In UN Musical Chairs, No Revolving Door Rules for Gambari & Yonis, Tarranco to Iraq for Kobler, Shunned by al-Maliki?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- Alongside the Middle East and Syria briefing in the UN Security Council Tuesday by Oscar Fernandez Taranco, a game of musical chairs was taking place.

  Fernandez Tarranco, sources tell Inner City Press, is being asked to take over the Iraq envoy post being vacated by Martin Kobler, who is replacing Roger Meece in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  The swirl was set off when Iraq's Al-Maliki stopped meaningfully communicating with Kobler, the sources tell Inner City Press. “You can't be an SRSG like that,” one said, using UN-ese for Special Representative of the Secretary General.

  Meanwhile at Tuesday's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey if there are any anti-revolving door rules applicable to former UN officials.

  Inner City Press is told that after Ibrahim Gambari lost out to head the Organization for the Islamic Cooperation -- “they summoned the African candidates and told them they were going with a Saudi,” a source said -- he's hooking up as a paid consultant to Qatar. Any rules?

  And, less of a conflict because for his own country, what about Mohamed Yonis going from being Gambari's deputy at UNAMID in Darfur to now being named Somaliland's foreign minister? (Tweeted by the Free UN Coalition for Access, here.)

  Del Buey said he would look into it. But his office has said that before. Inner City Press on June 10 asked for confirmation that Ban's Great Lakes envoy Mary Robinson had hired Frederico Borello. Still there has been no answer, while Rwandan Ambassador Richard Gasana tells Inner City Press that it is true. Watch this site.

As UN's Iraq Resolution Passes Bombs Drop, UK Leaves and Oil's Still Unmetered

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/iraqmnf121807.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 18 -- We are a sovereign state, was the message of Iraq's UN ambassador, Hamid al-Bayati, in the run up to Tuesday's passage of "the last" UN resolution authorizing the multi-national force in Iraq. The resolution was passed with a letter annexed from prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, asking that Iraq's "independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity" be respected. But out in the real world, Turkey has bombed northern Iraq, and has sent troops in, hunting down members of the Kurdish Workers Party, PKK. This real-world problem was not allowed to intrude on Tuesday's Security Council love fest. UK Ambassador John Sawers recited that "on 16 December, last Sunday, security responsibility for Basra province passed from Multinational Force to Iraqi control. Basra was the last of the four southern provinces of Iraq previously under the security control of the UK-led Multinational Division (South-East)." There is, of course, more to this. A poll in Basra, conducted by BBC no less, found that 85% of Basrawiris found the UK's role negative. The UK leaves Basra to a fight of Shia militias, while British Petroleum fights with Total, Chevron and ExxonMobil for contracts in the oil-rich region.

During Tuesday's Council proceeding, UN Controller Warren Sach provided a terse briefing in his role as the UN's representative on the International Advisory and Monitoring Board. He noted that oil is still not metered; afterwards he told Inner City Press that Shell has a contract to look into the problem. He critiqued irregularities in Iraqi procurement procedures, ironic in light of the currently controversy around the UN waiving any competition before awarding a $250 million no-bid contract to Lockheed Martin for Darfur peacekeeping infrastructure. In the hallway outside the Council chamber, Sach told Inner City Press and other media outlet that the oil bartering he'd referred to takes places mostly with Syria, not Iran. And so it goes...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/iraqmnf121807.html