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Southeast Asia

Rohingyas kill 4 Myanmar soldiers in Muslim-majority region

2016-10-12

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Four Myanmar soldiers were killed and one was injured on Tuesday when troops were attacked by suspected Muslim insurgents near the country’s border with Bangladesh, an official said. The Myanmar army, known as the Tatmadaw, has been sent into northern Rakhine State to seek attackers who killed nine police officers guarding the border early on Sunday. The majority of residents in the area are Muslims belonging to the stateless Rohingya ethnic group. Around 2.30pm on Tuesday, soldiers came under attack close to Pyaung Pyit village in Maungdaw Township, said Ye Naing, a director at the Ministry of Information. “One Tatmadaw soldier was injured and four were killed by the Muslim insurgents. One was dead on the enemy side,” Ye Naing told Reuters late on Tuesday. “Two guns and two magazines of ammunition were found.” Nine border police officers were killed and five were wounded in Sunday’s clashes, in which officials said scores of Rohingyas swarmed border guard posts and made off with guns and ammunition. Soldiers and police have been scouring Maungdaw Township since Sunday, employing helicopters to search the rugged terrain close to the frontier, which has been closed. In at least one instance, the hunt for suspects has led to soldiers killing residents who officials said ambushed them but who local Muslims said were trying to flee. State media reported on Tuesday that four bodies were discovered after soldiers opened fire in Myothugyi village, also in Maungdaw Township. Four suspected insurgents have been detained, said Ye Naing. Police told Reuters earlier on Tuesday that two suspects had said during interrogation that Sunday’s attacks were coordinated by a single leader operating on both sides of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. The events marked a dramatic escalation in violence in Rakhine State, which has seen bouts of conflict between Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists but has not typically been the site of armed insurgency. Vijay Nambiar, special adviser on Myanmar to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, called on civilians in “the area to exercise maximum restraint and not be provoked into any kind of response by targeting other communities or religious groups.”

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International-UN-NGOs

UNs Falk denies endorsing 9/11 conspiracy theory

2011-01-30

[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Paleostinian territories occupied since 1967, "flatly denied" recent allegations by Geneva-based NGO UN Watch that "he had endorsed the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the US Government and not Al Qaeda terrorists. UN Watch called for Falk to resign last week, citing Falk's personal blog posts. In response, UN Secretary- General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon's office condemned Falk. In a letter to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the secretary-general's front man Vijay Nambiar wrote that Falk's remarks were "an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack." "The pro-Israel group, UN Watch, that created this mess deliberately distorted comments I made, in my personal capacity, on my blog," [sic] Falk said in a blurb sent to journalists. "Not only that, they then deliberately connected it to my UN mandate on the Paleostinian territories, and on that basis started calling for me to be fired from that position." "I wish to be absolutely clear," Falk's blurb continued. "I do not endorse the theory that the US government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. What I did do, in my personal blog, in which I was discussing the differing perceptions that develop after political liquidations and deeply tragic events, including the murder of Olaf Palme, the 9/11 attacks and the recent killings in Arizona, was argue that investigations must be, and must be seen to be, transparent, exhaustive and honest." "I am an academic. I believe in freedom of expression, and the freedom to openly debate even the most difficult issues. I have always been proud that the United States and the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society have been among the strongest advocates of freedom of expression," Falk concluded. "I am therefore deeply disappointed and surprised by the calculated attack on myself as a person, and on my ability to act as a voice that is not afraid to speak up on the rights of Paleostinians, in accordance with the mandate invested in me by the Human Rights Council. The constant muzzling of serious and honest debate on the Paleostinian issue in the United States and elsewhere has contributed immensely to the failure to resolve the tragic crisis there for more than half a century, to the detriment of us all." In a recent blog post, Falk wrote, "I never endorsed doubts about the official version of 9/11 beyond indicating what anyone who has objectively examined the controversy knows-- that there remain certain gaps in the official explanation that give rise to an array of conspiratorial explanations, and that the 9/11 Commission unfortunately did not put these concerns to rest." In a response, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer pointed out that January 11, 2011, Mr. Falk wrote on his blog that, "There are, to be sure, conspiracies that promote unacknowledged goals, and enjoy the benefit of government protection... The arguments swirling around the 9/11 attacks are emblematic of these issues. What fuels suspicions of conspiracy is the reluctance to address the sort of awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations that David Ray Griffin (and other devoted scholars of high integrity) have been documenting in book after book ever since his authoritative The New Pearl Harbor in 2004 (updated in 2008)." "By attempting to justify his despicable denial of Al Qaeda's carrying-out of the 9/11 attacks as a mere call for "investigations," Mr. Falk resorts to the same transparent tactics used by Iran's Ahmadinejad and other hate-mongers who seek to deny other great atrocities of history, each with their own hateful political agenda," Neuer wrote in a response. "Mr. Falk's ad hominem attacks on UN Watch are a pathetic attempt to divert attention from his own actions. UN Watch, founded in Geneva in 1993, is an internationally-respected human rights group, accredited as a NGO in special consultative status with the United Nations."

