On Somalia, Adam Sought Removal of Chopra, Reuters Now Passes Thru
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 16, 2014 -- There's been an ongoing spat between the
Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group under Jarat Chopra and many of those he
reports on, in Somalia, Eritrea and even Kenya.
Back on December 5, 2013
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/sanctions3smeg120513.html> , Inner City Press
exclusively reported
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/sanctions3smeg120513.html> -- and put online
-- that Somalia had asked the UN to "terminate the contract" of Somalia and
Eritrea Monitoring Group coordinator Jarat Chopra, in a letter obtained by
Inner City Press and then published online here
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/som1smegicp.pdf> .
Somalia has asked for a revision of the SMEG's last report, on the topic
of "misappropriation of Somalia's public resources."
The letter <
http://www.innercitypress.com/som1smegicp.pdf> was signed by
Fawzia Yusef J. Adam as deputy prime minister.
Now Reuters in Vienna has been handed Chopra's report against Adam, as well
as the Shulman Rogers law firm and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud --
Reuters passed it through but does not put it online. Why?
The Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group's public report
<
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2013/413> "estimates...
an overall international market value of US $360 to $384 million, with
profits divided along the charcoal trade supply chain, including for
Al-Shabaab." The SMEG puts the Al-Shabaab share at 40% - and says "the
remaining 60% is divided between the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) (20%) and
Ras Kamboni (40%)."
Sources informed Inner City Press before (and included) in its December 5,
2013 report that the SMEG had been ordered out of, or "Persona Non Grata-ed"
from, Kenya.
Inner City Press exclusively spoke with senior representation of Kenya on
this, and it was denied. Others said the UN's Department of Political
Affairs was trying to resolve the situation, particular in light of the
Security Council's rejection with eight abstentions of the African Union's
request that the Council suspend the Kenya proceedings of the International
Criminal Court for a year.
Since then, the issue has been explained to Inner City Press as more
individually-based. Then the Somalia letter specifically asking that Jarat
Chopra be fired was obtained.
In its last report the SMEG named an array of arms embargo violators in
Somalia. Click here <
http://www.innercitypress.com/semg1fukusun072313.html>
for Inner City Press' reporting on those violations, including by the UK
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/semg1fukusun072313.html> , which (overly)
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/dpiunca1collude062413.html> "insider" Reuters
for example neglected to mention in its gushing report. The Reuters
pass-through scribe, full disclosure from Electronic Frontier Foundation's
Chilling Effects project, has engaged in outright censorship
<
http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=1117933> , claiming his "for
the record" anti-Press complaint to the UN was somehow covered by copyright
and getting it blocked from Google's Search, filing online here.
<
http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=1117933>
We will have more on all this. Watch this site.
Received on Wed Jul 16 2014 - 16:21:24 EDT