Click here for that story.

Faced with stonewalling about the legality of this equalization, and even about how the funds would be used, Inner City Press on February 11, 2011 filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US State Department, for

"copies of any and all letters or emails or other records between or among Under-Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy and/or his subordinates and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and/or his subordinates concerning balances due to the United States from the Tax Equalization Fund, including the request by the UN (and the subsequent concurrence by the Department of State) for the so-called 'repurposing' of US-owned Tax Equalization Fund credits for security purposes, including as related to the UN Capital Master Plan. I am covering this TEF issues at the UN, asked Ambassador Rice about it this week - this is for news gathering purposes and is entitled to fee waiver, as receive from Federal Reserve and other gov't agencies."

The State Department confirmed receipt and said that "the process for completing your request will now begin" --

Subject: FOIA Request Letter
From: Freedom of Information Act [at] state.gov
Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 10:42 AM
To: matthew.lee[at] innercitypress.com

Thank you for filing your FOIA request online on 2/11/2011. The process for completing your request will now begin. Here is a review of your request: [for] copies of any and all letters or emails or other records between or among Under-Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy and/or his subordinates and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and/or his subordinates concerning balances due to the United States from the Tax Equalization Fund [etc]

Despite US Ambassador for Management and Reform Joe Torsella's repeated statements about transparency, and contrary to the time lines applicable to FOIA, ten and a half months later the State Department has yet to provide a single documents responsive to the FOIA request they acknowledged receiving on February 11, 2011.

Torsella at the Fifth Committee's first meeting on the budget spoke eloquently and even live tweeted about making the process visible to taxpayers around the world. But in the final 20 hours of the budget process, when deals were cut and votes taken, Torsella stopped any tweeting, and has not responded to tweeted questions since.

Rather than being described by him or the US Mission, Torsella's backroom moves, such as at the eleventh hour proposing increased flexibility for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon whom a number of budget committee diplomats referred to as a "tool of the US" on this issue, were only made public by other delegations.

Beyond the one page "deal sheet" which a non-US delegation provided to Inner City Press on the evening of December 23, Inner City Press has now exclusively obtained a copy of a spreadsheet from the UN budget negotiations, reflecting that the US was not the one proposing the largest cuts. We will have more on this -- watch this site.

Footnote: Ban Ki-moon has, as an echo, made similar claims about cost savings and doing more with less -- while for example his Spokesperson's Office on December 29 declined to answer simple questions about violence in Egypt, Turkey and Sudan, where the UN spends more than $1 billion a year, click here for that story.

The UN Under Ban, See No Evil, Say Nothing About Egypt, StratFor Hack

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 29 -- In a week of civilians killed by air strikes, of armed rebels reportedly entering the UN's newest member state South Sudan, and the raiding of non-governmental organizations in Egypt, the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on December 29 declined to confirm or take a position on any of these events.

At noon on Thursday questions about the raids on NGOs in Egypt, of opposition party headquarters and media organizations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and tear gassing of protesters in Sudan were submitted to Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky by Inner City Press.

By day's end, Ban's spokesman's office sent identical responses that "we are aware of the reports. We'll let you know if we have any comment" to the Egypt and bombing questions, and lumped the Sudan, South Sudan and DRC questions together and replied, "On the questions related to peacekeeping, DPKO is looking into them."

Not one of the questions was answered. Ironically, the only answer provided was to "confirm or deny that the UN was / is a client of StratFor, which was hacked by Anonymous."

Ban's spokesman office replied, "the United Nations subscribes to Stratfor, as it does to other news information services."

Inner City Press had also asked, "What type of information or analysis was the UN obtaining from StratFor? Under which UN budget item?"

These questions were not directly answered. But perhaps now with StratFor hacked, the UN knows nothing at all, even in countries like Sudan and the DR Congo where it is spending more than $1 billion in member states' funds purported to protect civilians.

Meanwhile, the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth and least competent Frenchman in a row to hold the post, appeared on the UN's web site on December 29 with a monologue bragging about DPKO's accomplishments.

For months Ladsous had dodged the press, canceling Q&A stakeouts and refusing to answer questions about Haiti, Rwanda and his role as chief of staff to disgraced former French foreign minister Michele Aliot-Marie in her flying on aircraft of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali.

Now, without any questions allowed, the UN on December 29 put online a nearly four minute monologue by Ladsous, recorded on December 5, bragging about the UN's deployment in Abyei (where UN peacekeepers stood by as civilians were killed), about the elections in Liberia and, of course, France's pet project, the toppling of Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast. Video here.

Even in this propagandistic format, Ladsous could not come up with anything to say about the UN Mission in Haiti, charged with importing cholera and beating Haitian civilians, nor the $1 billion mission in Darfur -- "on the questions related to peacekeeping, DPKO is looking into them."

Here were and are Inner City Press' December 29 questions:

-On Egypt, what is the UN's reaction to / comment on the government's raid of NGOs? Is it the UN's understanding that the NGOs are only those receiving "foreign" funding? Or do they included entirely indigenous NGOs?

-Please confirm or deny that the UN was / is a client of StratFor, which was hacked by Anonymous. What type of information or analysis was the UN obtaining from StratFor? Under which UN budget item?

-What is the UN's reaction to / comment on Turkey's air raid, directed at Kurdish rebels, which reportedly killed civilians?

-Beyond the still pending question about UN response to looting of UDPS headquarters, does the UN dispute, and if not why did it not speak out about and act on, the reported targeting of journalists in the DRC?

Also on DRC, what is the UN's read out (and take-aways) from the meeting with UDPS' Jacquemin Shabani and the abuses he reported to the UN?

Can the UN confirm the entry into South Sudan by JEM which Sudan now alleges?

Separately, and in contrast to yesterday's answer about the (lack of) aftermath to the death of JEM's Khalil Ibrahim, is the UN aware of, and does UNAMID (or Mr. Menkerios) acknowledge some jurisdiction over, protests at Khartoum University by Darfuri students, related to Khalil Ibrahim's death? Either way, does the UN have any comment on the use of tear gas against protesters in a country in which the UN has two acting peacekeeping operations?

And the UN's answers:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Questions
To: Matthew.Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com

On Egypt: We are aware of the reports. We'll let you know if we have any comment.

On Stratfor: The United Nations subscribes to Stratfor, as it does to other news information services.

On reports about Turkish air strike: We are aware of the reports. We'll let you know if we have any comment.

On the questions related to peacekeeping: DPKO is looking into them.

Watch this site.