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International-UN-NGOs

UN human rights official claims 9/11 was US plot

2011-01-25

A UN human rights official has been roundly condemned for suggesting that the US government may have orchestrated the September 11 terrorist attacks. Richard Falk, a retired professor from Princeton University, wrote on his blog that there had been an "apparent cover up" by American authorities. He added that most media were "unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events" on 9/11, despite it containing "gaps and contradictions". And he described David Ray Griffin, a conspiracy theorist highly regarded in the so-called "9/11 truth" movement, as a "scholar of high integrity" whose book on the subject was "authoritative". Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, described the comments as "preposterous" and "an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack." But Mr Ban said that it was not for him to decide whether Prof Falk, who serves the organisation as a special investigator into human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, should be fired by the UN. Because Mr. Ban is only the Secretary-General. It's not like he's in charge or anything. Vijay Nambiar, Mr Ban's chief of staff, said this was up to the human rights council, a 47-nation body based in Geneva, Switzerland, that was created by the UN in 2006. The guy has a lifetime sinecure...

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International-UN-NGOs

Departing U.N. official calls Ban's leadership 'deplorable'

2010-07-22

That's all? UNITED NATIONS -- The outgoing chief of a U.N. office charged with combating corruption at the United Nations has issued a stinging rebuke of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, accusing him of undermining her efforts and leading the global institution into an era of decline, according to a confidential end-of-assignment report. The memo by Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a Swedish auditor who stepped down Friday as undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, represents an extraordinary personal attack on Ban from a senior U.N. official. The memo also marks a challenge to Ban's studiously cultivated image as a champion of accountability. Shortly after taking office in 2007, Ban committed himself to restoring the United Nations' reputation, which had been sullied by revelations of corruption in the agency's oil-for-food program in Iraq. But Ahlenius says that, rather than being an advocate for accountability, Ban, along with his top advisers, has systematically sought to undercut the independence of her office, initially by trying to set up a competing investigations unit under his control and then by thwarting her efforts to hire her own staff. "Your actions are not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible. . . . Your action is without precedent and in my opinion seriously embarrassing for yourself," Ahlenius wrote in the 50-page memo to Ban, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. "I regret to say that the secretariat now is in a process of decay." Ban's top advisers said that Ahlenius's memo constituted a deeply unbalanced account of their differences and that her criticism of Ban's stewardship of the United Nations was patently unfair. "A look at his record shows that Secretary General Ban has provided genuine visionary leadership on important issues from climate change to development to women's empowerment. He has promoted the cause of gender balance in general as well as within the organization. He has led from the front on important political issues from Gaza to Haiti to Sudan," Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, wrote in a response. "It is regrettable to note," Nambiar added, "that many pertinent facts were overlooked or misrepresented" in Ahlenius's memo. The departure of Ahlenius, 72, coincides with a period of crisis in the United Nations' internal investigations division. During the past two years, the world body has shed some of its top investigators. It has also failed to fill dozens of vacancies, including that of the chief of the investigations division in the Office of Internal Oversight Services. That post has been vacant since 2006, leaving a void in the United Nations' ability to police itself, diplomats say. "We are disappointed with the recent performance of [the U.N.'s] investigations division," said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. "The coming change in . . . leadership is an opportunity to bring about a significant improvement in its performance to increase oversight and transparency throughout the organization." The U.N. General Assembly established the Office of Internal Oversight Services in 1994 to conduct management audits of the United Nations' principal departments and to conduct investigations into corruption and misconduct. The founding resolution granted the office "operational independence" but placed it under the authority of the secretary general and made it dependent on the U.N. departments it policed for much of its funding and administrative support. The dispute between Ahlenius and Ban has underscored some of the resulting tensions and exposed a protracted and acrimonious struggle for power over the course of U.N. investigations. While Ahlenius cited Ban's move to set up a new investigations unit as a sign that he was seeking to undermine her independence, Nambiar said that it was intended to strengthen the United Nations' ability to fight corruption. Ahlenius also clashed with Ban over her efforts to hire a former federal prosecutor, Robert Appleton, who headed the U.N. Procurement Task Force, a temporary white-collar crime unit that carried out aggressive investigations into corruption in U.N. peacekeeping missions from 2006 to last year. The unit's investigations led to an unprecedented number of misconduct findings by U.N. officials and prompted federal probes into corruption. Ban's advisers said they blocked Appleton's appointment on the grounds that female candidates had not been properly considered and said that the final selection should have been made by Ban, not Ahlenius. "The secretary general fully recognizes the operational independence of OIOS," Nambiar said. But that, he said, "does not excuse her from applying the standard rules of recruitment."

