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Business as usual in Syria while UN Human Rights High Commissioner demands UN boycott against Israel

UN Continues Substantial Purchases from Companies Tied to Assad Regime



The United Nations Security Council once again deadlocked over what to do about the increasing carnage in Syria, particularly in the besieged city of Aleppo. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed frustration at the lack of any decisive action by the Council. Yet, while the UN’s own procurement division continues to do millions of dollars’ worth of business with individuals and entities tied to the Syrian regime and its president Bashar al-Assad despite the ongoing atrocities, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is demanding that the UN procurement division target Israel for blacklisting and boycott. On October 8th, France and Spain, with the strong backing of the Obama administration, introduced a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council demanding a full cessation of all hostilities in Syria, including an end to all aerial bombardments over Aleppo, as well as the provision of immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access. Russia introduced its own competing draft. While there was a fair amount of overlap between the two drafts, the Russian draft omitted any reference to the cessation of aerial bombings and revived the idea of modest weekly 48 hour humanitarian pauses in fighting. It also insisted on the need to verifiably separate “moderate opposition forces from ‘Jabhut Al-Nusra’ as a key priority,” which Russia has accused the United States of failing to accomplish.
Russia vetoed the French-Spanish draft resolution. The Russian draft failed to get the necessary majority of Security Council members to go along with it. Acrimony filled the air with charges and counter-charges assigning blame for the Syrian tragedy and the failure once again of the Security Council to take any decisive action. Meanwhile, civilians continue to die in Aleppo. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has decried possible war crimes in Syria, and called for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court. He told reporters on October 10th that he “was deeply disappointed when the Security Council last Saturday again failed to unite. There is no time to debate and disagree on what Security Council should take action (sic).” When France’s UN Ambassador François Delattre was asked what could be done to help stop the carnage in Aleppo outside of the deadlocked Security Council, he replied “We have to be creative.” Such creativity could start within the UN bureaucracy itself. It should immediately suspend, if not cancel altogether, procurement contracts it has awarded to Syrian companies with deep connections to the Syrian regime and its president Bashar al-Assad. According to an article appearing in the Guardian last August, “the UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to people closely associated with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of an aid programme that critics fear is increasingly at the whim of the government in Damascus. Businessmen whose companies are under US and EU sanctions have been paid substantial sums by the UN mission, as have government departments and charities – including one set up by the president’s wife, Asma al-Assad, and another by his close associate and cousin, Rami Makhlouf.”

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The Guardian identified a number of specific business relationships, including one with the mobile phone network Syriatel, which has been run by Makhlouf. A U.S. diplomatic cable, describing Makhlouf as Syria’s “poster boy for corruption,” charged that “several of his ventures exploit weaknesses in the Syrian economy and undermine reform efforts while increasing the burden on Syria's lower classes.” Syriatel, a part of Makhlouf’s business empire, has been paid at least $700,000 by different UN agencies. A Stratfor analysis of Assad’s inner circle, stated that Makhlouf allegedly “uses much of the income from his business dealings to aid the regime's suppression of Syrian protests and rebel forces.” Beyond the contracts the Guardian listed, the paper said that an “analysis of the UN’s own procurement documents show its agencies have done business with at least another 258 Syrian companies, paying sums from as high as $54m and £36m, down to $30,000.” I asked the spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon whether, in addition to the Secretary General's efforts to try to mobilize the Security Council to take decisive action, he should exercise any powers he may have to suspend or cancel those contracts involving UN units that are benefiting the Assad regime, especially in light of the unfolding horrors in Aleppo. The answer was no because, according to the spokesperson, “anywhere in the world where the UN operates a large operation, there are some basic things that we need to operate. And we supply, in most cases, locally.”

This is the UN double standard in action

Thus, the UN itself continues to do business with entities and individuals tied closely to the Assad regime, which the Secretary General has accused of committing “atrocious acts” and “unconscionable abuses” against civilians that may constitute war crimes. Why disrupt business with the Syrian regime when the UN has Israel to pick on? The sanctimonious UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, hypocritically called for the UN to blacklist and boycott Israeli and international companies with ties to the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. “It is reasonable to assume that the UN has ties with businesses which are expected to be included on the list, and therefore the UN must stop these illegitimate links,” Al-Hussein wrote recently to the UN Deputy Secretary General, Jan Eliasson. We have seen no such call from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the UN to stop doing business with companies tied to the Syrian regime and Assad. Target Israel with threats of blacklists and boycotts, but continue business as usual even if it benefits the murderous Assad regime. This is the UN double standard in action.


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Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist -- Bio and Archives

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.


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