As Syria's Ja'afari Meets UN Feltman About Brahimi, Views on EU & US Reviewed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- Amid reports that long time UN official Lakhdar Brahimi is to be named to replace Kofi Annan as envoy to Syria, Inner City Press at 11 am Friday witnessed the entry of Syrian Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar Ja'afari to meet with UN political chief Jeffrey Feltman. 

  A well placed source exclusively told Inner City Press: Brahimi will be discussed.

  And so it seems time to speed through some of Brahimi's positions. The US, Hillary Clinton in particular, opposed General Douglas Lute favoring Brahimi over Holbrooke on Afghanistan in 2010.

  Brahimi also said, in a 2008 interview, that Europe is a political midget.

Brahimi to his credit in March 2009 wrote, of Sri Lanka, "being a spectator when 150,000 thousand people are trapped in a death zone is not an option." 

  That is, sadly, what the UN did, and now even has as a Peacekeeping adviser to Ban Ki-moon and Herve Ladsous one of the generals responsible for the killing, even according to Ban's own experts' report: Shavendra Silva.

  Brahimi is on the Advisory Council of the Sri Lanka Campaign, which of attacks on Inner City Press wrote this, about those who "played straight into the hands of the Government of Sri Lanka's attempts to silence its critics."

So which Brahimi would it be? Watch this site.

Convenient Silence on Afghan Human Rights, Strategic Speech in Pakistan

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 4 -- As the US prepares to pull back from Afghanistan, moving at the UN to make it easier to take Taliban off the sanctions list and encouraging Hamid Karzai to negotiate with them, what is the place of women's rights and human rights more generally?

While in Washington there is much telegenic hand-wringing on the topic -- for example, last month Af-Pak czar Douglas Lute had himself filmed providing assurances of US commitment to a delegation of professional Afghan women some of whom worked for the UN -- the US embassy in Kabul is surprisingly quiet.

Perhaps this is just diplomacy, of a decidedly realist bend: don't highlight Western ideas of human rights in a country where the US wants to say that its massive military spending has resulted in enough improvements to leave. Some contrast this with the US embassy in Pakistan's June 26 LGBT event. Why not hold that in Kabul? Or Baghdad, for that matter? And why not actually offer US asylum to those facing imprisonment and death due to discrimination?

The wider international community, too, seems quite prepared to let bygones be bygones in Afghanistan. After UN staff member Louis Maxwell was executed, by Afghan national forces, the UN has never pushed the Karzai government to conduct the investigation a UN panel called for.

More recently, after seven UN staff were killed by protesters in Mazar-i-Sharif in April, there has been very little follow-up by the UN. And where is the new head of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, on the topic of women's rights in Afghanistan as the US and other powers pull out? We'll see.

As Karzai Visits US, More Questions of Who Killed Louis Maxwell Raised by Sister: An Inconvenient Death

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un4maxwell051010.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 9 -- An inconvenient death casts a shadow, at least for some, over this week's visit to the U.S. by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and over the UN.

The murder of American UN staffer Louis Maxwell in October 2009, following an attack on a UN guesthouse of international elections workers in Kabul, has belatedly been described by the UN as "friendly fire."

But a cell phone video suggests, and Mr. Maxwell's sister among others believes, that Maxwell was summarily executed by Afghan National forces after the firefight was over. The UN never retracted its version, that Maxwell and four other UN staff were all killed by the Taliban, until the video became public and questions became to be asked, including by Inner City Press.

See cell phone video, here, esp. at Minute 1:01 to 1:04

Maxwell's sister over the weekend wrote to Inner City Press for a third time, now putting into words the doubt that the Taliban were (solely) responsible for the attack on the UN guesthouse. She focuses on the conflict of interest the UN has, in confining itself to an internal investigation -- which it described as external and independent -- and then refusing to release a copy of its report, even to the family.

