guardian.co.uk
Last time the Conservatives were in government, there was not even a minister in cabinet with responsibility for international development. If only for that reason, Andrew Mitchell is a welcome break with tradition. Yesterday he promised a transparent, accountable and empowering aid agenda that he claimed was as new as his party's discovery of the importance of international development. This morning the prime minister himself is repeating the claim on these pages. They overstate their case.
But Mr Mitchell – who shadowed the job for over four years before sliding into the ministerial limo – knows that development objectives are hard to achieve. When, as we report today, the G8 club of rich countries looks ready to bury the Gleneagles targets, and aid itself is faced with an international barrage of criticism that questions its very existence, selling the moral imperative of aid to a sceptical party will be harder still.
The Cameron-Mitchell silver bullet is an independent watchdog and a "transparency guarantee" that will provide the information to allow taxpayers in Britain to monitor the UK's aid effectiveness. Rather like New Labour's approach to the public sector, this government believes the best way of protecting spending is to prove to taxpayers that it is money well spent. But measuring outcomes can result in a distorting bureaucracy that misses the complexity of a problem and delivers not so much results as unintended consequences. Meanwhile, from the UN downwards the aid sector has been pondering for some years the relationship between accountability and effectiveness. In this new atmosphere, agencies acknowledge that it does not take many bad people to subvert the best of efforts to do good.
Last month the defence secretary, Liam Fox, said British troops were not in Afghanistan "for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country". Yesterday Mr Mitchell appeared to suggest that they were. Straddling the awkward cleavage between development as a moral imperative and development as a tool of foreign policy is only going to become more difficult in the harsh wind of austerity. Other players in the development sector are watching to make sure that the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid is not subverted by siphoning some off for projects that are less about ending poverty than promoting Britain's interests abroad. And yesterday's promise to observe the vague OECD criteria for what counts as aid spending is not reassuring. In opposition, the Tories used their conversion to the importance of aid as proof that they were nasty no more. It's a card that plays both ways.
Monday, June 7, 2010
UK Conservatives demand transparency and accountability for their Tax Payers money - while Susan Rice of USUN can't find that "word" in her vocabulary
In a total contrast from US Mission to the UN (USUN), already in the first few weeks in job the UK Government is challenging the United Nations and the rest of multilateral organizations with Transparency and Accountability. Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary has announced a new UKaid Transparency Guarantee to ensure that full information on all DFID's spending is made available to public.
Mitchell, who was speaking at the launch of Oxfam's report on 21st Century Aid at the Royal Society, gave this pledge to UK Tax-payers:
“To the British taxpayer I say this: our aim is to spend every penny of every pound of your money wisely and well. We want to squeeze every last ounce of value from it. We owe you that.
“And I promise you as well that in future, when it comes to international development, we will want to see hard evidence of the impact your money makes. Not just dense and impenetrable budget lines but clear evidence of real effect.”
Mitchell's words have already caused panic across some powerful UN Agencies who have called for a "pre-sessional informal brainstorming meeting this morning (June 07)" and review their past and current "affinity" with UK Government, and strategize how to "stall any transparency request" from Mitchell. In the words of a powerful Chief Finance Officer of one of these Agencies: - "we've dealt with Americans before ...certainly wont be difficult to push back Brits as well".
What a difference from Ambassador Susan Rice of US Mission to the United Nations (USUN), who not only seem lost in translation and but has deleted from her vocabulary the words "Transparency and Accountability".
Maybe Susan Rice need to attend a "Capacity building" workshop from DFID and learn a thing or two from Andrew Mitchell.
Mitchell the New UK's Aid Minister sends chilling message across United Nations and Multilateral Agencies: Demanding transparency and accountability
British taxpayers will see exactly how and where overseas aid money is being spent and a new independent watchdog will help ensure this aid is good value for money, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has announced.
In his first major speech as Development Secretary, Mr Mitchell said he had taken the key steps towards creating an independent aid watchdog to ensure value for money. He also announced a new UK Aid Transparency Guarantee to ensure that full information on all DFID’s spending is published on the departmental website.
The information will also be made available to the people who benefit from aid funding: communities and families living in the world’s poorest countries.
These moves come as part of a wider drive to refocus DFID’s work so British taxpayers’ money is spent transparently and on key priority issues such as maternal mortality and disease prevention.
In Mr Mitchell’s speech, delivered at the Royal Society with Oxfam and Policy Exchange, he argued that overseas aid is both morally right and in Britain’s national interest but that taxpayers need to see more evidence their money is being spent well.
Andrew Mitchell said:
In his first major speech as Development Secretary, Mr Mitchell said he had taken the key steps towards creating an independent aid watchdog to ensure value for money. He also announced a new UK Aid Transparency Guarantee to ensure that full information on all DFID’s spending is published on the departmental website.
The information will also be made available to the people who benefit from aid funding: communities and families living in the world’s poorest countries.
These moves come as part of a wider drive to refocus DFID’s work so British taxpayers’ money is spent transparently and on key priority issues such as maternal mortality and disease prevention.
In Mr Mitchell’s speech, delivered at the Royal Society with Oxfam and Policy Exchange, he argued that overseas aid is both morally right and in Britain’s national interest but that taxpayers need to see more evidence their money is being spent well.
Andrew Mitchell said:
“We need a fundamental change of direction – we need to focus on results and outcomes, not just inputs. Aid spending decisions should be made on the basis of evidence, not guesswork. That is why we have taken the first steps towards creating a new independent aid watchdog.Andrew Mitchell highlighted the results of well-spent aid, saying:
“The UK Aid Transparency Guarantee will also help to create a million independent aid watchdogs – people around the world who can see where aid money is supposed to be going – and shout if it doesn’t get there.”
“Development is good for our economy, our safety, our health, our future. It is, quite simply, tremendous value for money: the best return on investment that you’ll find anywhere in government.And he gave this pledge to UK taxpayers:
“British aid pays for five million children in developing countries to go to primary school every day. That’s roughly the same number as go to primary school in Britain yet it costs only 2.5 per cent of what we spend here. That’s real value for money.”
“To the British taxpayer I say this: our aim is to spend every penny of every pound of your money wisely and well. We want to squeeze every last ounce of value from it. We owe you that.
“And I promise you as well that in future, when it comes to international development, we will want to see hard evidence of the impact your money makes. Not just dense and impenetrable budget lines but clear evidence of real effect.”
Friday, June 4, 2010
Content from DPR Korea Boxes: UNDP and UNOPS paid for multiple North Korean Officials to travel back-and-forth from Myanmar and Iran for "trainings"
Reveling of the content of UNDP's sealed Boxes of its Programme in North Korea is becoming more and more relevant these days with new allegations of high-level North Koreans Delegations whom have traveled under UNDP/UNOPS Projects to Myanmar and Iran for so called Capacity Building and Training.
The UNDP Boxes, and more specifically the Finance Boxes contained detailed travel authorizations, Purchase Orders, Vouchers and expenditures with names of Officials as well as Photocopy of Passports of North Koreans who travelled back-and-forth to Myanmar and whom might have been involved in assisting Myanmar and Iran in their path towards Nuclear Programmes.
