Sri Lanka Says Silva Was Out of Town, Frechette Says He Can't Come

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- Since UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepted an alleged war criminal onto his Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, his Secretariat has tried to make it difficult or impossible to cover the process.

Inner City Press went on June 27 and June 28 to stand outside a UN rented building on Third Avenue to see if Sri Lankan general Shavendra Silva, who is depicted in Ban's own report on Sri Lanka as engaged in war crimes, attended the SAG meeting.

Previously, the UN had said Inner City Press could not wait outside the meeting room as it would in the North Lawn building. Still, on June 27-28 Inner City Press did not see Silva enter.

  The Sri Lankan mission to the UN argued to Inner City Press that it is only that Silva is out of town.

  So at the June 28 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm that Silva did not attend, and to state why. Nesirky said "I don't have any comment on that," saying that "evidently you spoke with the Sri Lankans."

  Inner City Press followed up that Ban appointed SAG chairperson Frechette, who says she has no spokesperson, so the question was for Nesirky. (Top Peacekeeper Herve Ladsous had explitictly refused to answer Inner City Press questions, first about Silva as adviser, and now about any topic at all).

  Nesirky repeated that he had no comment, adding as a way of ending the exchange that if he got any information he would provide it. See below.

  On July 1, the government aligned Sunday Observer carried another story against Inner City Press:

The United Nations Correspendents Association has expressed displeasure that Inner City Press blogger Matthew Russel Lee is attacking the UNCA and the members of the Board of Examination set up against him, in a reportage which they claimed 'one sided and a distortion of facts'.

In the face of his intense attacks, one of the five members of the Board of Examination has resigned forcing the UNCA to fill up the vacant post with a new member, authoritative sources told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Lee is investigated by the UNCA for unethical reporting and unprofessional behaviour among other things.

He is being accused of using his website as a weapon for attacking and character assassination of his colleagues who has offended or come to disagreements with him, the sources said.

Lee, writing in his blog on June 21 accused the UNCA examination a 'set up' to get an investigative journalist which he called himself, expelled from the UN, a claim UNCA Executive Board has denied.

Refuting Lee's accusations that the Association has attempted to suspend his UN accreditation, the Executive board has requested Lee to post a full apology in his website for the personal attacks he had made against the on going investigation and the members of UNCA including its President Giampaolo Pioli.

Inner City Press began its attacks on UNCA President following its sponsoring of a screening of Sri Lanka's film, countering the Channel 4's Killing Fields.

That's the pro government view - the same government which on June 29 raided the offices of two websites and arrested nine journalists, seizing seven computers. Inner City Press asked Nesirky about this at the noon briefing on July 2, and at least got a response, how ever generic.

Then this came in:

Subject: On the Senior Advisory Group on peacekeeping.
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 12:58 PM
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at] innercitypress.com

In response to your question at the noon briefing on Thursday, 28 June: The Chair of the Senior Advisory Group has already previously indicated some time ago that General Silva is not participating in the Group and has notified the Secretary-General to this effect. We do not have anything to add.

But if Silva had been in New York and physically gone to attend, what would have happened? Watch this site.

UN Arms Trade Treaty Opening Stalled on Question of Palestine, Ammo Is Easy?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Partial exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 -- Ban Ki-moon was slated to speak at 10:30 am Monday at the opening of the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty. But it did not happen. The opening was delayed, at least until Monday afternoon. Why?

On June 29 in a nearly empty UN North Lawn building, two representatives of the Palestinian Mission to the UN sat talking with the Argentine chair of the ATT. Nothing was resolved. On July 2, sources in the North Lawn told Inner City Press a dispute arose about where and how to seat Palestine.

As Inner City Press exclusively reported on June 8, Palestine after being voted into UNESCO next participated in the Law of the Sea event, which it had been seeking since 1974. And now the ATT.

At 1:30 pm on Monday, after asking questions at Security Council stakeouts by Navi Pillay and French Ambassador Gerard Araud, Inner City Press asked the Argentine chair of the ATT about the Palestine issue. It is not resolved yet, he exclusively told Inner City Press. They are talking about it right now.

Two representatives of the Holy Sea moved past the stakeout and into the garage. They are a precedent; there are others. Watch this site.

