UN's Lazzarini on Somaliland Airspace But Not UNMAS Bax & US, Bancroft Global Development: Of Aid and Impartiality

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 26, more here -- After the UN system unilaterally transferred Somaliland airspace to Mogadishu, UN flights were suspended until Turkish brokered talks defused the UN's gaffe.

   When the UN's top humanitarian in Mogadishu Philippe Lazzarini took questions by Twitter on May 26, Inner City Press asked: "UNilaterally transfer of  Somaliland airspace to Mogadishu - what was impact on humanitarian access? Status?"

   Lazzarini did answer this question -- but not the other one asked by Inner City Press, about the UN's loss of impartiality when the UN Mine Action Service's David Bax began working with the US / Bancroft Global Development, seebelow. 

   On Somaliland airspace, Lazzarini replied: "@innercitypress: Currently no impact. Airspace was temporarily suspended for UN flight last year, but since resolved."

  But what did the UN learn from the suspension? Inner City Press thanked and retweeted Lazzarini and then asked, "Not to be repeated?" This went UNanswered, as did this: "Given UNMAS Bax & (US) Bancroft Global Development, does UN (im)partiality impact aid access?"

  No answer to this. nor to a series of questions by Hargeisa based Free UN Coalition for Access member Mohamoud Walaaleye, including about Khaatumo.

Background: After the UN told Inner City Press that its Somalia de-mining boss David Bax was fully exonerated by an investigation by the UN Office of Project Services that followed an Inner City Press exclusive expose of Bax sharing information with US intelligence through Bancroft Global Development, Inner City Press has obtained a UNOPS letter to Bax that says "However, the Internal Audit and Investigations Group referred several issues to management, including your trip on an African Skies Limited flight."

  There is a problem here: as even the UN's report on mercenaries in Somalia notes, Bancroft has had a financial relationship with African Skies Limited, to provide security at the Mogadishu airport. Click here for UN report, see Paragraph 45. 

  So a favor from African Skies Limited is a favor from Bancoft, to which Bax gave information including genetic information from suicide bombs.

  UNOPS' Paul Lucas' "Dear David" letter, dated December 9, 2013, also references sexual harassment. That involved, among other things, putting UN staff at risk by doing favors for "a girlfriend," and breaking the rules of Bax' own UNOPS camp.

The larger question is even when the UN conducts an investigation and announces a results, including case exoneration, can it be believed? On investigation into charges of gang rape by UN peacekeepers in Mali, the UN has told Inner City Press that the investigation is complete -- but not the result.

   Back on November 4, 2013, Inner City Press asked Anton Katz, Chair of the UN "Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination" about the Group's report on Somalia - and if he had met David Bax. (He had, in Cape Town.)

The report states for example that

"The Working Group was informed by UNMAS that to avoid this problem, their agreement with Bancroft requires that when conducting EOD and counter-IED operations, Bancroft employees must remain a minimum of 500 metres behind any front line. This type of rule might serve as an appropriate safeguard in other contracts as well... The Working Group notes that at least one employee of Bancroft pleaded, and was found, guilty in a South African court of, inter alia, recruiting persons for mercenary activities in Côte d’Ivoire and providing logistical support for the venture [See High Court of South Africa (Transvaal Provincial Division), case number A2850/03 of 2 and 20 May 2005 (ZAGPHC 248).]"

  Why are the UN, AMISOM and UNMAS working with Bancroft Global Development? What do they do together? Inner City Press has been informed by whistleblowers beyond Somalia that Bax has been part of the process by which genetic and DNA information from IED bombings have been transferred to US intelligence.

  There are also detailed accounts of Bax using UN and private contractor resources, without mandate, for a close friend. The problem here, it is reiterated, is that it put others at risk on Bax's whim. We'll have more on this - because the UN Secretariat says again and again that it puts staff safety first. This for example is the rationale, as Inner City Press also exclusively reported, for threatening to close down in New York the UN cafeteria and Dag Hammarskjold Library. 

  As with January Security Council president, Inner City Press offered thanks to Katz for the briefing for the new Free UN Coalition for Access, which will continue to push for increased transparency from the UN on cases like that of Bax, particuarly given the slated changing of the guard in the UN Spokesperson's office, click here for that. Watch this site.

