Access
to Information Discussed But Not Practiced at UN, Which
Journalists Are Protected?
Byline:
Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Media Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May
1 -- In the run-up to World Press Freedom Day, the U.S.-based Committee
to
Protect Journalists released at the UN a report
ranking "countries where
killers of journalists go free." The methodology, as explained by CPJ's
executive director Joel Simon, excludes so-called crossfire events,
such as the
U.S. bombing of Al-Jazeera's office in Iraq. Nor does the ranking
reflect
countries with the least press freedom. North Korea, for example, does
not
appear on the list. Rather, the list focuses on countries in which
there is an
expectation of press freedom, which is then betrayed.
Inner City Press asked for CPJ's
view on the UN's own promotion of press freedom, using the example of
UN
personnel in Nepal stopping local journalists from filming the site of
a UN
helicopter crash and seizing their film. The UN could do more, Simon
said."We would like to see more engagement
throughout the UN bureacracy."
Video here,
from Minute
22:04.
While killings were counted in the
study also came up. Inner City Press asked about so-called targeted
crossfire;
Joel Simon said that is not included, but that CPJ still asks for
accountability, for example in Iraq. Video here,
from Minute
20:43.
After the press conference, Inner
City Press asked Joel Simon how CPJ defines who is a journalist. There
is no
hard and fast rule, he said. But he said CPJ does not want to include
"advocates and their screeds." He said he would e-mail Inner City
Press DPJ's definition of who is a journalist.
The following day, at a UNESCO
luncheon graced by a speech by South African Justice Albie Sachs, Joel
Simon was
again present. "Oh right," he said. "The definition of
journalist." Yes, that. One would think CPJ would have such a
definition,
to know who to protect. But eight hours after the luncheon, we're still
waiting. There will be a debate on just this topic on May 14 at Columbia's
School of Journalism - but how is that defined? Click here
for a video on the topic. We'll have more on this.
Footnote: Albie Sachs spoke
of the importance
of access to information, using examples from South Africa's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and the country's Promotion of Information
Act, under
which he sought and obtained records about his own torture. He took
three
questions then ran to catch a plane. Inner City Press asked him in the
hall,
Should the UN have a Freedom of Information law? He answered - and then
said,
"Don't quote me." So his answer is not here. But one wonders: what is
it about the UN that its supporters, even those of the stature, moral
and
otherwise, of Albie Sachs, are no reticent to say, "Yes, this could be
improved"?
WFP's
Sheeran Says
Speculators Are a Cause of Food Price Crisis, But Has No Suggestions
Byline:
Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 24 -- As it raises money to respond to the food price crisis, the
UN's
World Food Program faces at least two issues, one of them head-on, the
other
less directly. Asked Thursday about the role of speculators in driving
up food
prices -- and, by implication, how to ensure that additional emergency
funding
doesn't just further benefit the speculators -- WFP
director Josette Sheeran
said she is not an expert in this, that WFP's focus is on feeding
people. If
not WFP, who in the UN system would know and be able to address the
financial
underpinning of today's global food markets? Video here,
from Minute 41:19.
Ms. Sheeran
spoke at greater
length about shifts in WFP's procurement toward, she said, the
developing
world. But she also said that WFP does not want to compete with local
markets
where there is a shortage, and therefore looks to surplus markets in
order to
make purchases. WFP has two goals at cross-purposes: buy in poorer,
more food-starved
countries in order to build capacity, but don't buy in food-starved
countries
so as not complete with local markets.
Ms. Sheeran mentioned WFP purchases in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of salt in Senegal. She said
that Mozambique
after its floods faced logistical challenges "like after [Hurricane]
Katrina, and that WFP had bought 70% of its food to response from
inside
Mozambique itself. She did not address WFP's sometimes-controversial
work-for-food programs. She demonstrated a solid, almost troubling
knowledge of
intra-UN politics, going out of her way to praise not only FAO's
Jacques
Diouff, with whom she obviously must work closely, but also Kemal
Dervis who
she identified with the UN Development Group, and President Wade of
Senegal.
She said she was aware of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission
meeting
that Inner City Press asked about, but then declined to make any
recommendation
about limiting or regulating speculation.
Case in point is Dwight Anderson's
Ospraie Capital, which Inner City Press explicitly asked Ms. Sheeran
about.
Video here,
from Minute 41:19. Anderson has profited handily from the crisis,
but now seeks to fly under the radar, buying up the rights to all
photographs
of himself. How to ensure that WFP's intervention into markets doesn't
just
benefit speculators like Anderson? One would like to think that WFP and
Ms.
Sheeran are making sure this doesn't happen. But nothing was said in
this
regard on Thursday. We will continue to follow this issue.
Gordon
Brown in Sea of Snubs, In Private
Press Conference, Zim
Election Observers Called For
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, April 16, updated April 17
-- For Gordon Brown at the
UN on Wednesday, it was a morning of snubs. His meeting with South
Africa's
Thabo Mbeki was cancelled. He in turn cancelled his
previously-announced press
conference for all UN correspondents. Rather, he blew by the stakeout
with an
entourage of two dozen, on his way to a room in the basement to speak
only with
the British traveling press.
"How
can they do this?" Inner City Press asked the UN staffer controlling
access to Brown's briefing.
They booked the
room, was the subsequent
answer.
When?
Initially
it was just to leave their bags in. Then, an hour and a half ago, they
said
they wanted to use it for this.
"Booking
rooms by the hour, like a hot sheet motel," another correspondent
grumbled afterwards.
When
Gordon Brown came out, Inner City Press asked him if he had met with
Mbeki. He
nodded and smiled. Inner City Press asked, "No snub?"
"No
snub," one in his entourage replied. And then they were gone, down to
lunch with Michael Bloomberg and to meet with Wall Street bankers.
A
source who was in the Brown presser reports the emphasis inside was on
a two
hour meeting earlier in the week, as the rebuttal of the snub. Outside,
a five
minute "brush-by" was described. Ah,
diplomacy....
The
substance kept secret, it's said, was a call
for international observers of any second round of voting in Zimbabwe.
We'll
have more on this -- when we can.
Update of 1:55 p.m. --
The
UK's Lord Malloch Brown, stopping in the hallway to speak with
reporters, phrased it this way, "Don't build cheat on cheat." If the
first round was irregular, a second round is not the solution. He said
that sending UN elections observers would not require a Security
Council vote, but would require the invitation or consent of Zimbabwe's
government.
He declined to
comment
on allegations in the British legislature that one or more of the
Zimbabwe resident representatives of the UN Development Program, which
he used to head, have accepted favors and even land from Robert Mugabe.
One doesn't comment on the personnel practices of an agency one no
longer works for, he said. He referred to a denial on UNDP's web site
-- so, he remains at minimum an observer. So how about the exponential
growth of "cost sharing," which he promoted, leading now to a situation
where UNDP expends more in Latin America than in African, with over 90%
of UNDP's expenditures in Latin America consisting of little more than
doing the bookkeeping (and rule evasion) for a government's programs in
its own country? More on this to follow.
Update
of April 17, 2:20 p.m. --
while Inner
City Press at the April 16 UN noon briefing asked
There
was a press briefing by Gordon
Brown downstairs, only for the British press, or maybe only for the
traveling
press, because they paid for the room. I
want to know, how does that work? How much did they pay and how does
that work?
Spokesperson: This house belongs
to the Member States. I don't know what
the exact fee is to rent a
room.
Inner
City Press: It seems like a
technical thing, but since other journalists here were barred from that
press
conference, I decided that I want to know how much they paid for that
room.
Spokesperson: Okay, we can try
to find the answer.
While the Spokesperson's Office did not provide an
answer in the 24 hours that folllowed, the UK Mission to the UN
contested, not to Inner City Press but to the well-meanin UN staffer
put in the position of keeping the press out, that as a member state
the UK could use the room for free, without paying. The article above
has been modified, as marked in italics, to characterize it as a
"booking" and not a "renting" of the room.
