US, Egyptian Pressures Block UNDP Report

CAIRO, December 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Succumbing to pressures from the United States and Egypt, the United Nations decided to give up a development report on the Arab world, which is highly critical of both countries, according to the report’s chief author.

Nadir Fergani, the author of the UN-commissioned report on freedom and governance in the Arab world, said that as a result of the mounting pressures from Cairo and Washington, the document would be published three months late in January and not as an official UN Development Program report, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP) Tuesday, December 21.

“They threatened to considerably reduce their financial contribution to the United Nations’ development budget,” if the report was published by the UN, Fergani, an Egyptian university professor of sociology, told reporters.

Fergani told Reuters on December 18 Washington had already punished the UNDP by withholding $12 million as it did not like the previous report.

“My understanding is that this time they are threatening a much heavier penalty - the entire US contribution to the UNDP budget, or $100 million,” he had said.

The United States, however, denied Tuesday opposing the publication of the report.

“We have not seen a draft of the forthcoming UN Arab Human Development Report,” Lou Fintor, a State Department spokesman, told AFP.

“We have not urged 'deferral' of the report as alleged.”

The Bush administration is already beleaguered by reports on tapping the phones of top UN officials and covering up abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan.

The Washington Post said December 12 that Washington spied on UN chief nuclear inspector Mohammad El-Baradei during conversations with Iranian officials.

In the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, US major ally Britain bugged UN chief Kofi Annan’s office.

US Objections

Another member of the authors team, however, said the United States objected to the condemnation of Israeli aggressions in the Palestinian territories and a passage on the negative implication of the US occupation of Iraq on freedoms in the Arab world.

“The UNDP representative informed us during the team's meeting earlier this month in Amman that his agency cannot publish the report because of US threats to stop its contribution to the UNDP, which represents 70 percent of the budget,” Nur Farahat, a law professor at Zagazig University, told the Middle East Online.

UNDP spokesman William Orme has admitted that both Washington and the Egyptian government voiced concern over various parts of the report.

Farahat supervised the drafting of the legal aspects of the document entitled “Towards Consolidating Freedom in the Arab World.”

He said the report's authors and consultants would meet in Beirut Sunday and Monday, December 27, to review final preparations for launching the document.

It was reported that Cairo, for its part, had objected to references to the “inheritance of power in Egypt,” hinting at the son of incumbent President Hosni Mubarak, Gamal.

Cairo has also objected to the report’s open criticism of government opposition to an effective political participation of some groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.