The world needs to know what is in the Boxes of North Korean Programme of United Nations, which are now under the custody of Ban Ki Moon.
Report: Myanmar seeking nuclear weapons
posted 4:28 am Fri June 04, 2010 - BANGKOK
from ABC 7 News - http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0610/742676.html
Documents smuggled out of Myanmar by an army defector indicate its military regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and North Korea is probably assisting the program, an expatriate media group said Friday. The Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma said the defector had been involved in the nuclear program and smuggled out extensive files and photographs describing experiments with uranium and specialized equipment needed to build a nuclear reactor and develop enrichment capabilities.
But the group concluded in a report that Myanmar is still far from producing a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb announced he was postponing a trip to Myanmar because of new allegations that it was collaborating with North Korea to develop a nuclear program.
Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, referred to documents provided by a Myanmar army defector.
Myanmar's military government has denied similar allegations in the past, but suspicions have mounted recently that the impoverished Southeast Asian nation has embarked on a nuclear program.
Myanmar's junta, which has been condemned worldwide for its human rights abuses, has no hostile neighbors. The military's prime concern is suppressing dissidents at home and battling several small-scaled insurgencies.
Last month, U.N. experts monitoring sanctions imposed against North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests said their research indicated it was involved in banned nuclear and ballistic missile activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar, which is also called Burma.
The DVB report said Russia has also trained Myanmar technicians in nuclear and missile technology.
The group, which operates Oslo-based television and radio stations, said the defector, Sai Thein Win, was an army major who was trained in Myanmar as a defense engineer and later in Russia as a missile expert. It said he had access to secret Myanmar nuclear facilities including a nuclear battalion north of Mandalay "charged with building up a nuclear weapons capability."
It said the documents it obtained were examined by Robert Kelley, an American nuclear scientist and former director in the International Atomic Energy Agency who concluded that Myanmar "is probably mining uranium and exploring nuclear technology that is only useful for weapons."
The group said its report was based on a five-year study that indicated that North Korea was involved in assisting the program.
Documents obtained earlier showed that North Korea was helping Myanmar dig a series of underground facilities and develop missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles).
The group said the documents obtained from the defector show a number of components used in nuclear weapons and missile technology, including a missile fuel pump impeller, chemical engineering equipment that can be used to make compounds used in uranium enrichment, and nozzles used to separate uranium isotopes into bomb materials.
"The total picture is very compelling. Burma is trying to build pieces of a nuclear program, specifically a nuclear reactor to make plutonium and a uranium enrichment program," the report said.
from ABC 7 News - http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0610/742676.html
Documents smuggled out of Myanmar by an army defector indicate its military regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and North Korea is probably assisting the program, an expatriate media group said Friday. The Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma said the defector had been involved in the nuclear program and smuggled out extensive files and photographs describing experiments with uranium and specialized equipment needed to build a nuclear reactor and develop enrichment capabilities.
But the group concluded in a report that Myanmar is still far from producing a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb announced he was postponing a trip to Myanmar because of new allegations that it was collaborating with North Korea to develop a nuclear program.
Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs, referred to documents provided by a Myanmar army defector.
Myanmar's military government has denied similar allegations in the past, but suspicions have mounted recently that the impoverished Southeast Asian nation has embarked on a nuclear program.
Myanmar's junta, which has been condemned worldwide for its human rights abuses, has no hostile neighbors. The military's prime concern is suppressing dissidents at home and battling several small-scaled insurgencies.
Last month, U.N. experts monitoring sanctions imposed against North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests said their research indicated it was involved in banned nuclear and ballistic missile activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar, which is also called Burma.
The DVB report said Russia has also trained Myanmar technicians in nuclear and missile technology.
The group, which operates Oslo-based television and radio stations, said the defector, Sai Thein Win, was an army major who was trained in Myanmar as a defense engineer and later in Russia as a missile expert. It said he had access to secret Myanmar nuclear facilities including a nuclear battalion north of Mandalay "charged with building up a nuclear weapons capability."
It said the documents it obtained were examined by Robert Kelley, an American nuclear scientist and former director in the International Atomic Energy Agency who concluded that Myanmar "is probably mining uranium and exploring nuclear technology that is only useful for weapons."
The group said its report was based on a five-year study that indicated that North Korea was involved in assisting the program.
Documents obtained earlier showed that North Korea was helping Myanmar dig a series of underground facilities and develop missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles).
The group said the documents obtained from the defector show a number of components used in nuclear weapons and missile technology, including a missile fuel pump impeller, chemical engineering equipment that can be used to make compounds used in uranium enrichment, and nozzles used to separate uranium isotopes into bomb materials.
"The total picture is very compelling. Burma is trying to build pieces of a nuclear program, specifically a nuclear reactor to make plutonium and a uranium enrichment program," the report said.
U.N. Keeps Quiet on Suspect Boxes From North Korea
BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/70605
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. officials failed to inform New York or federal authorities about an illness suffered by two employees who had handled boxes shipped here from North Korea — boxes that might have been contaminated — U.N. sources said.
The U.N. contractors suffered headaches and nausea and felt sick enough to report the incident and seek treatment. The U.N. security authorities were concerned enough to deploy their own hazardous-material team but failed to seal the site where the incident occurred or evacuate its workers. As of yet, no determination was made about the source of the symptoms suffered by the two workers. No American authorities were notified.
"A determination was made not to contact the New York authorities," a U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said. U.N. security officials decided that the two persons who got sick should first get treatment. "Our own hazmat team" examined the boxes that the two persons handled, and the air quality in the basement where the boxes were stored is expected to be examined today, she said after The New York Sun began to inquire about the incident yesterday.
An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the cause of the "coughing, dehydration, and headaches" suffered by the two employees was not yet determined but added that "they are okay now."
The two unidentified persons were members of an investigative team formed last year to probe allegations of wrongdoings in the U.N. Development Program's office in North Korea. Last fall, 60 boxes, filled with documents and other office material, were shipped from the UNDP's Pyongyang office and were stored in a basement of a building adjacent to the U.N. headquarters. On January 14, the boxes were first examined by members of the investigative team, who started opening them a week later, on January 21.
The two investigators got sick after opening a box that was described by one source as "damp" and containing "some mold." Another source described a substance on the box as "powder." After feeling ill, the investigators got in touch with their UNDP contact, who passed the information to the agency's security team.
According to one source who has contacted the Sun, members of the independent investigating team were advised to wear unspecified protective gear when handling the material in the future. The source said there was a lot of concern among the investigators, some of whom wondered why the whole affair was kept quiet.
A UNDP official said yesterday that the boxes that were sent from the agency's Pyongyang office were "at no time" handled by North Korean officials.
But according to an preliminary probe conducted last year after allegations about rule-breaking in the UNDP's North Korea offices, members of the Kim Jong Il government were dispatched to the agency's Pyongyang office where they were used as local employees.
North Korea, which at one point was described by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil," has long been suspected of proliferating weapons of mass destruction, including long-range missile technology, nuclear know-how, and chemical and biological weapons. In August, U.N. employees — from the team formed in the 1990s to search illicit weapons in Iraq — encountered suspected hazardous material stored in a Midtown Manhattan office.
