UN Human Rights Chief Prince Zeid In US To Meet Only Government Officials and Legislators, Issues Like Police Brutality and Predatory Lending Ignored?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 3 -- The official visit to the US of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid features today a meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken. According to Zeid's Office, he will

“hold meetings with State Department and other U.S. Government officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice, to discuss a wide range of overseas and domestic issues. He will also meet with around eight senior members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

   One is left wondering: what kind of human rights visit is it, not meeting with civil society representatives but only the government?

  Zeid's announcement emphasizes that his is "the first official visit by a UN Human Rights Chief to Washington D.C. to meet senior  U.S administration officials and Members of Congress since 2007, when former High Commissioner Louise Arbour made a similar visit."

  The Commissioner in between, of course, was Navi Pillay, to whom US Secretary General Ban Ki-moon only gave half of a second term. But Pillay on her visits met with civil society. How should this lack on Zeid's official visit be viewed? 

  What about, just for example, the issues of police brutality as raised in the UN Committee on Torture andpredatory and discriminatory lending, raised for example in the UN Committee on the Eradication of Racial Discrimination? What of human rights issues like tortureand spying? There are non-governmental experts -- and victims -- a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should meet with, and elsewhere would, if the past is any guide. We'll have more on this.

  Back on November 21, Inner City Press which has previously praised Zeid for example on Sri Lanka and other issues reported that, protesting layoffs and lack of transparency, staff at the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights were petitioning then-new High Commissioner Prince Zeid for due process and accountability. Inner City Press obtained the petition andexclusively put it online here.

In it, the OHCHR staff call for “transparent and comprehensive information on prospective cuts and restructuring, detailing their impact on savings and OHCHR’s overall financial situation... tangible accountability measures by attributing responsibility for the present crisis and taking the requisite action to prevent another financial crisis of this magnitude in the future and a meaningful dialogue and truly consultative decision-making on ongoing financial including putting decisions on hold.”

The staff complain to Zeid that “the lack of transparency, consultation and information on who, where or how, not to mention why, some of us are affected is deplorable and unacceptable.”

The lack of transparency in the current OHCHR extends from Geneva to New York, where the Office anonymously spun its Ukraine report to hand-picked scribes then refused when asked to explain the basis. 

 Inner City Press on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access asked at the November 20 UN noon briefing that the New York representative of Prince Zeid hold a press availability about the report, including incongruities in report on labor issues such as the cut-off of pensions, click here for that.

  On accountability, the staff complain that the “senior management level evidently bears much more responsibility. Yet, it is other individuals at lower levels who are paying the price for this mismanagement.”

Also on accountability at the OHCHR, as Inner City Press has twice reported, document leaks from inside the UN have identified improper service of Morocco, on the question of Western Sahara, by a current staffer at the OHCHR, Anders Kompass, and by another who has recently left.

 Prince Zeid still not publicly addressed this scandal, though Inner City Press understands that no only is their an investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, but also inquiry from member states such as Sweden. Inquiry on them was not permitted at Zeid's one press availability that week in New York. Zeid's spokesman has indicated there will be no comment at all until OIOS' "investigation is completed." Since the OIOS process is far from transparent -- it has become even less so -- this is the way the UN system tries to make issues go away, but it is even less appropriate at the UN's human rights office.

   Zeid should address this scandal - and his Office's staff. Watch this site.

   

UN's Ban Ki-moon Wants “Decisive Action” in Syria -- Airstrikes -- Amid UN Decay in Peacekeeping and Privatization

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 24 -- When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made his General Assembly speech, the elephant in the room was the airstrikes on Syria that began two days before. Should UN Security Council approval have been sought?

  As he has increasingly done, Ban called for “decisive action” -- that is, airstrikes. While Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric has repeatedly told Inner City Press that Ban does not favor more arms flowing into Syria, he has not directly criticized the US move to arm and train Syrian rebels.

  In terms of UN Peacekeeping, Ban in his speech said he is setting up a review. Inner City Press has heard from source that Louise Arbour is slated to head it -- with many grumbling about it, including previous colleagues at the International Crisis Group. Is she the right one to review the failures of UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous?

