Blackwater Was Defended, Rewarded by UN Security Chief Starr, Questions Mount

By Matthew Russell Lee, News Analysis
www.innercitypress.com/undss1blackwater081209.html

UNITED NATIONS, August 12 -- The questions emerging about military contractor Blackwater, now known as Xe Services LLC, extend to the top of the United Nation's security department. Public and private documents show that Gregory B. Starr, who earlier this year moved from the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service to head the UN's Department of Safety and Security, was the official responsible for continuing and defending Blackwater's contracts, even after the company's involvement in killing civilians in Iraq in 2007.

Now Blackwater founder Erik Prince is being personally accused of murder. At the UN, Inner City Press has repeatedly asked that Starr finally give his first press conference since assuming his UN post more than three month ago.

In September 2007, Blackwater contractors were involved in the killing of at least 17 civilians in Iraq. But six months later in April 2008, as acting head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Starr assessed Blackwater as "essentially I think they do a very good job."

Over protests, Blackwater's contract with the U.S. government was extended: "'I have requested and received approval to have task order six -- which Blackwater has to provide personal protective services in Baghdad -- renewed ... for one year,' the head of diplomatic security, Gregory Starr, told reporters."

Ironically, after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon named Starr to replace former Security chief David Veness, who resigned in light of failures leading to the deadly bombing of UN premises in Algeria, the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries held a closed door session in New York, and took evidence on abuses by Blackwater.

The Working Group's Chairperson-Rapporteur, Shaista Shameem, said that "it is crucial that the United States Government, as a major client of these companies, demonstrates its commitment to ensure full accountability of private military and security contractors for any possible violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

In a major book on the subject, Starr is quoted that "it might be the case that Blackwater can't be held accountable... Starr and his colleagues argued that Blackwater was 'constitutionally immune' from such lawsuits."

There are questions that the UN's new head of security should answer. Watch this site.

Footnotes: other DSS questions that Starr should publicly address include what training is given to DSS officers to deal with distraught but non-violent staff members, the Security Risk Assessments required for the UN's relocation under its Capital Master Plan, and what will be done about the DSS pre-determined promotions scandal....

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undss1blackwater081209.html

French Mercenaries To Patrol Somalia, Blackwater in Mia Farrow's Dream for Darfur

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1mercenaries061608.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 -- That the UN might pay mercenaries to do peacekeeping missions appears closer all the time. French private military firm Secopex has announced a contract with Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, worth 50 to 100 million Euros over three years, to patrol the coastline and to protect president Yusuf, whose plane is fired at every time it leaves or enters Mogadishu airport.

Secopex founder Pierre Marziali has been quoted that the company will "be seeking backing from the International Maritime Organization and other UN bodies, as well as from the European Union." He added that he expected the EU countries to respond all the more readily following the decision of the UN Security Council to authorize international navies to go into Somali waters to combat piracy. So here is an early beneficiary of the Council's piracy resolution.

Monday at the UN, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Michele Montas about Pierre Marziali's statement that backing will be sought from "UN bodies... Is it in the UN mandate to pay money to a private security firm to protect a transitional federal Government?" Ms. Montas replied, "I can inquire into this, but I don't think so." Video here.

Friday, the idea of the UN paying U.S.-based Blackwater to go into Darfur was given the blessing of actress Mia Farrow, at a Press breakfast high over UN Plaza. The only problem, Ms. Farrow told Inner City Press and others, was that Sudan might not given Blackwater visas. Last week in Sudan, officials said they intend to pull the visas of the employees of U.S.-based military contractor Lockheed Martin in July, when the extension to its $250 million no-bid contract runs out. Secopex apparently will not have that problem in Somalia. One wonders what the UN's security chief for Somalia, who has a satellite phone with a "Mission Impossible" ring-tone, thinks of all this. He has confirmed that resource extraction firms in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region have hired up second-tier militias to protect and extend their claims. Would Secopex work for commercial fishing trawlers arguably violating Somalia's exclusive economic zone? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1mercenaries061608.html

On Darfur, Mia Farrow Pans Ban, Calls for UN Action, Says JEM and Chad's Acts Less Important

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1miadarfur061308.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 13 -- Last week in Darfur, next to the cafeteria in the UN's El Fasher camp, Emilia Casella of the World Food Program told Inner City Press that WFP is delivering "forty two percent less calories per day" to those displaced by violence, because its trucks are being hijacked. Seventy-six trucks have been hijacked, of which 50 are still missing. Thirty-six drivers have not been heard from since their hijacking, Ms. Casella said. She said that the Sudanese government should be protecting the trucks from "bandits."

Just around the corner but out of the media spotlight, Inner City Press was approached by a group of UN peacekeepers from the Gambia. One, giving only his first name Toure for fear of retaliation, said that they were frustrated at not being allow to go outside the camp and provide protection. His colleagues loudly agreed, one clutching a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

On June 12 in front of the Security Council chamber in New York, Inner City Press asked UN humanitarian chief John Holmes if consideration is being given to using what peacekeepers are there to protect the trucks and food, and if the Sudanese government has thrown up any obstacles to this. Holmes said it is being considered, and that Sudan is not blocking it, to his knowledge. Video here. On June 13 Inner City Press ask the UN spokesperson where this "consideration" stands, but did not get an answer. Video here.

Mia Farrow that day held a small breakfast meeting with the Press, in a hotel restaurant high across from the UN. While at times going off the record, she spoke at length around Darfur, which she compared to Rwanda, site of genocide in 1994. Inner City Press asked her, should the UN peacekeepers that are already in Darfur be protecting the WFP's trucks? Of course, she said. "They should protect every humanitarian convoy."

Inner City Press asked, "how would you assess Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's performance on the Darfur issue?"

"What performance?" Mia Farrow shot back. While she asked for off the record treatment of her assessment of, for example, U.S. envoy Richard Williamson and South Sudan president Salva Kiir, when compared to John Garang, she made no such request regarding Ban Ki-moon. "We have to demand more from the UN," she said.

One UN system official for whom Ms. Farrow had praised was International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. She disagreed with analyses, such as by Alex de Waal, that Ocampo's indictments and statements may make peace in Darfur harder to come by. "He knows too much," Ms. Farrow said. "He's bogged down."

Similarly, when Inner City Press asked for her view of the assault on Khartoum by the Justice and Equality Movement, Ms. Farrow said that to focus on that was to miss the point. You have to step back, she said. This is a government that is killing its own people. She repeatedly opposed any "moral equivalence" between the Sudanese government and the rebels. "You want to root for the best rebels," she said, after calling JEM's attack, stopped at Omdurman, an "error" not reflective of most rebel groups.

Ms. Farrow, who is a UNICEF ambassador, confirmed that UNICEF has visited child soldiers the Sudanese captures from the JEM forces in Omdurman. She was asked, shouldn't JEM and perhaps Chad or other backers be prosecuted for recruiting child soldiers?

"I think they're all doing it," she said. She said she's "seen children in the Chadian Army not more than twelve years old."

Again she was asked whether she would support sanctions or other measures against child soldier recruiters in the Chadian or JEM side, if nothing else that to show balance, something demanded, the questioner said, by the Russians in order to support actions on Sudan.

No, Ms. Farrow said. You have to look at the reasons the rebels form. But what if Chad is funding them? To this Ms. Farrow did not answer. They will have an announcement next week, at the meeting on Darfur arranged by the U.S. Mission to the UN. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1miadarfur061308.html