The issue of the exclusion of the press by the UK private press
conference, however, remains. The distinction was not "UN
correspondents out, travelling press in," as select UN correspondent
were, in fact, allowed in, uncontested by the UK mission. It is another
selection process, for which the UK Mission has become known. We'll
have more on this. For now, the rest of the April
16 Q&A on the issue:
Question: Does the UN at least
nominally have a policy
that all press conferences should be open to all accredited
journalists, and
does it at least frown upon, or disdain the idea of having press
conferences
limited to journalists of only one nationality? If
so, can that policy be, at least, asserted in
this case?
Spokesperson: In this specific
case, it was not in this
room. This room, 226, is reserved for
press conferences. So...
Question: Do countries have the
right to book rooms by
themselves and give press conferences which are totally private, in
manners of
their own choosing?
Spokesperson:
Yes, they do. Unfortunately,
the only thing we can really control
is Room 226. This was already a question
that was raised
before, because one press conference has been held here before, where
the issue
was raised because some correspondents could not get in.
We raised that issue then, and this will no
longer happen. Not here, in 226.
One final footnote: from
within the UK Foreign Office, and not its Mission to the UN, comes a
different theory of snubs, under which the George Bush administration
had Gordon Brown come at the same time as the Pope, in order to make
the U.S. press less interested in Brown. (As noted, only a single
photographer waited for Brown outside the Waldorf Towers on Wednesday.)
This purportedly goes back to Brown characterizing his first meeting
with Bush as "frank," diplo-speak for angry, creating the impression
that unlike Tony Blair, Gordo stood up to W. W's revenge? Gordo's
eclipse by the Pope. A sea of snubs, indeed....
UN
Censors Internet In Its NY Headquarters, Blocking Media
Critique and Non-Google Video Sites
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 10 -- The UN's
computer system censors a number of websites, among them the Chinese
anti-cnn.com
site devoted to searching for what it calls media bias. Also censored
is the
site dailymotion.com, which after LiveLeaks.com took it down was a
remaining
site hosting the controversial film "Fitna," which the UN's Ban
Ki-moon denounced. In each case, attempts from inside the UN, by staff
or in the
library, to read either site results in a
message from the "ICT Security
Unit" that "you have been redirected to this page because the site
you are attempting to access is blocked according to the policy as
detailed in
ST/SGB/2004/15."
This Secretary-General's
Bulletin allows staff "limited personal use of ICT
resources" unless these involve "pornography or engaging in gambling"
or would "compromise the interests or the reputation of the
Organization."
But
whether or not the UN Organization agrees with the media critique
offered, for
example, by anti-cnn.com, it is neither pornography or gambling, and
keeping up
with critiques of mainstream media could hardly "compromise the
interests
or the reputation of the Organization."
The
same is true of the video site DailyMotion.com, and it is worth noting
that the
UN does not block or censor another video site, YouTube.com. The latter, of course, is owned by the UN's
partner Google, which itself assists with Internet
censorship in China.
[Full disclosure:
Inner City Press was temporarily
excluded by Google News earlier this year, which was linked to UN system and affiliates' complaint(s). At
the time, the UN sputtered that it does not engage in censorship. But
why then
are non-pornographic political analysis web sites blocked inside the
UN's own
headquarters?]
With
the UN censoring the Internet inside its own headquarters in New York,
its commitment
to freedom of the press, particularly of online media, remains suspect.
Watch
this space.
UN Development Program
"Launders
Money" in Latin America, Chart and
Sources Say
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, April 2 -- The
UN
Development Program expends significantly more in relatively affluent
Latin
America than in Africa,
a continent-wide
analysis obtained by Inner City Press
reveals. In 2006, over 90% of UNDP's $1.3 billion in expenditures in
Latin
America were so-called "cost sharing," in which governments give UNDP
money in order to do procurement or pay salaries to people already in
the
government's employ.
While being little
more than a bookkeeper -- or money
launderer, as several inside UNDP sources put it -- UNDP collects a fee
for all
funds it processes, and books it as income. The model has become
attractive to
UNDP's offices throughout Latin America, leading to UNDP tarnishing the
UN's
name by becoming involved in procurement scandals such as a current one
in Venezuela.
A week ago, Inner City Press asked UNDP a series of question which
have still not been answered. On Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Ban
Ki-moon's
Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General's comment on how UNDP
under Kemal
Dervis and Ad Melkert is making the UN appear.
Just last month,
the head of the
UN-affiliated World Bank, when asked about UNDP's
attempt to attribute its greater
expenditure in Latin America than in Africa to its supposed
"processing" of World Bank loans, expressed skepticism. The answer
for UNDP's disparity, the attached chart
now shows, is UNDP's "cost
sharing" programs.
UNDP's
questionable work in Latin America is not limited to countries like
Venezuela, where in 2006 UNDP reported
$34 million in "cost sharing."
In Argentina in 2006, while spending less than $1 million in "regular
resources" to promote development, UNDP processed over $268 million for
the government. UNDP's Argentina
web site, under the heading Acquisitions, vaguely lists
much of its work as
"NEX" -- the so-called national execution modality that got the
agency into trouble in North Korea. There are also acquisitions of
servers from
CISCO, a supplier that UNDP sources say is not chosen competitively,
but rather
is actively promoted and favored by UNDP's country offices on
instructions from
UNDP Headquarters.
In
Brazil in 2006, while again spending less than $1 million in "regular
resources" to promote development, UNDP processed over $227 million for
the government. UNDP's Brazil web
site was soliciting bids, for
example, up to March
28 for 100 hotel rooms for a conference to take place April 7-8, 2008
(#758).
Inner
City Press is informed by Brazilian sources that the size of UNDP's
cost-sharing was revealed in that country when people UNDP paid, with
government pass-through money, to work for the government argued that
they
should not have to pay taxes, claiming they were international civil
servants.
A dispute ensued, and the full size of UNDP's Brazilian program, which
dwarfs
African programs, became known. "UNDP is renting out the UN's powers
for a
fee, it is engaged in essence in money laundering," a UNDP source told
Inner City Press on condition of anonymity, given UNDP's known
penchant for
retaliation, noted not only by the Washington-based Government
Accountability
Project but also, at least on a prima
facie basis, by the UN Ethics Office. The
analogy is that governments pay the fee to UNDP in order to work around
procurement and other rules -- UNDP does not have to be transparent,
and does
not have to follow local rules.
While
UNDP in Cuba in 2006 reported
$7 million in cost-sharing, the UNDP figure in
Guatemala was $92 million. In Bolivia it was $31 million, in Chile $23
million,
Colombia $82 million, Dominican Republic $5 million, Ecuador $30
million, El
Salvador $13 million, Paraguay $32 million, Uruguay $10 million.
From
poor Haiti, UNDP took in $16 million in cost-sharing, versus only $14
million
in Mexico.
UNDP's
response to the controversy around
a contract of less than $3 million in Venezuela with Setronix has been
to
direct Inner City Press to UNDP's online rebuttal. But while UNDP
claims that
the documents it links to show competitive bidding, the documents in
fact refer
to " excepcion
a un proceso competitivo" - exception to a competitive process. In
any
case, this is just the tip of the iceberg of UNDP's $1.1 billion of
"cost-sharing"
in Latin America (compared to UNDP's less than $600 million in annual
spending
in Africa.)
In
Honduras, UNDP's cost-sharing in 2006 was a whopping $103 million. The web site refers, in
Spanish, to the modalidad de
Ejecucion Nacional (NEX -- national execution "modality," saying
that it guarantees that national authorities keep control of the
program and of
the final responsibility for how the funds are used.
UNDP, it seems, just takes a fee, and
repeatedly further tarnishes the UN's name in the process.
Footnote: Inner City Press
is informed
that while the Secretariat publicly claims to have little power over
UNDP,
allowing Kemal Dervis for example to set up his own Ethics
Office and
self-investigation panel, now several
candidates as UNDP Resident Representatives
in countries are being reviewed on the 38th floor. This would give the
Secretariat some leverage to clean UNDP up. Will this happen? We'll see.