After the building where the suspected substance was discovered was sealed, the FBI was contacted, and federal and New York authorities were brought in to investigate alongside U.N. experts. The press was also notified, and the story led the news for a while before the suspected contaminant was declared harmless.
Secretary-General Ban ordered an independent investigation after the incident sparked ridicule and criticism of the United Nations in the press.
U.N. officials therefore may have decided to avoid similar press coverage this time by not contacting the New York authorities, one official said yesterday.
February 1, 2008 Edition > Section: Foreign > Printer-Friendly
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/70605
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. officials failed to inform New York or federal authorities about an illness suffered by two employees who had handled boxes shipped here from North Korea — boxes that might have been contaminated — U.N. sources said.
The U.N. contractors suffered headaches and nausea and felt sick enough to report the incident and seek treatment. The U.N. security authorities were concerned enough to deploy their own hazardous-material team but failed to seal the site where the incident occurred or evacuate its workers. As of yet, no determination was made about the source of the symptoms suffered by the two workers. No American authorities were notified.
"A determination was made not to contact the New York authorities," a U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said. U.N. security officials decided that the two persons who got sick should first get treatment. "Our own hazmat team" examined the boxes that the two persons handled, and the air quality in the basement where the boxes were stored is expected to be examined today, she said after The New York Sun began to inquire about the incident yesterday.
An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the cause of the "coughing, dehydration, and headaches" suffered by the two employees was not yet determined but added that "they are okay now."
The two unidentified persons were members of an investigative team formed last year to probe allegations of wrongdoings in the U.N. Development Program's office in North Korea. Last fall, 60 boxes, filled with documents and other office material, were shipped from the UNDP's Pyongyang office and were stored in a basement of a building adjacent to the U.N. headquarters. On January 14, the boxes were first examined by members of the investigative team, who started opening them a week later, on January 21.
The two investigators got sick after opening a box that was described by one source as "damp" and containing "some mold." Another source described a substance on the box as "powder." After feeling ill, the investigators got in touch with their UNDP contact, who passed the information to the agency's security team.
According to one source who has contacted the Sun, members of the independent investigating team were advised to wear unspecified protective gear when handling the material in the future. The source said there was a lot of concern among the investigators, some of whom wondered why the whole affair was kept quiet.
A UNDP official said yesterday that the boxes that were sent from the agency's Pyongyang office were "at no time" handled by North Korean officials.
But according to an preliminary probe conducted last year after allegations about rule-breaking in the UNDP's North Korea offices, members of the Kim Jong Il government were dispatched to the agency's Pyongyang office where they were used as local employees.
North Korea, which at one point was described by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil," has long been suspected of proliferating weapons of mass destruction, including long-range missile technology, nuclear know-how, and chemical and biological weapons. In August, U.N. employees — from the team formed in the 1990s to search illicit weapons in Iraq — encountered suspected hazardous material stored in a Midtown Manhattan office.
After the building where the suspected substance was discovered was sealed, the FBI was contacted, and federal and New York authorities were brought in to investigate alongside U.N. experts. The press was also notified, and the story led the news for a while before the suspected contaminant was declared harmless.
Secretary-General Ban ordered an independent investigation after the incident sparked ridicule and criticism of the United Nations in the press.
U.N. officials therefore may have decided to avoid similar press coverage this time by not contacting the New York authorities, one official said yesterday.
February 1, 2008 Edition > Section: Foreign > Printer-Friendly
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Content from DPR Korea Boxes: Bill Gates letter shows UNDP lied under oath to US Congress on Access and Monitoring in North Korea
From Senate Investigation Report:
UNDP’s worldwide practice is to require its field personnel to conduct site visits to development projects to ensure that the projects are progressing as expected. Providing adequate access to projects is an explicit condition to receiving development funds in most country agreements, including the 1979 Standard Basic Assistance Agreement with North Korea.72 Despite the importance attached to site visits, the DPRK government did not permit UNDP to access a project site without prior approval, requested at least one week in advance of a visit. Moreover, project visits were conducted under the direct supervision of North Korean authorities.73
UNDP maintains that the restrictions on its project visits did not prevent it from conducting adequate oversight because: (1) many of the projects it funded were training programs, where the monitoring was effected by simply confirming attendance, and (2) the on- site monitoring performed in the company of North Korean officials was sufficient to ensure that funds were applied appropriately.74 Under the SBAA, however, the North Korean government was obliged to permit UNDP “free movement within or to or from the country, to the extent necessary for the proper execution of UNDP assistance.”75 The requirements of prior notice and government supervision appear inconsistent with this obligation.
UNDP's representatives at the hearings of US Senate and USUN underlined in different occasions that UNDP had "experienced no major problems with access and restriction to visits in the field".
Today FOX NEWS reveals a letter from Bill Gates' Global Fund (GFATM) which stated clearly the reasons why they were canceling their programme in North Korea at the time (2005):
The basis for this decision is the DPRK government's position on several outstanding issues which have created structural barriers to our ability to ensure an adequate level of programmatic oversight. The government was unable to meet the requirement to provide staff of the Global Fund and our Local Fund Agent with free access to the country in order to conduct program monitoring and oversight. Further, the government was unable to meet the Global Fund requirement to provide unfettered access of staff to project sites without advance notice.
This damning letter is contrary to statements made at the time by Ad Melkert (former USG), David Morrison (former spokesperson) and Darshak Shah (former Comptroller) to US Senate Investigative Committee, United States Mission to the UN (USUN) as well as to media briefings.
Maybe is about time that the public get to know what's more inside the UNDP North Korean boxes that are under custody of Ban Ki Moon.
U.N. Plans More Cash for North Korea's Dictatorial Regime
Even as the United States tries to ratchet up sanctions against North Korea for its March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship, the United Nations is preparing to spend more than $170 million on new programs in the xenophobic communist state. More surprisingly, it is doing so with the knowledge and cooperation of the U.S. State Department.
The U.N. aid programs cover everything from health care, like anti-malaria campaigns and tuberculosis vaccinations, to agriculture projects, sanitation and water supply improvements, educational programs and and statistics-gathering to help in delivering "knowledge management products and information services."
According to documents obtained by Fox News, the programs include English-language lessons for North Korean bureaucrats, in order to help increase foreign trade and investment that fell to anemic levels more than a decade ago, and millions more for "advocacy." All are being planned in close cooperation with the North Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong-Il.
Many of the spending plans are well known to the Obama Administration, which recently featured a job search posting on a State Department website for one U.N. agency position, which would monitor some of the health-related program spending from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
After Fox News asked questions about the employment notice, it disappeared into an archive. State Department spokesmen did not reply to the questions before this article was published.
Click here to see the job search notice, No. 138.
Among the programs either under way or in the advanced planning stages:
• An $11.5 million, two-year anti-malaria program to be carried out by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). Another U.N. agency, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has been hired to monitor the program. According to UNICEF spokesman Christopher de Bono, "pre-implementation work" — including procurement of supplies — started shortly after a funding agreement was signed in February. According to another source, about $7.9 million has already been disbursed for that effort.
• a two-year anti-TB program that could cost up to $22.6 million that also would be carried out by UNICEF and WHO. The agreement covering the program is still being negotiated. Most of the money involved would go to TB diagnosis and treatment, including drugs.
