Left Flank

Inner City Press and bhTV correspondent Matthew Lee «inside the UN» asks, why the UN Development Program was used as a front for George Soros' Open Society Institute (OSI) to «top off» the salary of Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, and others members of his government in 2004.

Inner City Press interviewed a range of diplomats later on Monday, including many who support Georgia over Russia but who without exception called the UNDP program a mistake and abuse of UN powers and mandate. Some said it would be one thing to help pay salaries of the police in an African country. But to be a funnel for private money to Georgia's president, in exchange for a fee? Inner City Press has repeatedly asked UNDP how much they collected in fees, without response.

News analysis: Now UNDP has been criticized by not only the United States, for its financial irregularities in North Korea and elsewhere, but also by Russia, for its politicized (and privatized) program in Georgia. As previously noted, France and the UK are loath to criticize UN bodies, since being in the UN as Permanant Five members of the Security Council so magnifies their power. But UNDP is out of control; its failure to meaningful respond to Lavrov's critique is only the most recent example.

Benny Avni reported on the accusations as part of Russia's campaign against American criticisms of its August war against Georgia.

American officials have raised questions about the relationship between Mr. Soros's Open Society Institute and the UNDP in the past. And as The New York Sun first reported in June 2006, a former UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, rented a house adjacent to Mr. Soros's estate in Katonah, N.Y., paying the financier what real estate agents in the area characterized as below market rate rent.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Mr. Soros's OSI has concentrated much of its pro-democracy activities in former Soviet republics striving to break with their totalitarian past, with local leaders and their nationalist supporters pledging to sever ties with Moscow.

Information about the UNDP's activities in Georgia is available to all the members of the agency's board, including Russia, a spokesman for the agency, Stéphane Dujarric, told the Sun yesterday. Launched in January 2004, the program in Georgia included «salary top-ups for leading officials,» he said, and was designed «to enable the government to recruit the staff it needed, and also to help remove incentives for corruption.»

The Georgian president, prime minister, and speaker of the Parliament received monthly salary supplements of $1,500 each; ministers received $1,200 a month, and deputy ministers $700, Mr. Dujarric said.

The program was funded initially by Mr. Soros's OSI, which gave $1 million, while the UNDP gave $500,000. A Swedish government agency later added another $1 million. An «exit strategy» was built into the program, Mr. Dujarric said, and the Georgian government assumed responsibility for the salaries after three years.

There's also this hyperbolic rant on UNDP Watch, which also reports on Lyndon La Rouche's involvement in this campaign.

Still, although between the La Rouche and Lavrov angles, there is a certain loony taint to this criticism, it's clearly a live issue.

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Matthew Lee reporting from «deep in the weeds» at the United Nations is an inspiration for people who make a mission out of their jobs - in this case journalism. So, I'll pass on his plaint/query, should the UN Development Programme have to publish its audits of its own budget, either to member states or us? UNDP wants to return to DPRK dispensing food aid to North Koreans, and damn what's happening with the human rights situation or WMD. Is there a connection to the recent «health setback» Kim Jong-il suffered and Pyongyang's return to a hardline WMD stance?

A South Korean official familiar with the talks said what lies ahead may be drawn-out negotiations but it did not mean Pyongyang was about to quit the disarmament process for good.

McCormack said the United States would also «remain engaged» with the North Koreans and would not give up on the six-nation process that led to the disarmament-for-aid deal.

The South Korean official said the North knows aid and disablement are linked. Energy-starved North Korea has been receiving partial shipments of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil for previous progress it has made under the deal.

Perhaps UNDP, all regional players, including the US, and Pyongyang have admitted to themselves what the rest of us have cynically believed all along: it's back to square one.

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After a follow-up on the UNDP scandal, Matthew Lee and Mark Leon Goldberg launch into a series of debates about the causes of perfidy in troubled states.

To make it short, it's Beijing's fault.

When I read what the UNDP's presidential candidate as to say about the ROK-US alliance, I can find one bit of good news in Chung Dong-young's «pro-US» rhetoric. Comrade Chung might be a flip-flopper, but then it's election time in the ROK. But, to what purpose is he flopping?

Finding the center in South Korean politics requires more international relations than opinion polls. The bulls-eye is located somewhere between Beijing, Pyongyang, Tokyo, and Washington. If the progressives in the old Uri Party managed to shift the line on the DPRK leftward, towards aid and reconciliation, the conservatives have kept one foot in the ROK-US alliance. Progressives pay lip service, minus whatever Washington does outside the Korean peninsula, because the US has to sign a peace treaty with Pyongyang. It's galling, but the DPRK is not about to give Seoul diplomatic recognition by sitting down at Panmunjom alone with South Koreans. South Korean progressives need America to do what they can't; conservatives need Washington to defray the costs of what the progressives sow.

When I look at Comrade Chung, I just see a desperate fish.