Somali Starvation Shows Security Council Schizophrenia, Humanitarian Window Eyed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 18 -- Days after the UN Security Council expressed concern about its Somalia Sanctions report of food aid being diverted to Al Shabab, some Council members realized that merely blocking the World Food Program from working with three allegedly Al Shabab affiliated transportation companies had led to starvation.

While the Sanctions Committee's mandate was scheduled to be extended on March 19, now that will be March 22 or later. Inner City Press is told by numerous Council delegations of a discussion of a "humanitarian window" in which needed food aid could be delivered in Somalia, without regard to sanctions.

One delegation explained this to mean that the Sanctions Committee would "look away" for a period of time. "Willful blindness," it was called.

The U.S., which vociferously denies leaking the Sanctions report to the New York Times in Nairobi, has Al Shabab on its terrorism list. No Security Council resolutions, or lapse in UN sanctions regime, can change that.

The consideration of a humanitarian window seems to be an acknowledgement, if only implicitly, that the UN Sanctions regime has caused humanitarian harm to civilians. Does the U.S. / Obama Administration acknowledge that? One would need to hear from Ambassador Susan Rice, but hasn't. Watch this site.

US' Susan Rice, stakeout and humanitarian window not shown

Footnote: earlier this week, Inner City Press asked Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, chairman of the Somalia Sanctions committee, about starvation in Somalia and the leak of the Sanctions report. Heller said that there was strong criticism of the leak inside the Council; Inner City Press was later told that Russia and the U.S. were the most vehement.

Ambassador Rice previously denounced the leak -- to Inner City Press -- of a draft North Korea sanctions resolution. Some believe that the U.S. -- not necessarily the mission -- leaked the Somalia Sanctions report to the NY Times in Nairobi. Would the U.S. Mission know if this were true?