   

In Somalia, UN Clears UNMAS "Cowboy" Bax, Despite Its Own Report on Bancroft Global Development

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 6 -- Back on June 22, 2013, Inner City Press first reported complaints about Somalia UN Mine Action Service boss David Bax,  including his work alongside US-based Bancroft Global Development. 

  After that, the UN said Bax was being investigated by UNOPS, the UN Office of Project Services, and that it would have nothing to say until that investigation was completed.

   On November 4, 2013, Inner City Press asked Anton Katz, Chair of the UN "Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination" about the Group's report on Somalia - and if he had met David Bax. (He had, in Cape Town.)

The report states for example that

"The Working Group was informed by UNMAS that to avoid this problem, their agreement with Bancroft requires that when conducting EOD and counter-IED operations, Bancroft employees must remain a minimum of 500 metres behind any front line. This type of rule might serve as an appropriate safeguard in other contracts as well... The Working Group notes that at least one employee of Bancroft pleaded, and was found, guilty in a South African court of, inter alia, recruiting persons for mercenary activities in Côte d’Ivoire and providing logistical support for the venture [See High Court of South Africa (Transvaal Provincial Division), case number A2850/03 of 2 and 20 May 2005 (ZAGPHC 248).]"

  Why are the UN, AMISOM and UNMAS working with Bancroft Global Development? What do they do together? Inner City Press has been informed by whistleblowers beyond Somalia that Bax has been part of the process by which genetic and DNA information from IED bombings have been transferred to US intelligence.

  After Inner City Press first reported this -- and others have tried to rehabilitate Bax -- the UN repeated that UNOPS is investigating, and that it would have nothing to say in the interim.

  Now on January 6, after Inner City Press asked several times over the holiday, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq read out at the noon briefing that UNOPS finished its investigation of Bax and found "no misconduct." Really?   

  So, is it OK for the UN to share genetic information with US intelligence? Were Bax' action on the day of the attack on the compound, and the way he ran "his camp," acceptably to the UN? What is the message?

  As with January Security Council president, Inner City Press offered thanks to Katz for the briefing for the new Free UN Coalition for Access, which will continue to push for increased transparency from the UN on cases like that of Bax. Given what has been made public by whistleblowers, to merely say "no misconduct" is not enough. Watch this site.

   

UNOPS Buries Somalia Probe as Taranco & Pollard Vye to Head It, Ban Ki-moon Son in Law Chatterjee Censorship Tales

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, January 2 -- As 2014 begins, the UN is among other things a shadowy system in which investigations are buried, answers aren't given, and proxies defend.

Take the UN Office of Project Services, on which Inner City Press has previously reported, back to 2009.

   In the middle of 2013 when Inner City Press first reported a scandal in Somalia in which the head there of the UN Mine Action Services was accused of sharing genetic information from bombings with US intelligence, Inner City Press was told that the UN would say nothing under UNOPS finished its investigation.

Six months later on the last day of 2013, Inner City Press asked if the UNOPS investigation -- or is it another cover up? -- was finished yet:

Inner City Press: I just wanted to be sure I ask again about this David Bax in Somalia. There was a UNOPS [United Nations Office for Project Services] investigation, it was about the middle of the year that it was said that it had begun. I wanted to know, you know, if it’s finished or when the idea for finishing it is?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: With regard to the investigation you were referring to out of Mogadishu, I don’t believe we have any update on that at this point. Okay.

Well, not okay. First, Inner City Press repeated put this question to the UN Spokesperson in writing, without response. When asked in-person when noon briefing began again, there is without explanation no completion of an investigation UNOPS began six months earlier.

Meanwhile at New Years UNOPS was tweeting self-promotion, but did not respond to the question: where IS the Bax investigation? UNsocial media.

  And so Inner City Press now exclusively reports, from its sources in the system, that among those vying to head this UNOPS going forward are Oscar Fernandez Taranco, who declined move-outs from the Department of Political Affairs in New York to assignments in Haiti and elsewhere, and the head of the UN Office of Human Rights Management Catherine Pollard.