The two anti-disease programs have renewal options for three additional years that could bring the total spending on them to $88 million.
• A $13.9 million plan by UNICEF to improve water, sanitation and hygiene, especially in rural areas.
• A $12.2 million education program run by UNICEF that "aims to improve the quality of education nationally." It will, among other things, help develop national standards for "child-friendly primary schools," and "new approaches in teacher training and instructional methodologies." The methods UNICEF is sponsoring "can be expanded to broader areas by the government and other partners."
UNICEF also reports that a revision of North Korea's primary school mathematics curriculum has already been carried out as a pilot project in 28 North Korean schools.
• A $13 million agriculture pilot project under the aegis of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to provide diverse food sources for North Korea's government-run agriculture cooperatives, and another $4.6 million to bolster North Korea's "food and agriculture information system," in the interest of enhanced "food security," starting next year.
• A $7.7 million program to bolster energy production and electrical transmission with assistance from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), also starting in 2011.
• A $4.6 million UNIDO program to "support enterprises engaged in export trade," among other things, which would involve teaching "business English," establishing "networks of knowledge workers," as well as creating unspecified "knowledge management products and information services" to speed economic growth and development.
• A $2.9 million project for "improved national capacities in disaster management," involving the World Food Program, UNEP and FAO.
• A $9.7 million program by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), largely in support of "reproductive health and rights."
Among the North Korean government agencies intimately involved with the welter of programs are the ministries of finance, foreign trade, education and agriculture, and the State Commission for Science and Technology.
Many of the projects in the works are outlined in documents that are being presented to the governing Executive boards of various U.N. agencies as part of a five-year United Nations Strategic Framework for collaboration between the U.N. and Kim, starting in 2011.
The UNICEF plans, for example, are contained in a "draft country program" for North Korea that was presented at a four-day UNICEF Executive Board meeting in New York that started on Tuesday, June 1. The U.S. is a member of the board.
Click here for the UNICEF program.
The issue of aid and assistance to North Korea has been one of the most toxic topics of the past decade. It reached a peak of concern in 2006, as the erratic and aggressive Kim regime announced a successful nuclear weapons test. The U.N. Security Council voted limited arms sanctions following the announcement, but they had little apparent effect on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, or its bellicose rhetoric.
In May 2009, the country set off another nuclear blast. It also has fired missiles in the direction of Japan, expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and threatened to turn neighboring South Korea into a "sea of fire." The overt U.N. response was to tighten sanctions on weapons sales and impose a financial squeeze on the money pipeline to support the regime's programs for weapons of mass destruction. But it clearly did not halt plans to provide aid to North Korea.
Then, on March 26, the South Korean warship Cheonan was sunk in South Korean waters, killing 46 seamen. An investigation declared the cause of the sinking was a North Korean torpedo. The North Korean regime has loudly denied responsibility, while putting its armed forces on a war footing.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the North Korea aggression to be "an unacceptable provocation," and said the international community "has a responsibility and a duty to respond." She subsequently spent five days in China, North Korea's main protector, trying to get the reluctant government there to agree to increased sanctions—at the same time her State Department had been listing a job in Pyongyang.
As it became clear that the Kim regime was focused on its nuclear weapons program, the U.N.'s anti-poverty arm, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), closed its North Korean office for two years in a scandal related to its management of aid programs in the country. Other U.N. agencies, however, remained active.
In 2008, a so-called "External Independent Investigative Review Panel" revealed that UNDP had handed over millions in hard currency to the Kim regime, along with "dual use" equipment specifically banned under the U.N.'s own 2006 sanctions. The report also said, among other things, that UNDP had installed North Korean government employees in sensitive core staff posts, including those helping to pay for and oversee development projects, and that the Kim regime had picked the staffers.
UNDP got permission last year from its governing executive board to reopen the office under a revised deal with the Kim regime. (The U.S. is also a member of the UNDP Executive Board.) According to a UNDP spokesman, the office currently has six non-Korean staffers and 15 North Korean staffers in-country.
According to the same spokesman, UNDP will be "reactivating and updating" six projects that were under way before the office shutdown. "Once these updates are appraised and approved," the spokesman said, "work will begin anew." He added, however, that North Korea "will not be on the agenda" when the UNDP Executive Board starts a two-week meeting on June 21 in Geneva.
Fox News has obtained a copy of a UNDP "draft country program" for North Korea, covering the years 2011 to 2015, which was intended to appear on the provisional agenda of the June Executive Board meeting. The document is dated April 14 — little more than two weeks before the North Korean attack on the Cheonan.
The ten-page document sketches out six project areas for North Korea under such rubrics as rural development, economic management and climate change, with UNDP operating as an umbrella organization for a variety of other U.N. agencies. The programs were, it says, "prepared in close consultation with the National Coordinating Committeee for UNDP of [North Korea's} Ministry of Foreign Affairs." Total cost of the programs: about $42.9 million.
Click here for the UNDP program.
That price tag does not include the reproductive rights program, which carries on UNFPA's previous work in the country, and is aimed at helping the North Korean government use population data for national planning, set national standards for "reproductive health services," and upgrading reproductive health services, including neonatal care. (North Korea's infant mortality rate has risen alarmingly since 1993, from 13.1 deaths per thousand, to 19.3 deaths per thousand in 2008, according to UNFPA.)
Click here for the UNFPA document.
Nor does the UNDP tally include the anti-malaria and anti-TB programs, which could initially be worth $34.1 million over two years. Those programs, while administered by UNICEF and WHO, are financed by a non-U.N. institution, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). The anti-disease programs could be extended for three additional years after a Global Fund review
The Global Fund, which is financed in part by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, claims to have much tougher standards for oversight and management of its grant activities than other humanitarian agencies—and in 2004, cancelled previous anti-malaria and TB funding grants to North Korea, when the regime refused to allow a monitor for the program to live in-country.
Click here for the Global Fund letter announcing the cancellation.
This time, according to Global Fund communications director Jon Liden, North Korea has capitulated on that issue, leading to the hiring of a UNOPS team as the project monitor. The Kim regime also has agreed to open project documents for inspection, provide greater ease of access by international U.N. staff to clinic sites, and give UNICEF and WHO "greater influence" in hiring local staff. The North Korean government will nominate three persons for each role; UNICEF and WHO can reject them until new nominations produce a suitable choice.
The Global Fund also is applying what it calls an "additional safeguards policy" to its North Korea grants, which include a ban on payments to the North Korean government in advance of any expenses it incurs, and quarterly reports on the progress of the programs. According to the Fund's Liden, the Swiss-based organization can cut off money for the projects "on hours' notice."
"We do not shy away from tackling such problems expediently and make all our funding decisions public, including announcing any grant suspension and termination," Liden told Fox News in an e-mail. "We have found that such transparency has been helpful both in maintaining donor trust and as a deterrence to grantees who might contemplate any misuse of funds."
On the ground, however, the anti-disease programs will be run not by the Global Fund but by UNICEF and WHO — and often carried out by North Korean citizens who live in one of the world's most totalitarian countries. According to UNICEF's de Bono, eight additional non-Korean staffers from the two agencies will be carrying out the programs, with 19 staffers from the North Korean ministry of health overseeing the Kim government's role.