UN's Top
Lawyer Calls for Pension Reform, Says Ethics Office Decided Not to
Mention His $10,000 Monthly Swiss Subsidy
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 24 -- The UN's chief legal
officer Nicolas Michel on Monday cited a conflict of interest as
grounds to neither criticize or support the UN Ethics Office's decision
not to include the Swiss government's housing subsidy in Michel's
public financial disclosure form. Inner City Press had asked the UN
Spokesperson about the omission but had not received an answer. In a
phone conversation late Monday, Michel emphasized that he had asked
Ethics Office chief Robert Benson, who said that "the policy of
publication did not cover contributions of that sort."
It is not clear who is making up this policy, and on
what basis. The Secretary-General's web site states
that the UN's public financial disclosure is important because
it "demonstrates that UN staff members understand the
importance of the general public and UN Member States being assured
that, in the discharge of their official duties and responsibilities,
staff members will not be influenced by any consideration associated
with his/her private interests."
Inner City Press e-mailed and read this
statement to Nicolas Michel, emphasizing the word "any" and in that
light if the fact that a senior UN official was receiving a housing
subsidy of $10,000 or more every month should have been disclosed. "I
cannot answer that," Michel said. "It would be a conflict of interest."
The $10,000 a month figure is derived from Michel's
account of the origins of the subsidy. He took the UN post in May 2004,
and had a mere two and a half days to find a place to live. A colleague
told him that it would be important to live in Manhattan, to be
available for unscheduled emergencies. But of the apartments he looked
at, the rents were "from twenty to twenty-six thousand dollars a
month." Given the size of his family, Michel was looking for four or
five
bedrooms.
Ultimately, Michel found accommodations for "about
half that amount" in suburban Westchester County, from which he
commutes, which he
calls less than ideal. While this has saved the Swiss government money,
it is not clear if the Swiss government put any cap on what it would
pay. Michel emphasized that the Swiss government agreed in
writing to respect the tenets of Article 100 of the UN Charter, that
Michel would be an international civil servant not subject to influence
by his country.
Still, this arrangement was not made public at the
time, nor earlier this year when the public disclosure forms went
online. Michel's form, under the heading "Income," lists the
renting-out of his house in Switzerland. On Monday Michel unprompted
told Inner City Press that he inherited the house, and rents out two of
the three floors. These rent payments from two people who
presumably
have nothing to do with the UN is publicly disclosed as income, but
$10,000 a month from a member state with interests at the UN and its
legal department is not in the public
disclosure form. Something is wrong with such a public disclosure
regime, it seems clear. Michel said twice he would not comment on this,
because "it would be a conflict of interest."
Michel went on to criticize the UN's pension system,
saying that if he leaves as he now will with less than five years'
service, he gets back only what he put in with below market rate
interest, and none of the UN's contribution. Inner City
Press has most often heard this complaint regarding
those serving in UN peacekeeping missions, who generally stay for less
than five years and feel that they are subsidizing other UN pensioners.
Michel is losing, he told Inner City Press on
Monday, some $20,000 a year.
Back on September 12, 2006, Inner City Press asked
Kofi Annan's spokesman for the identity of the one official whom the
spokesman said was receiving housing subsidy. The spokesman in
a public briefing declined to give the name. Michel was, in fact,
the guest
at that day's briefing. Afterwards, the spokesman said that the
individual wanted to come forward, would soon be coming forward. That
never happened.
On Monday Inner City Press asked Nicolas Michel,
"Was that you?" Michel did not say yes, but rather stated that he
wished the spokesman had brought it to his attention at the time, that
he was always ready and willing to go public. He said he obtained
authorization for the subsidy before agreeing to accept the Office of
Legal Affairs post. He said that he had put in a call mid-Monday
afternoon to Ethics Office chief Robert Benson, to make sure they had
similar recollections, but that Benson was and is away from the office.
We will have more on this story of public financial disclosure.
Why the UN Spokesperson's Office did not provide an
answer about the omission of the housing subsidy from Michel's public
financial disclosure on Ban Ki-moon's web site is not known.
From the UN
briefing transcript of
March 18, 2008:
Inner
City Press: Mr. Michel was receiving housing
subsidy from the Swiss Government. It turns out that the Public
Financial
Disclosure of Nicolas Michel on the Secretary-General’s website for
2006 doesn't
make any mention of this housing subsidy. So I guess I want to
know,
first of all, is receipt of a benefit like housing that comes from the
Government, the kind of thing that the Secretariat thinks should be in
a
financial disclosure?
Spokesperson: It was fully disclosed by Mr. Michel.
Inner City Press: But it's not in the Public Financial Disclosure.
Spokesperson: Maybe it's not in the public disclosure, but it was
fully,
fully disclosed in 2006 by Mr. Michel.
Inner City Press: I'm sorry, I don't mean to, but, so, in the internal
one,
filed with PricewaterhouseCoopers, it was disclosed. But who is
vetting
the public financial disclosures? Because it says that the
purpose of
those is to show the public what conflicts of interest the officials
may have
and if these kinds of things are not being disclosed, then what’s it
showing?
Spokesperson: In the case of the Ethics Office and the Financial
Disclosure Form, that we have been filing since Mr. Ban came to the
Secretary-General’s post, publishing them is something that the new
Ethics
Office started. So it is the responsibility of the Ethics Office
now to
put the financial disclosures out. Before, in 2006, the Ethics
Office was
not doing it. What I can tell you is that, in the case of Mr.
Michel,
everything received in terms of contributions was filed. And it
has been
fully disclosed and the disclosure statements were cleared by the
competent
organs. So he is not receiving any contribution in any form under
his
current contract that started as you know on 1 March 2007.
Inner City Press: Okay, I'm sorry, just to clarify, although it was
called
2006, recently when you read out the statement that now there is a
website with
the Public Financial Disclosures, the forms that went up were for the
year
2006. So it seems to me he was receiving a housing subsidy during
that
year. This form was put up only recently, in 2008. The
Secretary-General created a website to put up Public Financial
Disclosures.
Spokesperson: That was for 2007.
Question: It actually says right on the form it's for 2006.
It was
the 2006 year.
Spokesperson: I can check for you what's on the website, but I
can tell
you categorically that the contributions Mr. Michel received were
explicitly
authorized by the Organization before he accepted the position as Legal
Counsel. This was an arrangement, as you know, between the Swiss
authorities
and the Organization on the ground of exceptional family
circumstances.
The practice of exceptional authorizations was well established then
and
supported by relevant administrative issuances. And this was the
case
over a long period of time. As I said, now Mr. Michel is not
receiving
any such contributions.
For now
Nicolas Michel is thanked for his time, particularly in the run-up to
meetings this Thursday about the UN-affiliated tribunals in Lebanon and
Cambodia.
And, at deadline, it emerged that the incoming prime minister of
Pakistan says he will request a UN inquiry into the murder of Benazir
Bhutto. Watch this site.
How GA President Kerim
Spends Money Questioned as Part of Reform by France and Indonesia
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: 2nd in a series -
1st
UNITED NATIONS, March 19 -- The
day after the President of the General Assembly
Srgjan Kerim acknowledged to Inner
City Press that his
rent and salary is paid by the Government of the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, and called for a reform in which this would be
prohibited and funds provided by the UN itself, two Ambassadors on the
Security Council raised questions about Kerim's proposal. France's
Deputy Permanent Representative Jean-Pierre Lacroix said "there is
already an envelope" of funds given to Kerim's office, "it's more a
question of how is it used, frankly." The General Assembly has voted
$280,000 a year for the Office of the President of the General
Assembly, which Kerim's spokesman has told Inner City Press is devoted
only to "travel and representation as well as transportation,
communication and security related costs."