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International-UN-NGOs

U.N. now in 'a process of decay,' memo says

2010-07-21

The departing leader of the United Nations agency that battles internal corruption issued a scathing assessment of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's record on accountability, fueling defensive remarks from Ban's spokesman Tuesday. In a confidential memo to Ban obtained by the Associated Press, outgoing Undersecretary-General Inga-Britt Ahlenius accused Ban of systematically undermining her authority and weakening the U.N.'s oversight functions so much that it is becoming irrelevant. Her criticism represents an unusually vociferous though not unprecedented attack on the U.N. chief's leadership and his unfulfilled pledge to restore a U.N. reputation tarnished by financial corruption and sexual abuses by U.N. peacekeepers. "There is no transparency, there is lack of accountability," said Ahlenius in her end-of-assignment report to Ban upon the end of her five-year term as head of the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services. The office, set up in 1994, is supposed to operate independently and has three main divisions for investigations, audits and inspections. "Rather than supporting the internal oversight, which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it, which is to undermine its position," the former Swedish auditor general wrote to Ban. "I regret to say that the Secretariat is now in a process of decay. It is not only falling apart. ... It is drifting into irrelevance." Ahlenius also said Ban and his senior advisers have blocked her efforts to fill key vacant posts within her office, causing "damage to the integrity of a core process" at the U.N. and have taken other steps, such as trying to set up a competing investigations unit, that undermined her tenure. "I am concerned that we are in a process of decline and reduced relevance of the organization," she wrote in the memo, which was first reported by the Washington Post. "This inevitably risks weakening the United Nations' possibilities to fulfill its mandate." Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said "many pertinent facts were overlooked or misrepresented" in Ahlenius' memo. "This secretary-general, like his recent predecessors, has had to strike a balance between acting as a chief administrative officer of the United Nations on the one hand, and providing truly global leadership on the other," Nambiar wrote in a response. "So he has chosen the third path of his predecessor, encouraging nepotism, corruption, lubricious hypocrisy and a singular focus in creating world-wide taxation to pay for it."

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India-Pakistan

India accused of complicity in deaths of Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers

2009-06-01

India was accused yesterday of complicity in the killing of an estimated 20,000 civilians in the last stages of Sri Lanka's 26-year war against the Tamil Tigers. Major-General Ashok Mehta, a former commander of Indian peacekeeping forces in Sri Lanka, said that India's role was "distressing and disturbing". Two international human rights groups said that India had failed to do enough to protect civilian lives. "We were complicit in this last phase of the offensive when a great number of civilians were killed," General Mehta, who is now retired, told The Times. "Having taken a decision to go along with the campaign, we went along with it all the way and ignored what was happening on the ground." Let's ask Mr. Rajiv Gandhi what he thinks. Oh right, we can't, he was murdered by the Tigers. Now perhaps, Mr. Times reporter, do you understand why the Indians looked the other way? Despite being home to 60 million Tamils, India has provided Sri Lanka with military equipment, training and intelligence over the past three years, diplomatic sources told The Times. More controversially, it provided unwavering diplomatic support and failed to use its influence to negotiate a ceasefire for civilians to escape the front line, they said. Because such a ceasefire would have allowed the Tigers to slip away to fight another day, which the Lankans decided would be a bad idea. India joined a bloc led by China and Russia at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council last week to thwart a proposal for a war crimes inquiry, and instead supported a resolution praising Sri Lanka. In January India voted in favour of a war crimes inquiry into Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip, which killed an estimated 926 civilians. General Mehta said that the Indian Government, led by the Congress Party, wanted to counterbalance China and Pakistan, its main regional rivals, which had each increased arms sales to Sri Lanka in the past few years. It also wanted to avenge the Tigers' assassination in 1991 of Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister and late husband of Sonia Gandhi, the current Congress leader, he said. Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said that neither reason justified failing to act when the Red Thingy Cross warned of an "unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe". India "could have saved many lives if it had taken a proactive position -- and it would not have affected the outcome of the war," he said. It also would have allowed the fight to go on for another generation. Sam Zarifi, Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International, said: "India . . . simply chose to support the [Sri Lankan] Government's notion that it could kill as many civilians as it would take to defeat the Tigers." India says that it provided Sri Lanka with non-lethal military equipment and sent officials repeatedly to persuade the Government to protect civilians. "We've consistently taken the line that the Sri Lankan Government should prevent civilian casualties," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. However, President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka told NDTV: "I don't think I got any pressure from them. They knew that I'm fighting their war." Mr Rajapaksa told The Week magazine that he planned to visit Delhi next month to thank Indian leaders. "India's moral support during the war was most important," he said. Diplomats, human rights activists and analysts say that Delhi either did not use its full diplomatic force or, more likely, gave Colombo carte blanche to finish the war. India's only real concerns, they said, were that the conflict should not create a flood of refugees to India. Some raised questions about Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian diplomat, who is chief of staff to Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General. The Times revealed last week that Mr Nambiar knew about but chose not to make public the UN's estimate that 20,000 civilians had been killed, mostly by army shelling.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Annan Calls for Halt to Mideast Fighting

2006-07-21

"No Hitting." Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for an immediate halt to the violence between Israel and Lebanon, saying a cease-fire would be the first step toward ending the escalating war. Israel, backed by the U.S., immediately dismissed calls for a cease-fire and said the military operation _ which was undertaken to free two captured Israeli soldiers but has spread to target all of Hezbollah _ will "take as long as it will take." "When you operate on a cancerous growth you do not stop in the middle, sew the patient up and tell him keep living with that growth until it kills you," Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman said. "You make sure it is totally removed." Annan went before the council shortly after the return of a three-man U.N. team that met with leaders throughout the region. The team, led by Annan's special political adviser, Vijay Nambiar, came back with a list of proposals to quell the conflict. Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a private two-hour dinner Thursday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ahead of a planned Rice trip to the Middle East. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana had been expected to attend the dinner, but he was still in the region.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria to UN: 'Roed-Larsen not welcome'

2006-07-20

Syria informed the United Nations that one of its key negotiators trying to defuse the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, would not be welcome in Damascus, Syria's UN ambassador confirmed Wednesday. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said the Syrian government also made clear that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special political adviser, Vijay Nambiar, who is leading the three-member UN team, would be welcome along with UN Mideast envoy Alvaro de Soto. He said Syria "reserved its right" to deal with Roed-Larsen as it wants. Roed-Larsen, who is Annan's top envoy on Syria-Lebanon issues, overstepped his mandate in dealing with implementation of a September 2004 resolution, Jaafari said. The resolution called for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, the Lebanese government's assertion of authority throughout the country, and the disarming and disbanding of all militias, including Hezbollah which still controls southern Lebanon.

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International-UN-NGOs

Annan appoints Chef de Cabinet as his deputy

2006-03-04

Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Mark Malloch Brown, his Chef de Cabinet, as Deputy Secretary-General, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric officially announced on Friday. Brown, a British national, replaces Louise Frechette, a Canadian national, whose term ends at the end of this month. Dujarric also announced the appointment of Vijay Nambiar, India's former UN envoy, as special advisor to Annan with the rank of Under Secretary-General. He replaces Lakhdar Brahimi who resigned earlier this year. These appointees will leave the UN when Annan's second term ends later this year.

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