When queried by Fox News about its role in the program, WHO referred questions to UNICEF and the Global Fund. A WHO spokesperson said only that "WHO has a global mandate to fight communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria, and it is in both the interests of [North Korea] and its neighbors that we continue to do whatever we can to fulfill this mandate. "It is not in any country's interest to have pockets of uncontrolled malaria or TB in circulation."
The spokesperson added that "WHO's role is to provide technical assistance to the government and to the principal recipient" of funding, a reference to UNICEF. A UNICEF spokesman told Fox News that the WHO role included training local health workers to administer the anti-diease programs "effectively and efficiently."
The anti-malarial program will be carried out in seven of North Korea's ten provinces, and, as with the TB program (focused on nine provinces), the U.N. contributions "are being mainstreamed with the Government's existing programs," according to UNICEF spokesman de Bono. Meaning: medicines, and diagnostic help, and other forms of relief "will be by the government service providers there, with UNICEF and WHO monitoring.
According to de Bono, UNICEF does not pay its 15 national staff directly — plus five more added for the malaria and TB programs — but instead pays the government, which in turn pays the national staffers. Meaning: the national staffers are still direct North Korean government employees. This form of payment is one of the issues that drew criticism of UNDP during its hard-currency scandals in North Korea; UNDP no longer pays the Kim government directly.
The government of North Korea is ruthless in its methods, unpredictable in its tactics — and the cause of much if not most of North Korea's horrifying mixture of poverty, starvation and morbidly declining health. That fact is nowhere noted in any of the U.N. proposals for new programs in North Korea, which were prepared in close collaboration with the government itself.
If anything, the Kim regime's behavior is sometimes described in sympathetic and understanding terms. The country's painful economic plight since the 1990s — when Soviet communism collapsed — is usually ascribed to a series of floods and other natural catastrophes — and even, in the UNDP draft country program, to the unique local effects of global warming.
The UNDP country program document also discusses a December 2009 currency reform "aimed at curbing inflation [which] together with several related measures, produced unintended results." Other observers have cited the currency reform as part of an attempt by the Kim government to crack down on a brief moment of economic relaxation, where some North Korean farmers were allowed to grow and sell small amounts of produce, and thus earn private incomes.
The role of the North Korean regime in its country's disastrous humanitarian plight is referred to only delicately in such documents as a WHO medium-term "country cooperation strategy" for North Korea, covering the health agency's objectives from 2009 to 2013.
There, WHO notes that in North Korea, "the extent of the health sector's efforts has been constrained by lack of evidence-based planning, which may have affected the efficiency and effectiveness of many institutions and institutional practices."
The WHO document also reproduces the North Korean Health Ministry's claim that "almost the entire population is able to access essential medicines from any point within a radius of 5 kilometers from their homes." Then it adds that "recent estimates suggest that less than 50 per cent of the total need for essential medicines is being met," and only 40 of 260 registered "essential" drugs are available at the local level.
More dramatically, it adds that "70% of essential medicines for clinics and hospitals located outside the capital of Pyongyang are being provided by international organizations, particularly UNICEF and the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)."
In other words, the role of the U.N. agencies in North Korea have become central to the North Korean regime's ability to deliver the trickle of life-sustaining goods that preserve the population's thread-bare existence.
Click here for the WHO strategy document.
The trickle is about to be increased substantially.
George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.
Friday, May 28, 2010
U.N.: North Korea Is Exporting Nuclear Missile Technology
Associated Press
North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The seven-member panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar. It called for further study of these suspected activities and urged all countries to try to prevent them.
The 47-page report, obtained late Thursday by AP, and a lengthy annex document sanctions violations reported by U.N. member states, including four cases involving arms exports and two seizures of luxury goods by Italy — two yachts and high-end recording and video equipment. The report also details the broad range of techniques that North Korea is using to try to evade sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council after its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Council diplomats discussed the report by the experts from Britain, Japan, the United States, France, South Korea, Russia and China at a closed-door meeting on Thursday.
Its release happened to coincide with heightened tensions between North Korea and South Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean navy ship which killed 46 sailors. The council is waiting for South Korea to decide what action it wants the U.N.'s most powerful body to take in response to the sinking, which a multinational investigation determined was caused by a North Korean torpedo.
The panel of experts said there is general agreement that the U.N. embargoes on nuclear and ballistic missile related items and technology, on arms exports and imports except light weapons, and on luxury goods, are having an impact.
But it said the list of eight entities and five individuals currently subject to an asset freeze and travel ban seriously understates those known to be engaged in banned activities and called for additional names to be added. It noted that North Korea moved quickly to have other companies take over activities of the eight banned entities.
The experts said an analysis of the four North Korean attempts to illegally export arms revealed that Pyongyang used "a number of masking techniques" to avoid sanctions. They include providing false descriptions and mislabeling of the contents of shipping containers, falsifying the manifest and information about the origin and destination of the goods, "and use of multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions," the panel said.
It noted that a chartered jet intercepted in Thailand in December carrying 35 tons of conventional weapons including surface-to-air missiles from North Korea was owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates, registered in Georgia, leased to a shell company registered in New Zealand and then chartered to another shell company registered in Hong Kong — which may have been an attempt to mask its destination.
North Korea is also concealing arms exports by shipping components in kits for assembly overseas, the experts said.
As one example, the panel said it learned after North Korean military equipment was seized at Durban harbor in South Africa that scores of technicians from the North had gone to the Republic of Congo, where the equipment was to have been assembled.
The experts called for "extra vigilance" at the first overseas port handling North Korean cargo and close monitoring of airplanes flying from the North, saying Pyongyang is believed to use air cargo "to handle high valued and sensitive arms exports."
While North Korea maintains a wide network of trade offices which do legitimate business as well as most of the country's illicit trade and covert acquisitions, the panel said Pyongyang "has also established links with overseas criminal networks to carry out these activities, including the transportation and distribution of illicit and smuggled cargoes."
This may also include goods related to weapons of mass destruction and arms, it added.
Under council resolutions, all countries are required to submit reports on what they are doing to implement sanctions but as of April 30 the panel said it had still not heard from 112 of the 192 U.N. member states — including 51 in Africa, 28 in Asia, and 25 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While no country reported on nuclear or ballistic missile-related imports or exports from North Korea since the second sanctions resolution was adopted last June, the panel said it reviewed several U.S. and French government assessments, reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency, research papers and media reports indicating Pyongyang's continuing involvement in such activities.
These reports indicate North Korea "has continued to provide missiles, components, and technology to certain countries including Iran and Syria ... (and) has provided assistance for a nuclear program in Syria, including the design and construction of a thermal reactor at Dair Alzour," the panel said.
Syria denied the allegations in a letter to the IAEA, but the U.N. nuclear agency is still trying to obtain reports on the site and its activities, the panel said.
The experts said they are also looking into "suspicious activity in Myanmar," including activities of Namchongang Trading, one of the companies subject to U.N. sanctions, and reports that Japan in June 2009 arrested three individuals for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer — which measures magnetic fields — to Myanmar via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of a company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea's nuclear and military programs. The company was not identified.