But the U.S., too, has a conflict, as a press conference call by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute on May 7 shows. Lute repeatedly described Karzai as "our partner" and spoke about the training and evaluation of Afghan National forces. (Lute is, as Inner City Press has reported, the husband of former head of the UN Department of Field Support Jane Holl Lute.)

Karzai's pre-trip Washingotn Post op-ed says he will "convey my deepest condolences to families of those who lost their lives in Afghanistan." Lute and his staffer emphasized that Karzai will spend three full hours with Obama. In all that time, will the matter of Louis Maxwell be raised? Inner City Press was on the press call and put itself in the question cue as soon as it was open, but was not able to ask the question. But the questions will continue. Below is Louis Maxwell's third letter to Inner City Press (click here for 2nd)

Subject: Who Benefited?
rom: aijalon
Date: Sun, May 9, 2010 at 3:39 PM
To: Matthew Lee [at] innercitypress.com

* Around October 20, 2009, Kai Eide the top UN official of the mission affirmed that the August 20 elections had been tainted. It was stated that about one to five of the votes should be discounted and that most of the election fraud came from Karzai supporters.

* On October 28 the UN guesthouse was attacked. The same guesthouse where UN monitors for this same election was staying.

* After the attack it is stated by top UN officials that senior afghan officials were uncooperative in providing information and that they(UN) were completely stonewalled.

* On November 1 the runoff candidate to Karzai drops out of the election race,

* On November 7 Karzai is declared president.

* And this is the same government that Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon wants to investigate their deliberate killing(murder) of my brother Louis Maxwell

You be the judge....

Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un4maxwell051010.html

UN's Jane Holl Lute Admits No-Bid Lockheed Martin Deal Caused "Confusion," Says No Conflict of Interest In Iraq and Afghan Overlap with Husband's Role

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2lockheed020708.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 7 -- One hundred days after Lockheed Martin was granted a $250 million no-bid contract by the UN, the main proponent of the contract, the American officer-in-charge of the Department of Field Support, Jane Holl Lute, acknowledged that the lack of competition had caused confusion. While the UN General Assembly by a vote of 142 to 1, with only the United States dissenting, voted to express concern about the no-bid contract, Ms. Lute on Thursday claimed that the process had been transparent. Inner City Press asked, How so? "You have it in your hand," Ms. Lute replied, referring to documents that became public only after being leaked to Inner City Press by whistleblowers.

Following the UN's claim that the sole source process began only after the Security Council's July 31 resolution authorizing the hybrid UN-African Union Darfur force, UNAMID, Inner City Press obtained an April 2007 memo from Ms. Lute pushing Lockheed's Pacific Architects & Engineers subsidiary for a sole source contract. Is that confusion or contradiction? Ms. Lute replied at some length, to her credit, that the April no-bid contract was for the so-called Heavy Support Package, but has ended up being regularized by a Ban Ki-moon edict waving all procurement rules for the UNAMID mission. The General Assembly heard this story, behind closed doors, in December and still voted to express concern and call for an investigation into the waiving of procurement and hiring rules. "If the member states have questions in this regard," Ms. Lute said, she'll be happy to answer them. But where?

In fact, the push to give Lockheed the sole-source Darfur contract stretches even further back, to late 2006. Inner City Press has obtained copies of letters to this effect from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and from DPKO's Jean-Marie Guehenno. Ms. Lute's February 7 story does not appear to account for these documents, nor for what Inner City Press is hearing about a "bridge" $10 million payment to Lockheed, ostensibly from the African Union but actually paid out by the United Nations. We'll have more on this.

Ms. Lute was asked if she wants to remain as Under Secretary General of DFS, a post that the UN's budget says should go to a developing country. Lute said she would like the job, but it is not up to her. Asked to state her understanding of the budget provision, she said "I have no understanding other than what the reality is." Video here, from Minute 40:34. But reality is apparently whatever you say it is. Inner City Press asked if it wasn't a conflict of interest that her husband serves of President Bush's war czar for Afghanistan and Iraq. "I absolutely deny that there is any conflict... There is absolutely no overlap," she said.