Footnote: In an NGO press conference last week previewing the ATT, the word "Palestine" did not arise. (Nor does it in this derivative wire story.) This, however, was asked and answered:

Q: the US/Mexico dispute. The NRA has been mentioned. It has its internal political issues on this. Some have said ammunition shouldn't be covered. How do you expect this issue will play out in July?

Abramson: Are you talking about ammunition in particular? There were a couple disputes in February. ... It's my expectation that ammunition will be included in the treaty. It's really a very small number of countries, including the United States, who are arguing against it. And it's a little bit nonsensical for the United States, actually because the United States already licenses the import and export of weapons, so functionally they're arguing for a standard lower than what they already do. I think they understand that. You've already started hearing the United States talk about, if you provide us with a workable solution we'll work at that. So I'm relatively confident that that issue can be worked through, in part because it's just insane to think of this treaty without ammunition. When you're talking about the harms caused by guns, it's not the gun, it's the bullet. If you're talking about the issue where you're asking, will this make a difference? The guns, they have a long life span. If you really want to control their harm, you have to control the expendable item, which is the ammunition. And multiple countries are making this case. So I do expect that be resolved.

Watch this site.

Feltman Thanks Ban Ki-moon But Should Thank Obama, Knows Maged, Eliasson Redux

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 --On Monday morning Jeffrey Feltman, until recently the top US official on the Middle East, was sworn in by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as the head of Ban's Department of Political Affairs. Inner City Press photo here, YouTube channel video here.

 

  Back on March 28, Inner City Press exclusively and accurately reported that Feltman would get the job because the Obama administration through its State Department choose him. 

 

 Ban had little choice in the matter, just as Ban had no choice in France putting Herve Ladsous atop UN Peacekeeping, the fourth Frenchman in a row in that post.

  Ladsous was at Monday's swearing in of Feltman and Jan Eliasson as Ban's new Deputy Secretary General, replacing Tanzania's Asha Rose Migiro. (As if it made up for this diss of Africa, Ban last week gave Migiro another UN job, envoy to Africa on HIV / AIDS.)

  Both men swore allegiance to the UN and its Charter's Article 100, to not accept instructions from any country. But since particular countries control the highest posts -- France with Peacekeeping, the US with DPA, for example -- how can this oath be taken seriously?

  Feltman in brief remarks after the swearing in thanked Ban for "selecting me for this position," and recounted spending Sunday reading the UN charter. Better late than never, said one wag. Reading it is one thing; abiding by it is another.

  Feltman shook hands with the assembled Ban Under Secretaries General. Before him, Eliasson had made a point of showing previous interactions with many of the USGs - with Diarra, for example, on the 2005 reforms, with Susana Malcorra on turf wars, and so forth.

  Feltman did not know many of the USGs, the exception being Maged Abdelaziz, the Mubarak era Egyptian Ambassador to the UN who Ban gave his "Special Adviser on Africa" job over the objection of major sub Saharan African countries. "We know each other," Feltman told Ban, of Maged. You don't say. Inner City Press photo of the Feltman - Maged greeting is here.

  Last week Inner City Press wrote of the tenure of Lynn Pascoe, and noted that he had grown into the job. Will it be so with Feltman? Watch this site.

Footnote: Eliasson, who as Inner City Press reports is being a transition staffer from the UN mission in Libya at a cost that bothers whistleblowers, reminisced about his dealing with Ban in 2007 "during the Darfur crisis" -- as if that crisis is over. Inner City Press photo of Ban and Eliasson on July 2 is here.

 

In the weeds: in covering the Geneva "Action Group" on Syria meeting on June 30, Inner City Press reported that the UK's former political coordinator at the UN David Quarrey was there with William Hague. On July 2 Inner City Press asked what Quarrey's position is and learned: UK Middle East director.

  So if, as the UK wants, they ever took back DPA from the US, could Quarrey replace Feltman? By that token, why shouldn't Robert Mood, soon to be decommissioned from Syria, by considered to head UN Peacekeeping? If Ban's claim that experience is paramount is true....

