UNHCR Guterres on World Bank & Jordan, Lebanon, Moving Back Censors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 24 -- When UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres addressed the UN Security Council on April 24, most media attention was on the speaker after him: Angelina Jolie.

  But Guterres in his speech picked up where he left on of February 26, speaking about the World Bank not aiding Lebanon and Jordan due to classifying them as middle income countries. He said, "The World Bank is now exploring various possibilities of making large-scale concessional financing available to Lebanon and Jordan, combining bilateral grants with its own usual loans."

 But when might this actually happen? Inner City Press has been asking.

 (Guterres was to appear later on April 24 at en event co-sponsored by Sweden's Mission to the UN. After finding that their outreach through the so-called UN Correspondents Association resulted in reaching only those who pay money to UNCA, now the UN's Censorship Alliance, the flier was appropriate distributed more widely, which the Free UN Coalition for Access recommends to all missions and wanna-be speakers.)

 Back on February 26 Guterres said, “It is absurd that Lebanon has no access to World Bank grants because it is considered a middle-income country."

 On April 9 at IPI (which also had an event scheduled on April 24, on how to select the next Secretary General), Inner City Press asked Amin Awad, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Bureau of the UNHCR, what the agency and rest of the UN have been doing to bring about a change at the World Bank on this.

  Amin Awad replied to Inner City Press that “on the World Bank, I think there is a conviction at the Bank, at the high level, the management” for a “special provision or at least a suspension of the rule” that middle income countries are not eligible. “We are pushing in that direction,” he said, and “there is traction among donors.” He said the realities in Jordan and Lebanon are different now, on income, growth rate, the support they need. “The World Bank is a leading institution and has to be involved with Jordan and Lebanon” and other countries.

  But will they? We'll stay on this. Watch this site.

   Back on February 26 Inner City Press, when Guterres came to the Security Council stakeout after the meeting, asked him about this addition, and if he -- and UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Kyung-wha Kang beside him -- would be pushing for a change at the World Bank, which is official a part of the UN “family.”

  Guterres replied that development assistance should taken into account this new world, where Lebanon and Jordan but also Chad, Niger and Cameroon with respect to Nigeria, and Ethiopia and Kenya with respect to Somalia, are the “first line of defense for global collective security.”Video here. 
   

Amid Inaction on 135 Rapes in Minova by DRC Army Units Supported by UN, Hague of UK Is All Syria, UN Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- When UK foreign secretary William Hague appeared before the UN Security Council Monday morning, he said the focus of his trip to New York was sexual violence and conflict, a topic he said would also be addressed through the UK's G8 presidency.

  But even turning his opening statement from Angelina Jolie into one on Syria, the UK Mission to the UN allowed only four questions -- all of them about Syria, and all from a single perspective. Inner City Press, which has covered the 135 rapes in Minova by two units of the Congolse Army that the UN still supports, said, “Question about the DRC? Rapes in Minova?”

  But no. The final question was given, predictably on Syria, to Pamela Falk of CBS News, the 2013 president of UNCA (a/k/a the UN Censorship Alliance). She asked a question with nothing new in it, and the answer was similarly wan. 

  As one correspondent put it afterward, why not just do that at the UK Mission, for friendly Western journalists, and not pretend there's a focus on sexual violence in conflict?

The UK has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, but has apparently done nothing to see that the UN's stated conditionality or human rights due diligence policies were implemented after the rapes in Minova.

First, UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous refused to take questions about the Minova rapes on camera (click each to view) on November 27, December 7 and December 18, 2012.

Later, due to persistence, the rapes became known, even on BBC. One imagines that Hague has heard of them. But the four questions he took on Monday were all about Syria. And he had the opportunity.

After belated threatening to pull support from the two battalions implicated in the rapes -- without naming them -- Ladsous removed even this, and now after a mere three arrests for 135 rapes has continued support to the 41^st and 391^st Battalions.

On May 29, Inner City Press asked Ladsous for an update on accountability for the Minova rapes by the UN's partners. Ladsous said, “You know I do not respond to you.” And since then, despite repeating the question to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople, there has been no update.

Monday's debate, which various UN social media accounts are cravenly tweeting about as if the UN actually followed its own policies on this, should provide the venue for the long-needed update, and action. But not through Hague -- or the UK, apparently. Watch this site.