North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The seven-member panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar. It called for further study of these suspected activities and urged all countries to try to prevent them.
The 47-page report, obtained late Thursday by AP, and a lengthy annex document sanctions violations reported by U.N. member states, including four cases involving arms exports and two seizures of luxury goods by Italy — two yachts and high-end recording and video equipment. The report also details the broad range of techniques that North Korea is using to try to evade sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council after its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Council diplomats discussed the report by the experts from Britain, Japan, the United States, France, South Korea, Russia and China at a closed-door meeting on Thursday.
Its release happened to coincide with heightened tensions between North Korea and South Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean navy ship which killed 46 sailors. The council is waiting for South Korea to decide what action it wants the U.N.'s most powerful body to take in response to the sinking, which a multinational investigation determined was caused by a North Korean torpedo.
The panel of experts said there is general agreement that the U.N. embargoes on nuclear and ballistic missile related items and technology, on arms exports and imports except light weapons, and on luxury goods, are having an impact.
But it said the list of eight entities and five individuals currently subject to an asset freeze and travel ban seriously understates those known to be engaged in banned activities and called for additional names to be added. It noted that North Korea moved quickly to have other companies take over activities of the eight banned entities.
The experts said an analysis of the four North Korean attempts to illegally export arms revealed that Pyongyang used "a number of masking techniques" to avoid sanctions. They include providing false descriptions and mislabeling of the contents of shipping containers, falsifying the manifest and information about the origin and destination of the goods, "and use of multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions," the panel said.
It noted that a chartered jet intercepted in Thailand in December carrying 35 tons of conventional weapons including surface-to-air missiles from North Korea was owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates, registered in Georgia, leased to a shell company registered in New Zealand and then chartered to another shell company registered in Hong Kong — which may have been an attempt to mask its destination.
North Korea is also concealing arms exports by shipping components in kits for assembly overseas, the experts said.
As one example, the panel said it learned after North Korean military equipment was seized at Durban harbor in South Africa that scores of technicians from the North had gone to the Republic of Congo, where the equipment was to have been assembled.
The experts called for "extra vigilance" at the first overseas port handling North Korean cargo and close monitoring of airplanes flying from the North, saying Pyongyang is believed to use air cargo "to handle high valued and sensitive arms exports."
While North Korea maintains a wide network of trade offices which do legitimate business as well as most of the country's illicit trade and covert acquisitions, the panel said Pyongyang "has also established links with overseas criminal networks to carry out these activities, including the transportation and distribution of illicit and smuggled cargoes."
This may also include goods related to weapons of mass destruction and arms, it added.
Under council resolutions, all countries are required to submit reports on what they are doing to implement sanctions but as of April 30 the panel said it had still not heard from 112 of the 192 U.N. member states — including 51 in Africa, 28 in Asia, and 25 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While no country reported on nuclear or ballistic missile-related imports or exports from North Korea since the second sanctions resolution was adopted last June, the panel said it reviewed several U.S. and French government assessments, reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency, research papers and media reports indicating Pyongyang's continuing involvement in such activities.
These reports indicate North Korea "has continued to provide missiles, components, and technology to certain countries including Iran and Syria ... (and) has provided assistance for a nuclear program in Syria, including the design and construction of a thermal reactor at Dair Alzour," the panel said.
Syria denied the allegations in a letter to the IAEA, but the U.N. nuclear agency is still trying to obtain reports on the site and its activities, the panel said.
The experts said they are also looking into "suspicious activity in Myanmar," including activities of Namchongang Trading, one of the companies subject to U.N. sanctions, and reports that Japan in June 2009 arrested three individuals for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer — which measures magnetic fields — to Myanmar via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of a company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea's nuclear and military programs. The company was not identified.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Key recommendations of independent review of the UNDP evaluation policy
Evaluation recommendation 1. UNDP senior management must decide whether decentralized evaluation is of a high enough priority that it is willing to commit the focus and resources needed to implement the approaches envisaged in the new Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results. Management should do this by:
This recommendation will require changes in systems and practices across the whole planning and project cycle, with ‘evaluation’ being integrated into all new initiatives as they are being developed, as well as into staff appraisal systems.
Evaluation recommendation 2. The senior management of UNDP will need to build on the opportunities to build national leadership and ownership in evaluation. In responding to changes introduced by the UNDG on results reporting and results frameworks used at country level, the senior management of UNDP will need to revise the new Handbook for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results, the UNDP Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures, and other tools and guidelines.
These revisions should also recognize an ongoing need for the Evaluation Office to draw upon this data for the assessment of development results and corporate level evaluations, which are still required to meet corporate level accountability and learning objectives. The Evaluation Office should reassess its methodological guidance in the light of these changes, and work within UNEG to craft a common response on how to balance corporate and national-level needs for evaluative evidence.
Evaluation recommendation 3. The Executive Board should amend the evaluation policy to institutionalize the independence of the Evaluation Office. This would include:
Evaluation recommendation 5. The Evaluation Office should work through UNEG to clarify (a) the comparative advantage of UNDP in building capacity for evaluation at the country level; and (b) what steps should be taken by the Evaluation Office and the respective country programmes to build on this comparative advantage.
Evaluation recommendation 6. The Executive Board should consider requesting a review to be presented to the Board in 2012 covering:
(a) Acknowledging the magnitude of the challenge; (b)Taking a clear lead in ensuring that changes envisaged are implemented as quickly and effectively as possible;
(c)Revising the UNDP Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures (POPP) where necessary, to ensure alignment between the handbook and policies and procedures; and
(d)Defining the means, capacities and timeline required to implement the changes needed to strengthen the decentralized evaluation system, and ensure resources are allocated, implementation is properly monitored and corrective action taken, if needed.
This recommendation will require changes in systems and practices across the whole planning and project cycle, with ‘evaluation’ being integrated into all new initiatives as they are being developed, as well as into staff appraisal systems.
Evaluation recommendation 2. The senior management of UNDP will need to build on the opportunities to build national leadership and ownership in evaluation. In responding to changes introduced by the UNDG on results reporting and results frameworks used at country level, the senior management of UNDP will need to revise the new Handbook for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results, the UNDP Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures, and other tools and guidelines.
These revisions should also recognize an ongoing need for the Evaluation Office to draw upon this data for the assessment of development results and corporate level evaluations, which are still required to meet corporate level accountability and learning objectives. The Evaluation Office should reassess its methodological guidance in the light of these changes, and work within UNEG to craft a common response on how to balance corporate and national-level needs for evaluative evidence.
Evaluation recommendation 3. The Executive Board should amend the evaluation policy to institutionalize the independence of the Evaluation Office. This would include:
(a) Recruitment of the Director of the Evaluation Office. In the current policy, the Administrator appoints the Director of the Evaluation Office, in consultation with the Executive Board, and ensures there is no conflict of interest in employment, including limiting the term of appointment to four years, renewable once, and barring re-entry into the organization. Institutionalization of independence would be significantly strengthened if the role of the Executive Board in appointing the Director were strengthened and clearly spelled out in the policy;Evaluation recommendation 4. The Evaluation Office to consider the degree to which the present approach to development and implementation of assessment of development results truly contributes to country ownership. Particular issues that should be considered are: participation of government partners in deciding the scope and focus of the assessment of development results; and consideration of the recommendations of, and management response to, the evaluation.