(The UN's write-up's pat summary is that Ms. Lute "dismissed a reporter's concern that she had a possible conflict of interest in her United Nations role because her husband, Lt. General Douglas Lute, was the United States' Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan." But the concern is not only this reporter's -- it is frequently expressed by diplomats, though Lute has apparently never before been asked about it.)

Inner City Press asked about her recent trip to Afghanistan, a country for which her husband is the U.S. war czar. Are the UN's and U.S.'s position so in sync that there is not even the appearance of a conflict of interest? Ms. Lute acknowledged the trip, which was little publicized other than by a U.S. military photographer. She went on to say that, in one of the few differences with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations from which DFS was with so much fanfare split off, DFS is responsible for the the logistics for all 23 of the UN's "Special Political Missions." But one of the largest SPM's is that in Iraq, including the proposal, slated to be considered this Spring, that the UN spend $180 million to construct a UN "bunker" in the Green Zone in Baghdad. No appearance of conflict?

On DFS, Ms. Lute predicted that the decision on who will be Under Secretary General will be made neither in hours nor in months. UN sources, including military advisers at Permanent Five members of the Security Council, cast their bets on the Argentine logistics expert of the UN World Food Program. "There is a Pakistani," one military adviser told Inner City Press, "but it is not their UN Ambassador Munir Akram." Would another head of DFS not push so hard for sole-source Lockheed contracts? "I have no understanding, only what the reality is." We will continue to follow this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2lockheed020708.html

At the UN, Champion of Lockheed Martin No-Bid Contract Jane Holl Lute Is Still on Road, with U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/luteheed010208.html

UNITED NATIONS, January 2 -- After the propriety of the UN's $250 million no-bid contract with Lockheed Martin for Darfur infrastructure was questioned, including in the budgetary (Fifth) committee of the General Assembly, UN Spokesperson Michele Montas said that a press briefing would be provided, after the Fifth Committee voted. On December 21, the vote was held, and the committee and wider General Assembly expressed "concern... about the single source contract." Twelve days later, Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas for any comment on the Assembly's expression of concern, and for specifics on which the long-promised briefing will be held. "I will try to get you that," Ms. Montas said, adding that "not everyone is back." Video here, from Minute 11:43.

A UN official who pushed for Lockheed to get the no-bid contract, in April 2007 months before the Security Council voted to create the hybrid Darfur mission, is Jane Holl Lute, officer-in-charge of the Department of Field Support. She has still not come to give a briefing. Internet research finds that early in December she was in Afghanistan -- the report is by a military news website, written and photographed by a U.S. Air Force capital who also runs a blog praising Afghans who "hate the Taliban so much [as to] have been working the past eight months with little to no pay."

He also writes:

"I arrived in Qalat around 6 p.m. I grabbed some dinner at the dining facility--which is run by a company called KBR -- and the food was absolutely awesome. For those of you familiar with my Africa deployment, it's the same company that runs the DFAC there. Every meal since has been excellent."

Kellogg Brown & Root, at that time owned by Halliburton: mm, mm, good. To recap: Jane Holl Lute championed U.S.-based military contractor Lockheed Martin to get the UN's $250 million Darfur contact, without bidding. Her husband is U.S. president Bush's main advisor on Afghanistan and Iraq, Lt.-Gen. Douglas Lute. She flies to Afghanistan and the photos are taken by the U.S. Air Force, not by UN Photo. There are few answers to these round-about questions -- we would prefer the more direct questions, but ever since the questions began in October 2007, Ms. Lute has not answered. That should change sometime soon.

Footnote: Speaking of Darfur and websites, the UN has created a site for the hybrid peacekeeping force, UNAMID. As of Wednesday night, it had logged 1430 visitors, and the "Contact Us" page was listed as "Contacts Us -- Coming Soon." Sort of like the over 20,000 troops, one Net-wag snarked...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/luteheed010208.html