Phantom Afghan Police, UNAMA Emboiled in Corruption, Inner City Press 7th in Series Show

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, 7th in Series

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- More than a week after Inner City Press posed Afghanistan corruption questions to the UN Development Program, and launched its audit-a-day exclusive series, UNDP has yet to provide any response on the four internal audits Inner City Press asked them to explain. 

   The series now resumes.

  The Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan has pervasively and throughout the country allowed for payments to police not on the official payroll, audit documents obtained by Inner City Press show.

 

  As noted in the first and second installments of this series LOTFA purports to be about training and "building capacity" of Afghan police. But it is essentially a money transfer and payroll service, with a sideline as a travel agency.

  But even its payroll service is mismanaged. In sample "Observation # 6" the auditors say that

"We observed differences between number of police personnel as per HR record maintained by MOI and EPS records. We noted that EPS record was showing excess number of police personnel than the number of police personnel appearing in the HR record... Differences in personnel records between HR and EPS may have following impacts/risks: Salaries may be paid to persons who are not actually on the payroll; Double payments of salaries may be made to staff members."

  The attached audit shows that in in Asmayi Region, the excess staff number was over 1000.

  In Kunar it was 429; in Badakhshan it was 219. "We're talking real money on these phantom Afghan police," as one whistleblower exclusively said to Inner City Press.

   On the afternoon of June 22, Inner City Press asked UNDP, among other things:

"Please describe expenses for Ms. Grynspan's trip to Afghanistan, including leasing (from UNAMA) of plane for flight from Dubai, and the redeployment / hiding of armored vehicles during her visit."

 

  On June 27, UNDP answered thusly:

"The UN Under Secretary-General and UNDP Associate Administrator Ms. Rebeca Grynspan flew, as recommended by UN operations, on Dubai-Kabul-Dubai flights made available on 12 and 14 July by UNAMA, on UN operated planes, as they were the most suitable and secure options. UNDP uses armoured vehicles to ensure the safety of staff, including for high level officials who come on mission."

  As Inner City Press reported in its first story in this series, whistleblowers complained to it that UNDP leased a Lear Jet for Grynspan, while "the SRSG flies commercial" for much less money. 

   Given the non-responsiveness of UNDP, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's office, which referred the questions back to UNDP, beyond providing a canned statement from SRSG Jan Kubis. 

 Now, another whistleblower has exclusively provided Inner City Press with this comparison of the mission in Iraq (UNAMI) with the even more corrupt on in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

"UNAMA and UNAMI were both told to prepare 19% budget cuts as Special Political Missions funded by core funding and with the UN facing pressure from member states to cut back.

"At the joint Video Conference with New York the heavyweight USGs, Ladsous and Pascoe, were rolled out, along with acting head of DFS, Tony Banbury..... UNAMI were praised for having one a good job: decided their political priorities, nationalized where possible, cut support staff by 15% etc; UNAMA by contrast had cut substantive political posts, ignored the instruction for a cut in mission support by 15% across the board, and tried to claim 'cuts' by shifting some support staff to Kuwait. 

"The reason? Everyone knows that UNAMA s run by the Chief of Mission Support, Stephani Scheer (allegedly aka 'Cindy', in the book about the Oil for Food scandal "Backstabbing for Beginners'); indeed on the Thursday night after the Budget submission, she was in the UNAMA Social Center in a "tired and emotional" state loudly reminding everyone that "You all work for me!". With international support staff cut by 5% and political staff by 20% she seems to be correct - only a third of the mission is "substantive", the rest is "support and security", and despite 8 flights a day to Dubai, used by the SRSG and all UN agencies, she has insisted on retaining the UNAMA jet which usually flies half-empty and, of course, needs a large support element....

"It looks like LOTFA us not the only UN budgeting Afghanistan that could do with International Community scrutiny....NATO members are said to be particularly upset that theUN is cutting back just as they leave (who will take the blame if the UN is not there?)....they should be even more upset by the way their money is being wasted and the real jobs cut."

  The above again spreads the scandal beyond UNDP to the UN system as a whole. As to UNDP, one would think the agency will have to answer this specific: "the date on which each of Basnyet, Sandeep Kumar and Ubadallah Sahibzada became aware of the irregularities and of the attached audits." Watch this site.