(b) Recruitment of the Evaluation Office Staff. As long as standard UNDP human resources practice is followed, the power of the QUARRY 1 to overrule decisions made by the Director should be removed;
(c) Clarifying relationships. The relationship of the Director of the Evaluation Office to other senior managers within UNDP, and on what basis the Director would participate in strategic planning processes within UNDP, should be clarified;
(d) Expanding career opportunities for the Evaluation Office Staff. The possibilities for Evaluation Office staff to be mainstreamed into core positions in the wider organization, with opportunities to rotate and be promoted in line with standard UNDP procedures, should be strengthened; and
(e) Budget. The process for setting the budget of the Evaluation Office is currently described in broad terms within the present policy, whereby the Administrator is responsible for provision of sufficient resources, and the budget is negotiated biannually with the Bureau of Management. The guiding principle should be that the budget is set to adequately fund the work programme agreed upon between the Evaluation Office and the Executive Board. Good practice would be for the budget to be approved by the Executive Board as part of the Evaluation Office workplan approval process.
Evaluation recommendation 5. The Evaluation Office should work through UNEG to clarify (a) the comparative advantage of UNDP in building capacity for evaluation at the country level; and (b) what steps should be taken by the Evaluation Office and the respective country programmes to build on this comparative advantage.
Evaluation recommendation 6. The Executive Board should consider requesting a review to be presented to the Board in 2012 covering:
• The degree to which the roles and responsibilities laid out in the 2007 POPP and 2009 Handbook have been fully and effectively implemented;
• The degree to which adoption of approaches advocated in the Handbook has strengthened (i) RBM and (ii) decentralized evaluation at the country level;
• The degree to which independence of the EO has been institutionalized;• The degree to which the policy has been implemented and made a positive contribution in UNDP’s associated funds and programmes;• Whether an effective approach to strengthening country ownership and capacity building has been identified and is being implemented.
The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank
Unfortunately, it is a doomed effort. The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank. For example, it convinced the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to provide hard currency payments without any safeguards. Those funds ended up lining the dictator Kim Jong-Il’s pocket. At least $20 million was transferred from the UNDP directly to the North Korean regime for so-called development projects. The UNDP enabled North Korea to use UN-affiliated accounts to launder money and to import dual-use technology. As a consequence of this scandal, the UNDP had shut down its North Korea operations, but has since decided to resume them.
The terrible malnutrition that Ban Ki-moon laments is a direct result of the regime’s cruel neglect and mismanagement. It lets its people suffer from severe food shortages and a near-total breakdown in the public health system while it squanders money on nuclear arms and missiles. The UN’s World Health Organization has managed to get some limited rations delivered to less than a third of the neediest people. While the World Health Organization claims it has international staff monitoring distribution of food aid, reports have surfaced that people getting food are giving it back to the government.
As long as this closed regime stays in power, there is little the United Nations can do to really break through and reach the imprisoned population with humanitarian aid, even with the best of intentions. The aid will be squandered by Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen, as it has done before with development assistance. The UN is simply enabling the government to continue to survive.
The back of this regime must be broken by strangling its economy and quarantining entry and exit of ships to and from North Korean ports suspected of carrying nuclear or other military equipment and materials. There is no other way to save its people.
Article Seven of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines various categories of acts that constitute crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery or enforced prostitution, persecution and enforced disappearance of persons. North Korea is guilty of virtually all of these horrendous crimes against its own people, yet nothing is being done to hold its leaders to account.
Even if the International Criminal Court should take some action against the North Korean regime, it will mean nothing. Kim Jong-Il need only look at what is happening with Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an example. The Court issued a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest more than a year ago on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Not only is al-Bashir still free, but he will be serving yet another term as president. Two top UN officials in Sudan are even planning to attend his inauguration ceremony!
Decisive action against North Korea, beyond what the United Nations is capable of doing, is needed immediately. Will the world’s democracies finally have the courage it takes to put this aggressive dictatorship in its place once and for all? So far, it does not look promising.
The terrible malnutrition that Ban Ki-moon laments is a direct result of the regime’s cruel neglect and mismanagement. It lets its people suffer from severe food shortages and a near-total breakdown in the public health system while it squanders money on nuclear arms and missiles. The UN’s World Health Organization has managed to get some limited rations delivered to less than a third of the neediest people. While the World Health Organization claims it has international staff monitoring distribution of food aid, reports have surfaced that people getting food are giving it back to the government.
As long as this closed regime stays in power, there is little the United Nations can do to really break through and reach the imprisoned population with humanitarian aid, even with the best of intentions. The aid will be squandered by Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen, as it has done before with development assistance. The UN is simply enabling the government to continue to survive.
The back of this regime must be broken by strangling its economy and quarantining entry and exit of ships to and from North Korean ports suspected of carrying nuclear or other military equipment and materials. There is no other way to save its people.
Article Seven of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines various categories of acts that constitute crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery or enforced prostitution, persecution and enforced disappearance of persons. North Korea is guilty of virtually all of these horrendous crimes against its own people, yet nothing is being done to hold its leaders to account.
Even if the International Criminal Court should take some action against the North Korean regime, it will mean nothing. Kim Jong-Il need only look at what is happening with Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an example. The Court issued a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest more than a year ago on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Not only is al-Bashir still free, but he will be serving yet another term as president. Two top UN officials in Sudan are even planning to attend his inauguration ceremony!
Decisive action against North Korea, beyond what the United Nations is capable of doing, is needed immediately. Will the world’s democracies finally have the courage it takes to put this aggressive dictatorship in its place once and for all? So far, it does not look promising.
Time For Real Action Against North Korea
Tensions are rising in the Korean Peninsula, following confirmation by international investigators that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors which were South Korea’s worst military fatalities since the Korean War ended in 1953.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed to cut off nearly all trade with North Korea and to deny North Korean merchant ships permission to use South Korean sea lanes. South Korea also plans to broadcast propaganda messages into the North and to drop leaflets by air.
The United States is planning joint military exercises with South Korea in a show of resolve.
China does not want to do anything that might further inflame the situation, while its friends in North Korea are talking about going to war.
As for the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters at his monthly press conference at UN headquarters in New York that the evidence laid out in the report of the international investigators “is overwhelming and deeply troubling.” Ban Ki-moon expressed his grave concerns, not only on behalf of the United Nations but also personally as a South Korean citizen. “I have a very strong attachment and even a sense of responsibility,” he told reporters. “Now, serving as Secretary-General, this is most troubling for me to see what is happening in the Korean Peninsula - that’s my motherland.”
The Secretary General said that the Security Council will be conferring on what “appropriate” measures to take against the rogue regime. What that means is anyone’s guess, since China will most likely use its veto power to make sure that North Korea gets no more than another slap on the wrist following the ineffective sanctions imposed after North Korea’s missile and nuclear arms testing.