  Most recently those failures include ordering peacekeepers to surrender to the Al Nusra Front in the Golan Heights -- so more for “decisive action” -- and not implementing Ban's supposed Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, by including the DR Congo Army, a UN listed child soldier recruiter, in the mission in Central African Republic, after never suspending UN support for DRC Army units which committed 130 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

  Ladsous refuses Press questions on all of this, video compilation here, UK coverage here. What would Arbour - or another - do about that?

  Ban touted his own “Rights Up Front” plan, without mention it was meant to make up for his failures on Sri Lanka in 2009 and since.

  Ban cited his Climate Summit, at which coal mining funders Bank of America and Barclays were celebrated. While corporations use his UN for blue-washing, yesterday the French delegation tried to privatize the UN's Press Briefing Room, ordering all non-French journalists to leave. Inner City Press for the new Free UN Coalition for Access refused this privatization, video here, and will continue to work to make the UN live up to the principles it was supposedly founded for. Watch this site.

   

On Sri Lanka, ICG Calls for Investigation of UN Inaction, Ban Panel Still Delayed

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/sri6unfollow051610.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 16 -- At the one year anniversary of Sri Lanka's bloodbath on the beach, the UN which pulled out of Kilinochchi before the slaughter, then funded internment camps for Tamils after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "victory tour," has come under questioning.

Inner City Press on May 14 asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky when Ban would follow through on his intention, announced on March 5, to name a panel of experts to advise him on the issue, and whether Ban's delay was now related to Sri Lanka's belated unveiling of its own "mechanism."

Nesirky called the mechanism -- dismissed by a slew of human rights groups -- an "interesting development," but said that Ban is independent.

Now, the International Crisis Group is calling for an inquiry into the UN's own behavior, for an inquiry into "the conduct of the UN during the last year of the conflict, examining the UN’s September 2008 withdrawal from Kilinochchi through to its ineffectual attempts to push for a ceasefire and its involvement in Sri Lankan government internment camps."

This is from an early copy of ICG's report to be released on May 17. [Full disclosure - the ICG report cites to Inner City Press.] ICG's President Louise Arbour said, "The scale of civilian deaths and suffering demands a response. Future generations will demand to know what happened, and future peace in Sri Lanka re-quires some measure of justice." Amnesty International has damning findings, though unlike ICG, under embargo until May 17.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka's Mission to the UN attacks Inner City Press -- click here for coverage in Sri Lanka of the first leter of new Deputy Permanent Representative Bandula Jayasekera -- as Perm Rep Palitha Kohona lounged around in the General Assembly on May 14 waiting to speak about Somalia piracy. THe air was of impunity, as both Ban and GA President Ali Treki offer assurances of inaction to Kohona and the Rajapaksa administration. One can ask the UN to investigate Sri Lanka -- but who will investigate the UN?

From the UN's May 14 transcript

Inner City Press: A week ago, you’d said that the wheels were, are turning and fully, well-oiled for this visit by Mr. Pascoe to Sri Lanka. Has there been any progress on that? Because the most recent reporting from Colombo is that he won’t be going until June, and there seems to be a controversy of whether now Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General, will now await to see how this mechanism, late announced mechanism by the Rajapaksa Administration, how that works out before he moves forward and names his own panel. Is that, that seems to be inconsistent with this idea of no delay. Can you say if there is any relation between the mechanism announced last week by the Rajapaksa Administration and the Secretary-General’s 5 March stated goal to name his own panel?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: The Secretary-General remains committed to the panel of experts and setting it up without delay. That remains the case. And as for Mr. Pascoe’s visit, that’s being worked on. I can’t say exactly when it will be, because that’s still being worked on. But it’s in the works.

Inner City Press: And [inaudible] without delay is not changed by this announced mechanism? It’s not that it will be delayed until the mechanism is established?

Spokesperson Neskirky: Obviously, that is an interesting development. But it doesn’t impinge on the Secretary-General’s own stated aim of setting up a panel of experts which would report to him. It’s a separate matter. But, obviously, it’s an interesting development, the news that we’ve heard from Sri Lanka in the last few days on this separate internal, if you like, domestic undertaking. But the Secretary-General’s is a separate matter, as we have said.

We'll see. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/sri6unfollow051610.html