"I didn't know that was the arrangement," Indonesia's Permanent
Representative Marty Natalegawa told Inner City Press. He said that
before any hasty decision is reached to give the President of the
General Assembly more money, a broader context must be considered, the
possible precedent it would set for such posts as the "chairs of
various committees, forums and processes."
While Ban Ki-moon has spoken of the
need for transparency and reform to try to bring about greater public
confidence in the UN system, when Inner City Press on Wednesday asked
his spokesperson Michele Montas if he believes the President of the
General Assembly should be funded by the UN, or by outside parties, she
replied that "we don't have to comment on this... this does not have
anything to do with the reform program."
Told of Kerim's position that
currently no rules apply to whom he takes money from, Amb. Natalegawa
asked rhetorically, "So all options are open, then."
Sources told Inner City Press that its story about Kerim's acceptance
of rent in Essex House and a salary have summoned an inevitable
comparison to what is paid to legislators and the president in FYROM,
and its UN Ambassador in New York. Talk has begun that FYROM sought
recoupment from Kerim's employer, the WAZ media group -- if so, Amb.
Natalegawa would be right, all options have been open.
Questions have arisen regarding whether the proper
authorizations were obtained before these payments to Mr. Kerim began.
From
the Balkans, it can be viewed that Kerim masterfully deflected an
inquiry into what funding he has been and is taking into a broader
called for reform, delivered to Inner City Press by Kerim's spokesman:
"President Kerim has always
maintained that all costs related to the post and functioning of the
General Assembly President should be covered through the regular UN
budget... rather than the makeshift arrangements that currently exist.
"This would ensure each
elected President has an equal opportunity to deliver results --
whether from a developed or developing country, no matter how large or
small. An entirely UN funded budget would enhance the independence of
the President, and increase transparency and accountability to Member
States."
Lost in this proposal, seen from the Balkans, are the specifics of what
has been received. Developing.
Footnote: from the transcript
of Wednesday's UN noon briefing:
Inner
City Press: yesterday, the President of the General Assembly, Srgjan
Kerim, acknowledged that, while serving as President of the General
Assembly, he has been receiving both rent and salaries from the
Government of The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. He said
that he believes that this either presents a conflict, or unbearable
pressure to do favors for those who provide the funding, and called for
the position to be funded by the UN itself, given that he is the UN's
top elected official. The UK said that they support that.
Does Ban Ki-moon believe that the President of the General Assembly
should be funded by the UN, or by outside parties?
Spokesperson:
We don't have to comment on this. This is a matter for the
General Assembly. Whatever is budgeted for the President of the
General Assembly is done by the General Assembly. So I don't
think the Secretary-General has anything to say about this.
Inner City Press: You don't see it as a UN reform issue, the top
elected official being funded by an outside party?
Spokesperson: No, this does not have anything to do with the reform
program. Of course, you know, I am sure there are reform issues
that are being introduced by the General Assembly, and Member States
can introduce such reforms, particularly in General Assembly
affairs. But, this is not a matter for the Secretary-General
himself.
We'll see. Watch this site.
UN's Censorship and Press
Punishment Slammed by Staff Union, From Google to Photos of the Dead
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 13 -- As UN
attacks on freedom of the press have spread this year from UN
Headquarters to the highlands of Nepal, the UN Staff Council on
Thursday called on officials of the UN system including funds and programs
like the UN Population Fund and the UN Development Program to cease from "censorship, harassment, intimidation or punishment, or the threat or implication
thereof."
The
injunction on threats of punishment is a direct reference to statements
last month to Inner City Press by Assistant Secretary-General Michael Adlerstein about coverage with which he
disagreed, "How should you be punished?" Click here for transcript. The reference to
censorship echoes the
critique of the UN Development Program or
its U.S. Committee for UNDP levied by the Washington-based Government
Accountability Project.
The resolution, pending for three weeks, also refers
to the incident in Nepal ten days ago in which UN personnel seized the video footage shot of the remains of the
downed UN helicopter contracted from Russia-based Vertical T. While the UN has belatedly apologized for the last of these
limitations of journalistic freedom, claiming it was only to prevent
the filming of dead bodies, it is not clear what safeguards have
been instituted to prevent future attempts at censorship, exclusion or punishment. An
event is upcoming in Washington DC on the UN and free press. Interest is
growing on Capitol Hill, as these acts contrary to the First Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution are carried out with U.S. taxpayers' funds.
Inner City Press weeks ago asked UNDP to disclose payments it has made
to influence coverage of UNDP's performance; UNDP has yet to respond.
Watch this site.
In Darfur, UN Gave Lockheed $12
Million No-Bid Food Contract, Leaked Minutes Show, Breakfast in Nyala
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- Already
under fire have having granted Lockheed Martin a no-bid $250 million
contract to build peacekeeping camps in Sudan, the UN on New Year's Eve
convened an emergency meeting to give Lockheed subsidiary Pacific
Architects & Engineers another $12 million on an emergency basis,
records show. This no-bid contract was to feed the peacekeepers, and to
strong-arm the UN Headquarters Committee on Contracts to sign off, they
were told that the peacekeepers had "to be fed breakfast in the next
few hours." See HCC Minutes, leaked to Inner City Press and
placed online here, at Paragraph 1.03.
While the UN's Department of Field
Support sought approval of the lack of competitive bidding on the
grounds of emergency or "exigency," UN Controller Warren Sach wrote
that "the urgency of the matter stems from poor planning." See
attached as last page, Sach's January 2, 2008 note, copied to the UN Department of
Management's Alicia Barcena and DFS acting chief Jane Holl
Lute.
The last minute contract to Lockheed Martin is particularly noteworthy
for its context, in which DFS' award of a $250 million no-bid contract
for peacekeeping camps in Darfur Lockheed had already been criticized by
the UN General Assembly, which has called for an investigation of
the waiver of competition. In the General Assembly, a number of
countries' representatives drew a link between the contract and
Jane Holl Lute, an American, married to Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute,
President Bush's war czar for Iraq and Afghanistan. When Inner City Press asked Ms. Lute if
this is not a conflict of interest, she said no, her work at the UN and
her husband's work for the U.S. on Iraq and Afghanistan don't overlap.
Since the UN has missions in both countries, this seemed a strange
statement. Since then, Ms. Lute has told reporters that she will not be
quoted on the records about either Afghanistan or Iraq, since it would
be "a conflict of interest."
During the General Assembly's questioning of the $250 million Darfur
contract, Inner City Press is told by sources that Procurement official
Dmitry Dovgopoly had Ukraine's ambassador reach out to other countries'
Permanent Representatives, urging them to cool off on inquiries into
the Lockheed deal, given Dovgolopy's involvement. Earlier this week,
Inner City Press asked Dovgopoly to comment on another procurement
irregularity in which he is involved, the changing of the final Request for
Proposals for the follow-on Darfur infrastructure contract after a
request from the French mission to the UN. Dovgopoly did not respond.
Inner City Press first asked DFS about this no-bid contract, without
providing a copy, some weeks ago. On March 4, the question was
reiterated along with the HCC minutes themselves. To its credit,
DFS then responded in 24 hours, providing an alternate explanation.
According to DFS, it because aware on November 1 that the UN would
become responsible for feeding peacekeepers in Darfur on January 1.
Since that date as the beginning of the UN's responsibilities in Darfur
was known since July 31, the three month lag as regards food still
required explanation. But even accepting November 1 at the starting
point, why did DFS wait until New Year's Eve itself, without presenting
any other contractor, only the same Lockheed Martin subsidiary?
DFS' response is that "there was
insufficient time to run a competitive exercise to re-bid the
requirement which was for a relatively short period (three months). So
we agreed to this as a temporary measure prior to being able to move
the ex-AMIS troops over to a standard UN support regime." In this
standard regime, while the troop contributing countries will supply
their own chefs "so that they can prepare food to meet tastes of their
soldiers," the UN will still contract out the kitchens, apparently to
Lockheed Martin.