China’s solicitude for North Korea should not be surprising, considering that China has been North Korea’s largest trading partner and supplier of assistance (through subsidized trade and direct transfers). Moreover, as pointed out by the Congressional Research Service, “Beijing values North Korea as a buffer between the democratic South Korea and the U.S. forces stationed there, as a rationale to divert U.S. and Japanese resources in the Asia Pacific toward dealing with Pyongyang and less focused on the growing military might of China.”
For its part, the United Nations itself is still throwing North Korea a lifeline, so to speak. Irrespective of its government’s aggressive actions, humanitarian aid to North Korea will continue, promised Ban Ki-moon. He emphasized the needs of the malnourished children, calling them “the leaders of our future generations.”
After his formal news conference was over, I approached the Secretary General and asked him what level of confidence he had that the humanitarian aid would actually reach the people in North Korea who needed it. I reminded him how previous aid projects to help the people sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme had failed.
All that Ban Ki-moon could say in response was that “We have to try.”
The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank
Unfortunately, it is a doomed effort. The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank. For example, it convinced the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to provide hard currency payments without any safeguards. Those funds ended up lining the dictator Kim Jong-Il’s pocket. At least $20 million was transferred from the UNDP directly to the North Korean regime for so-called development projects. The UNDP enabled North Korea to use UN-affiliated accounts to launder money and to import dual-use technology. As a consequence of this scandal, the UNDP had shut down its North Korea operations, but has since decided to resume them.
The terrible malnutrition that Ban Ki-moon laments is a direct result of the regime’s cruel neglect and mismanagement. It lets its people suffer from severe food shortages and a near-total breakdown in the public health system while it squanders money on nuclear arms and missiles. The UN’s World Health Organization has managed to get some limited rations delivered to less than a third of the neediest people. While the World Health Organization claims it has international staff monitoring distribution of food aid, reports have surfaced that people getting food are giving it back to the government.
As long as this closed regime stays in power, there is little the United Nations can do to really break through and reach the imprisoned population with humanitarian aid, even with the best of intentions. The aid will be squandered by Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen, as it has done before with development assistance. The UN is simply enabling the government to continue to survive.
The back of this regime must be broken by strangling its economy and quarantining entry and exit of ships to and from North Korean ports suspected of carrying nuclear or other military equipment and materials. There is no other way to save its people.
Article Seven of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines various categories of acts that constitute crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery or enforced prostitution, persecution and enforced disappearance of persons. North Korea is guilty of virtually all of these horrendous crimes against its own people, yet nothing is being done to hold its leaders to account.
Even if the International Criminal Court should take some action against the North Korean regime, it will mean nothing. Kim Jong-Il need only look at what is happening with Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an example. The Court issued a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest more than a year ago on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Not only is al-Bashir still free, but he will be serving yet another term as president. Two top UN officials in Sudan are even planning to attend his inauguration ceremony!
Decisive action against North Korea, beyond what the United Nations is capable of doing, is needed immediately. Will the world’s democracies finally have the courage it takes to put this aggressive dictatorship in its place once and for all? So far, it does not look promising.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed to cut off nearly all trade with North Korea and to deny North Korean merchant ships permission to use South Korean sea lanes. South Korea also plans to broadcast propaganda messages into the North and to drop leaflets by air.
The United States is planning joint military exercises with South Korea in a show of resolve.
China does not want to do anything that might further inflame the situation, while its friends in North Korea are talking about going to war.
As for the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters at his monthly press conference at UN headquarters in New York that the evidence laid out in the report of the international investigators “is overwhelming and deeply troubling.” Ban Ki-moon expressed his grave concerns, not only on behalf of the United Nations but also personally as a South Korean citizen. “I have a very strong attachment and even a sense of responsibility,” he told reporters. “Now, serving as Secretary-General, this is most troubling for me to see what is happening in the Korean Peninsula - that’s my motherland.”
The Secretary General said that the Security Council will be conferring on what “appropriate” measures to take against the rogue regime. What that means is anyone’s guess, since China will most likely use its veto power to make sure that North Korea gets no more than another slap on the wrist following the ineffective sanctions imposed after North Korea’s missile and nuclear arms testing.
China’s solicitude for North Korea should not be surprising, considering that China has been North Korea’s largest trading partner and supplier of assistance (through subsidized trade and direct transfers). Moreover, as pointed out by the Congressional Research Service, “Beijing values North Korea as a buffer between the democratic South Korea and the U.S. forces stationed there, as a rationale to divert U.S. and Japanese resources in the Asia Pacific toward dealing with Pyongyang and less focused on the growing military might of China.”
For its part, the United Nations itself is still throwing North Korea a lifeline, so to speak. Irrespective of its government’s aggressive actions, humanitarian aid to North Korea will continue, promised Ban Ki-moon. He emphasized the needs of the malnourished children, calling them “the leaders of our future generations.”
After his formal news conference was over, I approached the Secretary General and asked him what level of confidence he had that the humanitarian aid would actually reach the people in North Korea who needed it. I reminded him how previous aid projects to help the people sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme had failed.
All that Ban Ki-moon could say in response was that “We have to try.”
The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank
Unfortunately, it is a doomed effort. The North Korean regime has a habit of raiding the UN piggybank. For example, it convinced the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to provide hard currency payments without any safeguards. Those funds ended up lining the dictator Kim Jong-Il’s pocket. At least $20 million was transferred from the UNDP directly to the North Korean regime for so-called development projects. The UNDP enabled North Korea to use UN-affiliated accounts to launder money and to import dual-use technology. As a consequence of this scandal, the UNDP had shut down its North Korea operations, but has since decided to resume them.
The terrible malnutrition that Ban Ki-moon laments is a direct result of the regime’s cruel neglect and mismanagement. It lets its people suffer from severe food shortages and a near-total breakdown in the public health system while it squanders money on nuclear arms and missiles. The UN’s World Health Organization has managed to get some limited rations delivered to less than a third of the neediest people. While the World Health Organization claims it has international staff monitoring distribution of food aid, reports have surfaced that people getting food are giving it back to the government.
As long as this closed regime stays in power, there is little the United Nations can do to really break through and reach the imprisoned population with humanitarian aid, even with the best of intentions. The aid will be squandered by Kim Jong-Il and his henchmen, as it has done before with development assistance. The UN is simply enabling the government to continue to survive.
The back of this regime must be broken by strangling its economy and quarantining entry and exit of ships to and from North Korean ports suspected of carrying nuclear or other military equipment and materials. There is no other way to save its people.
Article Seven of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines various categories of acts that constitute crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery or enforced prostitution, persecution and enforced disappearance of persons. North Korea is guilty of virtually all of these horrendous crimes against its own people, yet nothing is being done to hold its leaders to account.
Even if the International Criminal Court should take some action against the North Korean regime, it will mean nothing. Kim Jong-Il need only look at what is happening with Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir as an example. The Court issued a warrant for al-Bashir’s arrest more than a year ago on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Not only is al-Bashir still free, but he will be serving yet another term as president. Two top UN officials in Sudan are even planning to attend his inauguration ceremony!
Decisive action against North Korea, beyond what the United Nations is capable of doing, is needed immediately. Will the world’s democracies finally have the courage it takes to put this aggressive dictatorship in its place once and for all? So far, it does not look promising.
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