Algeria Angered by U.N. Plans for Bombing Inquiry

By WARREN HOGE

Published: January 19, 2008

UNITED NATIONS — Algeria said Friday that it would not cooperate with an independent panel that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was setting up to investigate the car bombing of United Nations offices in Algiers last month. The Algerians also denied accusations that they had ignored requests to tighten security around the building before the attack.

The Dec. 11 blast killed 17 staff members and raised fears at the United Nations that the organization was losing its reputation for neutrality and becoming a target of anti-Western terrorist groups. Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda.

Mourad Benmehidi, Algeria’s deputy ambassador, said his country objected to the proposed investigation as “a game of pointing the finger at another party.”

“If you are subject to an attack, you, of course, think you could have done more to prevent it,” he said in an interview. “We fully understand that, but we don’t want them to say that the Algerian government did not do its part of the job.”

He said Algeria had not been consulted by Mr. Ban on the decision to create the panel and felt the organization was diverting attention from complaints from its own employees about lapses in security.

“We have the impression that the U.N. is addressing their internal opinion to prevent criticism coming from the staff,” he said. “They are trying to put the blame on a third party, and this is not fair.”

On Wednesday, Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, whose offices were in the damaged building, said the Algerian government had not responded to repeated requests to close off the streets outside the organization’s offices.

Mr. Benmehidi responded Friday that there might have been requests made of local neighborhood officials at the city council level, but that none reached the “relevant parties in the Algerian government.”

Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman, Michèle Montas, said the panel was modeled on the commission led by Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland, that had investigated the August 2003 bombing of United Nations offices in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including the head of the mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

“This is not going to be a criminal investigation,” she said. “It is going to be a review, not only of the situation before and after the bombing, but it will be examining the issues on the wider scale of security for U.N. personnel around the world.”

Mr. Benmehidi said that Algeria would present its decision to Mr. Ban at a meeting. The United Nations usually acts in countries only with the consent of the national government.