While Controller Sach in the attached
expresses concern about "the delay in contacting the HCC," the response
from DFS states that Sach was told on November 13. Given 24 hours to
reply, nothing has been heard from Mr. Sach, perhaps due to work
triggered by growing skepticism in the General Assembly toward the Secretariat's budget add-ons.
In the attached HCC minutes, the Committee in executive session
indicated that the UN "had no way to determine if the prices were
competitive" and "had no certain confirmation if a competitive
solicitation with respect to the contract with PAE had been undertaken,
and if so, if it was done in 2004." As with the UN's $250 million
infrastructure contract with Lockheed's PAE, the deal began on a no-bid
basis by the U.S. government then resulted in the UN becoming the
payer, with no interruption for competitive bidding, to the U.S.-based
contractor.
News analysis: It is
true that Darfur is not as easy environment in which to contract.
But the UN knew well before October 15 that it should seek
competitors for the camps contract; it knew well before New Year's Eve
that breakfast would be needed on January 1. To the degree the
infrastructure contract, after extensive criticism, is being opened up,
it
has been shown to involve inordinate access by
the UN Mission of France, another of the Permanent Five (P-5) members
of the UN Security Council. Thursday after Frenchman Jean-Marie
Guehenno told his staff he will leave his post in June, the UN was full
of speculation of who from France will take over this post. Even if
such P-5 politics is the norm in the doling out of top jobs at the UN,
procurement is supposedly less subject to power politics. We say
"supposedly" because the attached minutes
show different. As the Committee states in the minutes,
"appropriate measures should be taken by DFS to avoid these situations
from occurring in the future." But we've heard that before. When will
there be some accountability?
In UN's Corporate Frenzy,
Western Union Dismisses Boycott, Coke Exonerates Itself, UNICEF Plays
Footsie
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 25 --
The UN system's partnering with the corporate world has reached a fever
pitch, with safeguards still in evolution, virtually non-existent in
such entities as the US Fund for UNICEF and the U.S. Committee for the
UN Development Program. At a panel discussion on Monday, Inner City
Press asked the CEO of Western Union about a boycott by a coalition of
immigrant groups based on over-priced wire services. "There will always
be issues that occur," was the pat response, followed by a reference to
Western Union's "advocacy" to keep immigrants in the U.S. --hardly
surprising, given its business model -- and its philanthropy.
Video
here, from Minute 2:36:39.
As was demonstrated on February
21 at the UN, at a briefing by Leena Srivastava of the New Delhi-based
group The Energy and Resources Institute, TERI, corporate funding of
non-profits has many motives. Coca-Cola funded TERI to review it use of
water in India, and the resulting study was reported as exonerating
Coke and militating for its continued sales on college campuses. Inner
City Press asked Ms. Srivastava if it wasn't a conflict of interest, to
study Coke with Coke's money. "Who else would pay for it?" she
asked. Video
here. But Pepsi is also a TERI funder. Or,
more productively, perhaps the student boycotters should have been
approached for funding.
While UNICEF has strenuously avoided in-person responses about its role
in giving the UN's North Lawn to Gucci earlier this month, for a
fundraising event that Gucci claimed was to celebrate its opening of a
store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, UNICEF's Hilde Johnson was on
Monday's panel. Inner City Press asked about the Gucci event, and Ms.
Johnson replied that while UNICEF used the so-called "FTSE-4-Good"
principles, it has no control over US Fund for UNICEF, which fronted
the Gucci event. But then stop the Fund, like the national committee in
Germany, from using the logo to bring it into disrepute.
Since the Gucci event, a number of
ambassadors for major UNICEF-funding countries have approached Inner
City Press with their concerns about the event, that UNICEF would feel
it needed money so much as to make the UN look bad. Maybe UNICEF and
the wider UN will learn from this. It appears clear that the US Fund
for UNICEF, which never answered follow-up questions about the event,
feels it has nothing to learn, just more lawns and logos left to
trample. Likewise, the U.S. Committee for UNDP has on its board
of directors a representative from UN (and military) contractor
Lockheed Martin, the safeguards regarding which Inner City Press has
asked UNDP, without answer.
After Inner City Press asked Ms. Johnson of UNICEF for a response, it
was quickly told that it shouldn't have been allowed to ask a question,
despite a previous moderator inviting questions from throughout the
ECOSOC Chamber. Ms. Johnson's answer could barely be heard over
the threat, "Should I call security?" This is the free press at the UN
these days.
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1freepress022108.html
UNITED NATIONS,
February 21 -- Senior UN officials are trying to formulate responses to
investigative documentary journalism about recent events at UN
Headquarters. These include a February 17
death on the South Lawn, allegations of
UN involvement in censorship and questions
of ambulance access to an apparent heart attack victim. On February
21 the chief of the UN's rehabilitation effort Michael Adlerstein spoke
heatedly to Inner City Press for ten minutes. The official immediately
above him, Under Secretary General for Management Alicia Barcena, also
sent a four-paragraph missive in the form of a letter to the editor,
which is published in full at
www.innercitypress.com/un1freepress022108.html.
We begin with Mr.
Adlerstein's comments because they were less scripted, including
accusations of cowardice and references to punishment for the material
Inner City Press has published. Another journalist was accompanying
Inner City Press and
tape recording an impromptu interview with the director of a
non-governmental organization in India when Mr. Adlerstein, the
Assistant Secretary General for the UN's Capital Master Plan, doubled
back and began by asking "about this photograph that you published."
Inner City Press replied that while it had already taken down the
photograph, and had informed Ms. Barcena and others of this fact, any
and all questions would be answered, there in the lobby where Mr.
Adlerstein chose to dialogue, or in a subsequent column, including the
interchange.
On Sunday,
February 17 there was an emergency meeting of the Security Council at 1
p.m. about Kosovo. In preparing to cover it,
the death, and the placing of bags over the decedent's hands, were
inescapable. Mr. Adlerstein asked, "What does that have to do with the
photograph?"
Inner City Press
replied, and replies, Because that's what the photograph is of, that
the bagging of the hands to preserve evidence.
"I've heard people say, maybe you should just have written. And I
understand that position; I don't think that's an unreasonable
position. I don't know where it is written that a body under a blanket,
which AP ran, and it went all over the world, and nobody has said
anything to them from the UN. The UN has said to me that if AP did it,
it's okay. But if you did something different than AP, we're going to
come down on you like a bag of bricks... Now I've received a letter
from Ms. Barcena saying 'we're outraged,' cc-ing Vijay Nambiar, Mr.
Akasaka, and I'm not sure what the purpose of that is. I'm going to run
the letter, and that's fine, that's her position. I don't want to treat
it in any disrespectful way, but I'm not, from what I heard yesterday,
she seized on it as an opportunity to attempt to throw me out of the
UN."
Whereupon ASG
Adlerstein said, "What should be your punishment?"
But where in
the mandate of the Capital Master Plan does punishing journalists
figure?
Adlerstein asked,
"Can you say yes or no, did you make a mistake?"
"I don't like the
line of reasoning. If I say I made a mistake--"
Adlerstein then
cited questions that have been asked of him, about ongoing litigation
about an alleged conflict of interest involving a former position in
New Jersey, "It's the same line of reasoning that you use on everybody
else. You always say, you know, did you screw up here? Your job as a
reporter is to hold us accountable. And to hold yourself accountable.
Did you make a mistake?"
"I took the
photograph down. If that's how you want to interpret it."
Adlerstein said,
"I'm not interpreting anything. I'm asking you, did you make a mistake?"
"At the time I ran
it, I thought it made sense. Now, I don't think it makes sense to keep
it up anymore, that's why I took it down. If anyone is offended, I
apologize for it. I know why it was run at the time though."
ASG Michael Adlerstein: You said you apologized to the people who
personally know her. It's offensive to mankind to run pictures of
victims of suicide, murder victims.
