By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 20 -- The UN World Food Program's activities in Somalia, portrayed critically last week by the Wall Street Journal and defended by the BBC, bear a closer look. The Wall Street Journal ran a belated story on U.S. and UK concerns that some of their funding of WFP is running off to the Al Shabaab rebels. Inner City Pressfollowed up, asking top UN humanitarian John Holmes about the allegations. Holmes, like the BBC, pinned them on the U.S., not his native UK. Video here, from Minute 28:26.
The BBC ran a piece saying that U.S. sanctions are leading to starving children in zones that are rebel controlled. Inner City Press' Somali sources, too, say that the U.S. and UK are playing the politics of food, trying to starve out those who live in Shabaab controlled areas. They wonder why the UN's Ban Ki-moon has said nothing about this.
But now sources tell Inner City Press that the World Food Program, in part to counter U.S. concerns and also to serve U.S. policy, has hired mercenaries, "Blackwater" it is said. The sources go further, saying that the stated size of WFP's program in Somalia cannot be verified with real food purchases, that some portion is just cover for funding mercenaries' training of militias supportive of the Transitional Federal Government.
These sources say this is not the first financial shenanigans by WFP, that much of WFP's appeal for funding is to cover a "black hole" in WFP's past budget, money borrowed in expectation of pledges.
UN's Ban and WFP's Sheeran on the move, mercenaries and politics of food not shown
Meanwhile, as Inner City Press has reported, WFP chief Josette Sheeran spend some $400,000 dollars to have children from Ghana flown in for a "simulated feeding program" for the spouses of G-8 leaders at the meeting in Italy. Click herefor that.
Clearly, Josette can get her message out through BBC. But why wasn't she included, as UNICEF's Ann Veneman was, in Forbes' list of most powerful women? Watch this site.
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