  Leaving UNOPS as we're previously reported is Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's soon in law Siddarth Chatterjee, headed for another promotion as head of UNFPA in Kenya. The UN has at each turn resisted answering questions about these promotions, as even a Chatterjee defender recently (Dec 23) acknowledged. But he while he cited UN stonewalling, he did not mention censorship.

When Inner City Press first reported on this, and it was picked up by media from Chatterjee's native India, that media was contacted and told to take the story down, and to ask Inner City Press to do so. Why? 

  Now a media very close to the UN has filed a bad faith Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to get Google to block access to his own leaked email to the UN trying to get Inner City Press thrown out. And so it goes in this UN.

   

After US Raids in Libya and Somalia, ICP Asks UN, It Says It's Up to US, "Sensitivity of Sovereign States"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- After a weekend in which the US conducted raids in Somalia and Libya, including what Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has called the "kidnap" of Anas al-Liby, Inner City Press on Monday at noon asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky to comment on the raids, including under international law.Video here from Minute 13:43.

But Nesirky said the UN had no comment, "at this point, I don't have any independent information on that."

It's one thing for the US, as it did at the State Department's briefing an hour later, to deny it violated international law. But, Inner City Press asked (including via Twitter, here and then here), how could the UN have no comment?

 Especially but not only because the US has peacekeeping missions in both countries. Would the UN no comment if, for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo were raided in this way? It seems very doubtful.

Then this came in:

Subject: Your question on the incidents in Libya and Somalia
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 2:09 PM

To: Matthew.Lee[at] innercitypress.com

In response to your question at the noon briefing, the Spokesperson has the following to say:

We have seen the news reports about US counterterrorism actions over the weekend in both Libya and Somalia. We do not have direct information about them.

Where the respective governments may be seeking clarification, it is for the US authorities to provide this, given the sensitivity of such matters for any sovereign state.

When the UN cites the "sensitivity of such matters for any sovereign state" do they mean the US' sensitivity, as raider? Or that of Libya? Because Libya's prime minister is calling it a kidnapping.

   In other cases of cross-border moves, the UN does not wait for the permission of the state moved on in order to comment. Nor does the UN say it won't comment due to sensitivities. 

  In Somalia, now apparently covered up by the UN and its scribes, the UN was viewed as having taken sides when David Bax of its UN Mine Action Service took a role in passing genetic and biometric information to US agencies. As the whitewashing, ever more detailed, continues we have pending questions in on this. Watch this site.

   

On Humanitarian Day, UN Pitches Barclays, Cut Off Somalia, Ignores Haiti Cholera, Trolls

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 19 -- Why does the UN use "corporate partners" for its Humanitarian Day and how does it choose them? How are they reviewed?

  It's reported that Barclays is a sponsor, for example. ButBarclays is cutting off remittances to Somalia -- this, neither UK Baroness Valerie Amos, UN humanitarian chief, or UK Reuters that she pitches to, mention.

  Amos cited Haiti, which certainly needs and deserves more support, particularly after the UN brought cholera there, killing 8,000 people and still causing havoc. But Reuters and Amos don't mention this side of the UN's work in Haiti.

  The UN's Humanitarian Day is tied to the attack on the UN Compound in Baghdad ten years ago in 2003. Even UN officials have said there are lessons to be learned about the UN being perceived as taking sides. 

  But the lessons have not been learned. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as simply one example, the UN is on the verge of launching operations to "neutralize" rebels groups the government in Kinshasa doesn't like. And click here for an example of the UN in Somalia outed for its role in sharing information with the US FBI.

These issues should be addressed. But while UN Humanitarian Day is pitched as showing "social" media, most UN twitter accounts don't respond to simple questions, andUN two-way partner Reuters is involved in anonymous social media trolling against critical Press reporting on the UN. Call it UNsocial media.

The UN, until not long ago, had a strand that stood up for humanitarian independence. But when this was raised more recently, for example by MSF in the Eastern Congo, the UN ignored it, then claimed that the UN's "intervention brigade," controlled by a French official Herve Ladsous who argued for the escape of genocidaires during the Rwanda genocide, won't impact independence. 

  How not? We and the new Free UN Coalition for Access,@FUNCA_info, will continue to ask (here is UN's response) -- including through (UN)social media. Watch this site.