ICP: Watch Al Jazeera, it's on all the time. Al Jazeera is showing
footage from Somalia where people killed and dead on the ground.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: Oh, great. Great example. There's a moral--
ICP: Are they being thrown out of the building? They're not. There's
not one standard here. If you don't like Al Jazeera, you don't watch
it. And if you don't like Inner City Press, you don't have to read it.
I want to deal with this correctly.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: So you didn't make a mistake.
ICP: What is the ramification if I say that I do?
ASG Michael Adlerstein: You'll let me know whether you think you made a
mistake. I'm not a reporter, I don't give a damn.
Other journalist: It seems to me, if I may interject--
ASG Michael Adlerstein: I find it very cowardly that you won't take a
position. Did you make a mistake or not?
ICP: I took the photograph down. You tell me what the ramification for
answering is, and I'll answer it. You seem to believe it is legitimate
to try to throw a journalist out for one story, and I think that is
totally improper. I don't think the UN gets to choose, based on
content, who covers it and how they cover it. I do not. And I find it
outrageous
ASG Michael Adlerstein: Is it two stories that you need? Two stories
are needed?
ICP: I don't know, you tell me.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: You're saying one story is outrageous. Are two
stories okay?
ICP: They tried to get the Staff Union to support them. I'm not looking
for support. It's just that this is a free country. The White House
doesn't throw out a reporter on one story. The Federal Reserve doesn't
do it. This place, maybe it thinks it's exempt from those laws.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: Is that what you're saying, two stories is okay?
ICP: Write a rule, and I'll comply with it. They've been trying to set
up a process on how to throw people out. And whatever the rule is, that
will be fine. But they don't have a rule. And you cannot just zero in
on one story. You really can't. You can try.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: That's what I'm asking.
ICP: I don't know, I don't know what the rules are going to be. They're
being negotiating between UNCA and DPI. We had a meeting about it two
weeks ago.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: Very cowardly. You won't account for yourself.
ICP: I'll write a whole story about it tonight, and I'll say something
about it. But I'm going to write about this as well. And that's fine.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: About what?
ICP: This, this conversation. Why not? You tell me. And I will answer
your questions, in writing. And you can say whether it's cowardly or
not... When somebody kills themselves at the UN, the regular press
corps can't get in here. This is one of the reasons I covered it. I
guarantee you -- for whatever you believe -- I didn't come that day to
cover it. I didn't want to cover it. I came to cover the Kosovo
meeting. But as a journalist, if I come in and there's a medical
examiner and people's hands are being bagged, I'm going to cover it.
And many people in this building have said to me 'please keep looking
into that.' I actually would rather not to.
Other journalist: What he did, in terms of reporting the story, I think
is in the best traditions of -- inadvertently, because it's outside his
expertise -- crime reporting.
ICP: I'm amazed. I had no idea that this was your view of the press. I
had zero idea...
ASG Michael Adlerstein: I haven't expressed any view of free press. I
asked you whether you made a mistake.
ICP: And you said "would it take two stories to throw you out" and you
said "you asked us a lot of questions, what about you". This is a
retaliatory thing. You are an official here.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: I'm not saying anyone should be thrown out of
here.
ICP: You said two stories, throw you out.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: You said one story is not justified.
ICP: You said how about two.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: How about two. What's the number?
ICP: You said "what should be your punishment?" Most times, if an
institution and an official doesn't like coverage, like McCain in the
New York Times, you write a letter. That's what you do. You don't imply
that you can throw somebody out because you don't like the article.
Other journalist: You have to establish objective rules.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: I walked over here to find out what's going on,
what's your position.
ICP: Have you read Ms. Barcena's letter?
ASG Michael Adlerstein: No.
ICP: And she has a conflict. She shouldn't be the one pushing this. She
expressed deep anger for me when I wrote about her
getting a job for a friend of Ahlenius. And so I don't think she
should be the one making the UN's decisions on what to do about this
incident. Beyond taking down the photograph and running an apology, I
don't know what more they want. She should not be the one running it.
She has a personal motive.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: You're asking me right, I don't know.
ICP: I know you're a high official.
ASG Michael Adlerstein: I have no idea whether she's written you a
letter or not; I've never seen a letter. I have no idea what you're
talking about.
ICP: How did you learn of this? Did you stumble across it?
ASG Michael Adlerstein: People are talking about it.
ICP: Many people talked to me who never even saw it. They heard from
Barcena that it showed the woman's face, and that's false. That's one
of the reasons I didn't want to take it down, because now they are
trying to say that something was what it wasn't. If the problem's the
photo, it's down. She said to the Staff Union that it showed the face.
Now what am I supposed to do, show the photo again? To show it doesn't?
She knows it doesn't. She tried to stoke them up.
Ms. Barcena's
letter is online at
www.innercitypress.com/un1freepress022108.html. Beyond having
incorrectly alleged that the photo showed the decedent's face, she
tried to inflame even OHRM staff on the fifth floor to denounce Inner
City Press based on articles not read, photos not seen, because removed from
the Internet to placate her. Inner City Press was told by the
spokesperson's office that not only had USG Barcena written a letter,
that the Department of Public Information (apparently, the head of its
Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit) would also be writing a letter.
One wonders if
MALU wrote a letter to, for example, Al-Jazeera, when in the wake of
the deadly bombing of the United Nations in Algiers in December, it
placed online
an interactive poll which asked if people supported or opposed the
bombing of the UN. In that case, not only was no public or even
to-file letter written by MALU -- the media outlet was quickly awarded
an exclusive interview with Ban Ki-moon, and has been placed on the
UN's in-house TV network. For the record, Inner City Press supports Al
Jazeera's right to freedom of the press. These freedoms must be
consistently and expansively applied.
And see,
www.innercitypress.com/un1freepress022108.html
Google, Asked About Censorship at the UN,
Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UNDP
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 14 -- Google,
after being publicly questioned at the UN about not signing on to the
human rights and anti-censorship principles of the Global Compact,
responded not by joining the Compact and foreswearing from censorship
but by moving to de-list from its Google News service the media
organization which raised the question. More than two years after Inner
City Press was included into Google News, in a February 8 message
referring to the receipt of a complaint, Google said it would be
removing Inner City Press from the news database.
In late 2007, Google's chief technologist Michael T. Jones took
questions at a UN press conference with UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon and UN Development Program chief Kemal Dervis promoting
Google's involvement in mapping the UN's anti-poverty Millennium
Development Goals. Inner City Press, accredited media at the UN, asked
Mr. Jones if Google was a member of the UN Global Compact, through
which corporations sign up to principles of human rights including
non-censorship. Video
here,
from Minute 30:21.
Google's Jones at first delayed answering the questions, noting that
Google was the third of Inner City Press' three questions -- the first
two were to the
UN
Development Program's Kemal Dervis about the absence of North Korea
from the data base, the second to Cisco about censorship. Then, on
camera, Jones said he did not know of Google was a member of the UN
Global Compact, that he would reply later. Video
here,
from Minute 32:37.
While Google is said to have a contract with UNDP, Google was not a
member of the Global Compact then, and is not one as of this writing.
Rather, Inner City Press was notified by "Google Team," with no further
attribution, that it would be de-listed from the Google News service,
in which it had been included since 2005. Google's notification
referred to "user complaints." Inner City Press immediately asked to be
informed of the identity of any institutional complainant, including
Google itself. Beyond that, certainly, there are others with complaints
about Inner City Press' investigative coverage, at the UN, in Myanmar,
UNDP and elsewhere.
In fact, UNDP sources describe communications from the UN system to
Google executives, asking that Inner City Press be de-listed from
Google News, and that a well-read blog,
UNDP-Watch,
be striken from that data base. Recently a whistleblower in UNDP's
legal department had his office computer impounded and was told, you
have visited InnerCityPress.com
multiple times. While the interrogation reflected contempt for the
freedom to read and freedom of the press, the issue goes far beyond the
corporate culture at UNDP, to that of Google.
Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page have each been quoted dodging the
question of Google's participation in the Chinese government's
censorship of the Internet, saying only that Google contacted Beijing
and came to an understanding. It now appears that after getting a taste
of censorship in China -- and in Egypt, by some accounts -- Google has
in this case brought the practice home to the United States.
Inner City Press, alongside requesting the name of institutional
complainants and to be maintained in Google News, sought comment by
e-mail from press@google.com and from Google's Michael T. Jones, whom
it questioned at the UN. The latter has not responded. From
press@google.com came a series of questions, which once answered,
resulted in a vague assurance that indexing would continue.
But
Inner City Press' two stories datelined Wednesday night, about a
lack of
transparency at the UN and its
soft
approach to Myanmar's military regime, were not included in Google
News. Thursday afternoon, Nancy Ngo of Google's office of Global
Communications stated that Inner City Press would be included "in a few
weeks." But why was it removed? Developing -- Inner City
Press remains included in Lexis-Nexis, ProQuest and other
non-conflicted news data bases.
E-mail begins:
Subj: Google News
Date: 2/8/2008 8:32:24 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: The Google Team
To: Inner City Press
We periodically review news sources, particularly following user
complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for
our users. When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer
include it in Google News.
Full disclosure:
should be clear from the above.
GAP
statement
UN's Lute Admits No-Bid Lockheed Deal
Caused "Confusion," No Conflict of Interest in Iraqi Overlap
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: News Analysis
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 head of logistics
for the 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.
At UN, Clooney Says that in Lockheed's Sole Source Darfur
Deal, Mistakes Were Made, "Not a Fan of No-Bid Contracts"
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: News Analysis, click here for
video debate.
UNITED NATIONS, January 31 --
"I'm not a fan of no-bid contracts, myself," actor and UN Messenger of
Peace George Clooney said Thursday, when asked about the UN's $250
million sole source deal with Lockheed Martin for its Darfur
peacekeeping mission. Next to Clooney sat UN official Jane Holl Lute,
who as early of
April 2007 advocated for steering the
business to Lockheed,
three months before the Security Council authorized the "UNAMID"
peacekeeping mission, and five months before Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon unilaterally waived all contracting rules for UNAMID. "There've
been some mistakes made in that period of time," Clooney said, adding
that "the UN has learned lessons." Video
here, from Minute 18:54.
But what lessons? Clooney turned to Jane Holl Lute to answer
the question, and she argued that the lack of competition was
authorized, if only after-the-fact, by the Secretary-General's October
2007 ruling, and she disputed that the General Assembly has called for
an investigation of the Lockheed contract. Unclear what lessons except
denial had taken hold, Inner City Press asked a follow-up question
about the timeline of the decision to give the deal to Lockheed, and
the after-arising Security Council vote and Ban Ki-moon ruling. "I'm
willing to sit down and go over the timeline," Ms. Lute said, after
having refused or ignored request since October to answer questions
about her role in the deal, including any safeguards concerning the
possible conflicts of interest raised by her husband's service as U.S.
President Bush's war czar for Iraq and Afghanistan. "We learned a lot,
as George mentioned," she said.
It is striking that while the UN Secretariat has been dismissive of the
concerns raised about the contract by
the member states in the General Assembly, it takes the gentle chiding of an
actor and new Messenger of Peace to eke out at least an admission that
lessons have been learned. Such is the power of celebrity, or the lack
of democracy within the UN system. The Secretariat in theory works for
all of the members states in the General Assembly. But several
Ambassadors complained that Ms. Lute's peacekeeping support office did
not answer all their questions about the contract, but that they had no
choice but to approve UNAMID's budget as submitted in December, lest
they be accused of abetting genocide in Darfur.
To his credit, while Clooney could have responded either that he did
not know about the contract, or have reflexively defended all UN
decisions, he instead nodded with recognition when Inner City Press
asked the question, and then acknowledged that mistakes had been made.
Video here, from Minute 18:54. We will report on this topic again once
Ms. Lute, as promised, makes herself available to answer questions
about the timeline of her advocating for Lockheed Martin to get the
no-bid contract and related matters. Watch this site. click
here for
video debate.
Senate Report Confirms North Korea Violations of UNDP While
Letting Wider UN, Kemal Dervis and U.S. Allies Off the Hook
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, January 23 --
While the UN Development Program
operated in North Korea, government officials monitored UNDP's
communications and searched its employees' houses, according to a
Senate report
released
Wednesday night on the eve of testimony by UNDP and other United
Nations officials.
By
focusing solely on North Korea, and criticizing UNDP but not the
breakdown in oversight by the wider UN system, the Report and hearing
are seen as representing a missed opportunity to bring about meaningful
reform. For example, while the report focuses on a past UNDP payment to
a vendor asserted by the U.S. State Department to be involved in Kim
Jong-Il's weapons programs, Zang Lok Trading Company, it fails to
mention that more recently, UNDP consciously decided to
contract with a company banned from
business with the UN Secretariat due to bribery, Corimec, a decision that UNDP's Administrator
Kemal Dervis called a "judgment call"
and essentially defended.
Dervis
is not scheduled to testify at the Senate hearing, only his spokesman
and head of Asia programs. Indicating that this report and hearing may
be too little, too late, Dervis in an one-hour speech at UNDP's
Executive Board meeting this week did not feel it necessary to mention
any of these issues. Click
here for that story.
Likewise, even in revealing how compromised UNDP's communications out
of North Korea were -- whistleblower Artjon Tony Shkurtaj had to travel
to China in order to email his superiors about them -- the Report
and apparently the Senate have not considered that the same
monitoring by national staff
occurs in, among other places reported on by Inner City Press, Sudan
through the UN's mission there.
The
report states that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has tried to
strengthen whistleblower protections through a plan that, the report
says without providing the basis, has been subject to criticism. But
Ban allowed Dervis to block the UN
Ethics Office's inquiry
into Shkurtaj's case (after the first stage found prima facie
retaliation), and Ban issued a
new system in which each UN Fund
and Program can make up its own Ethics Office. Since then, the UN Ethics Office's
Robert Benson, who will be subject to questions, has rebuffed yet
another UNDP whistleblower, Mattieu Koumoin, click
here for that story.
The report says that a forensic audit is taking place,
but the
UN's Board
of Auditors has been blocked from going to North Korea, and UNDP
itself controls what documents it has brought out of the country. UNDP
brags that the report credits "a proposal that would grant routine
access to UNDP Executive Board members to UNDP audit reports is
currently before the UNDP Executive Board," without explaining this
policy's
limitations.
The
Senate's report should become available for download through its
website. [If not, Inner City Press can be
contacted for a copy, obtained
from Senate sources.] UNDP has
put
it online, along with its response which tellingly "welcomes" the
report and its limited scope.
The report, co-issued by Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican
Norm Coleman of Minnesota of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, largely confirms the charges leveled over the past year
at UNDP for its North Korea programs: that UNDP paid workers' salaries
directly to the government in hard currency, had only limited access to
sites of projects it funded and no access to its own bank accounts, and
paid a vendor asserted by the U.S. State Department to be involved in
Kim Jong-Il's weapons programs. The specifics about wiretapping and
unannounced searches are new, as are some of the details about the flow
of UNDP's funds through Banco Delta Asia, a Macao institution later
frozen as a money laundering concern.
In places, the Senate report quietly lets UNDP off the hook, for
example saying that North Korea used accounts affiliated with UNDP to
transfer its own money to its diplomatic missions overseas. Earlier
charges were that UNDP's funds were being diverted to North Korea's
embassies, to buy real estate. While the report says that UNDP's
"hybrid" delivery system in North Korea, in which it pretended that the
government was implementing project over which UNDP claims to have
retailed control, caused "confusion" about the volume of direct
payments, the report does not directly confirm or deny previous
estimates of the volume of payments, or even mention the issue, raised
by whistleblowers, of larger South Korean funds having passed to the
North through UNDP.
The report goes noticeably light on the rest of the UN, and on Ban
Ki-moon. If Kofi Annan were still Secretary General, one feels sure he
would be held responsible for such pervasive problems in a UN program.
But in this Report, the asserted independence of UNDP is emphasized,
while the specifics of UNDP's non-accountability even to its own
Executive Board is not adequately analyzed. Recent it was
exposed that UNDP refused to show financial documents to the UK and
Belgium about a procurement snafu in a Burundi program the
countries funded, then hired the Belgian official who sought to pursue
the matter. Likewise UNDP relocated jobs to the previous chair of its
Executive Board, Denmark. Click
here for that story.
The limitation of the U.S. Senate's review
to the UNDP program in North Korea, which at the time the inquiry
launched was still viewed as a part of Bush's "Axis of Evil," leaves
unexplored UNDP's transgressions in places like
Uganda, where
UNDP was involved in disarmament program that culminated in the burning
of villages, and Somalia,
where UNDP trained security forces which
targeted
civilians. That both Uganda's Museveni government and Somalia's
Transitional Federal Institutions, installed by Ethiopia, are allies of
the U.S. makes the need for further inquiry all the more clear. The
report is, however, a start. Watch this site.
After Botched Procurement in Burundi, UNDP Denied Documents
to UK & Belgian Board Member, Who Was Then Hired
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City
Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, January 17 --
Using Belgian and British aid funds, the UN Development Program in
mid-2007 undertook to purchase medical equipment in the Central African
nation of Burundi. During the procurement process, one bidder's
information was improperly given to a competitor and UNDP quietly tried
to cancel the project,
documents obtained by Inner City Press reveal. The Belgian Mission to
the UN, and Sue Hogwood of the UK Department of International and
Foreign Development both demanded explanations and evaluation reports.
UNDP refused to provide these funders with the underlying documents.
See
UNDP letter, here.
Geert
Vansintjan, then the Belgian Mission's Development Counselor, wrote to
UNDP Controller Darshak Shah, conveying his government's analysis that
"you can give money to UNDP, you will not get access to what they call
internal documents... UNDP procedures not at all transparent... We can
improve on the UNDP without falling into the U.S.-trap." In response,
rather than provide the documents or clean up the procedures, it was
arranged for Mr. Vansingtan to get a job with the UN, with UNDP's
sister agency the UN Office of Project Services. And in late December,
in preparation for a UNDP Executive Board meeting starting next week,
UNDP released a draft "Accountability Framework" in which it could still withhold
even from funders any documents
affecting
"staff, third parties or a country government" -- that is, precisely
the type of documents of financial impropriety withheld from Belgium
and the UK in this case.
UNDP's
letter, from Country Director Antonius
Broek, was also sent
to Norway, apparently because the botched procurement also involved the
UN's Peacebuilding Fund, PBF. Broek refers to an "anticipated increase
in procurement volume from the PBF funded projects." Broek, along with
the UK's Ms. Hogwood and the Special Representative of the Secretary
General in Burundi, had received the complaint of the vendor, Hospital
Medical Services Bujumbura, which protested that UNDP had divulged to
an eliminated bidder the details of HMS' financial offer. UNDP's
Richard Barathe, "Senior Advisor for Strategic Partnerships," had
received a summary:
"Three
million Euros was received from Belgium for the '2006 Burundi Emergency
Program Open Trust Fund... The Contribution Agreement, which itself is
not dated... there is another request from the Belgians for
clarification focusing on the procurement irregularities."
On August 9, 2007, the Belgian Mission's Geert Vansintjan wrote to
Darshak Shah regarding "Burundi UNDP Trust Fund," stating
"I
did not yet get any feedback from your own office on the case mentioned
above... Lessons learned: you can give money to UNDP, you will not get
access to what they call internal documents... UNDP procedures not at
all transparent... local ownership is gone... damage control is
paramount. The most important asset of UNDP is its reputation. You
should be able to project an image of taking procurement seriously. I
want this reaction because I want to show my field office that they are
not alone and that we can improve on the UNDP. without falling into the
US-trap."
Upon receipt of this message, viewed as a threat, UNDP's Darshak Shah
wrote to Krishan Batra, "please ensure that the response is sent asap.
I suggest we also meet with Geert. Belgian Mission is an important
supporter of UNDP."
Less than two months later, UNDP's sister agency UNOPS hired Geert
Vansintjan, on a "special" and thus non-competitive basis, as "Senior
Partnership Manager for the North American Office. UNOPS' executive
director Jan Mattson, previously at UNDP, wrote to staff that "since
mid-2003 he has represented Belgium on UNDP / UNFPA and UNICEF boards
as a delegate, actively participating in the change management process,
working on accountability frameworks, results-based management,
strategic plans, and UN reform." The "UNDP / UNFPA board also oversees
UNOPS. And that he turned around are took a job at the agency he was
supposed to oversee.
News analysis: when
embroiled in scandal, UNDP often emphasizes that while it
may not be giving information to the press,
it is accountable and transparent to the member states which
give it money and sit on its Executive Board. But in this case, two
countries which funded UNDP were denied access to basic records of an
admittedly irregular procurement exercise. Belgium, it should be noted,
is becoming the vice-chair of UNDP's Executive Board. To give a job to
the Belgian mission's development counselor, who was pushing to get
information that UNDP did not want to provide, is an example of how
UNDP's top management manages to escape, rather than embrace,
accountability.
Looking forward, there is a growing sense that just as the
Secretariat promulgated a set of Post-Employment Restrictions, albeit
weak, rules are needed to prohibit those who oversee or audit agencies
from going to work for them for a set period time after leaving their
oversight role.
Shorter term, these specific conflicts of
interest, the availability of audits, the lack of oversight that led to
contracting with Corimec and the $280,000 housing subsidy windfall of
UNDP's head of Millennium Campaign, are all topics for the upcoming
Executive Board meeting.
Tony Blair's UN Role May Conflict with New
Job with JP Morgan Chase, Subprime View of UN
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, January 10 -- J.P. Morgan Chase has hired former UK prime
minister Tony Blair, it was reported Thursday. The AP repeated Blair's
claim that "the appointment won't infringe on his duties with the
so-called Quartet - the U.S., European Union, U.N.
and Russia... helping the Palestinians build up their economy and
governing bodies in preparation for the establishment of a Palestinian
state." But might it create at least the perception of a conflict of
interest?
Is it impossible that J.P. Morgan Chase may have economic interests in
the area, in which case Tony Blair would be attempting to serve at
least two masters? On Thursday morning Inner City Press asked the UN
spokesperson's office for their response, including that if no
prohibition is said to apply, what safeguards will be put in place.
Having received no answer, the question was asked at Friday's UN noon
briefing. Spokesperson Michele Montas replied that "I have absolutely
no comment on that," adding "as you know, Mr. Blair is an envoy of the
Quartet, not of the UN." But not only is the UN one of the four Quartet
members -- as stated by the UN's Michael Williams in the Security
Council on August 29, 2007, "several United Nations offices and
departments are collaborating to finalize arrangements for the
provision of financial management and security support for Mr. Blair's
mission." In practice this has meant that the UN Development Program
rented ten room for Tony in Jerusalem, click
here
for that story.
When
Inner City Press asked if Blair had asked the UN about any possible
conflict of interest or safeguards, Ms. Montas said, "He doesn't have
to." When asked if Blair had asked the Quartet -- on which the UN sits
-- Ms. Montas said, "You should ask Mr. Blair." Video
here, from Minute 15:20.
For now, using J.P. Morgan Chase's involvement in and exposure to the
subprime and predatory lending crisis as the bridge, consider the UN's
just-released
World Economic Situation and Prospects
2008, which in
reference to "rising defaults in the U.S. subprime mortgage market"
recommends that "regulatory standards have to be introduced for
investor protection." But what about consumer protection? On January 9,
Inner City Press asked Rob Vos, Director of UN DESA's Development
Policy and Analysis Division, about this seeming lack of focus on
consumers. Video
here, from Mi