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	New UN initiative launched to recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders by United Nations News   17 September 2007   The United Nations today launched a new partnership between the World Bank and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help developing nations to recover assets stolen by corrupt leaders and invest those funds in development programmes.   “Corruption undermines democracy and the rule of law,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the inauguration of the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative. “It leads to violations of human rights. It erodes public trust in government. It can even kill – for example, when corrupt officials allow medicines to be tampered with, or when they accept bribes that enable terrorist acts to take place.”   The proceeds from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion worldwide is estimated to be between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion, and one quarter of the gross domestic product of African States – or $148 billion – is lost to corruption yearly. Additionally, public officials from developing and transition countries collectively receive bribes worth between $20 billion and $40 billion every year, which is equivalent to 20 to 40 per cent of flows of official development assistance.   “Many developing countries are haemorrhaging money desperately needed to try to support the attack against poverty,” said Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank, an independent specialized agency of the UN. “Of course, the development impact of theft on such a massive scale is devastating.”   He cited the example of former Nigerian President Sani Abacha, members of his family and accomplices who collectively stole between $3 billion and $5 billion of the country’s public assets in five years. That sum exceeds the federal Government’s 2006 expenditures on education and health, and could also have provided antiretroviral therapy for 2 million to 3 million Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS for a decade.   UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa underlined the importance of acting quickly to retrieve stolen funds. “Time is crucial. Stolen assets are more likely to be detected during the initial phase and therefore before they disappear in an international money laundromat,” he said, noting that only 10-15 per cent of such funds are recovered a decade or so after the crime has taken place.   Mr. Costa pointed out his Office’s experience in Nigeria – where some $5 billion of stolen monies has been recovered – to shrink fraud.   To both reclaim stolen funds and to prevent deter such crimes, the World Bank and UNODC believe that developed countries – often the source of bribes, kickbacks and other illegal incomes, as well as the location where stolen funds are kept – and developing countries must work in tandem.   The World Bank and UNODC appealed for all countries to ratify the UN Convention against Corruption, which only half of the Group of Eight (G8) developed countries has done. Mr. Costa stressed that one of the Convention’s breakthroughs is that banking secrecy is no longer an obstacle to money-laundering investigations, which could deal a serious blow to efforts to export stolen funds.   “Developing countries frequently lack the institutional capacity to locate and repatriate stolen assets, so this initiative will provide financial and technical assistance to strengthen the institutional capacity of government agencies to do so,” Mr. Zoellick said. “And it will also help these countries bring their laws into compliance with the UN Convention against Corruption.”   The StAR Initiative will endeavour to ensure that there is no safe haven for the proceeds derived from corruption, as well as to suppress the flow of these funds among countries.   * September 25, 2007   Jakarta''s sights on Soeharto billions, by Mark Forbes. (The Age)   Indonesia, with the help of the UN and the World Bank, is hoping to seize international assets worth billions of dollars held by the family of its former dictator, Soeharto.   President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will issue a declaration on recovering stolen money after meeting World Bank chief Robert Zoellik today.The deal is aimed at recouping some of the $A18 billion-plus pocketed by the Soeharto clan during the dictator''s three decades in power.   Earlier this month, the World Bank and UN named Soeharto as the biggest beneficiary of corruption in the world, announcing the launch of a recovery plan. They estimate he and associates had stashed between $A18 billion and $A40 billion overseas.   Yesterday a Jakarta court began hearing the Yudhoyono Government''s civil case against Soeharto, aiming to recover $1.8 billion, including damages, from one of the dictator''s charitable foundations.   The move is the first serious attempt to recoup Indonesian assets of the family, following the abandonment of criminal fraud charges against Soeharto on the grounds of ill-health.   The Central Jakarta Court was told there was evidence that Soeharto had illegally diverted money from his Supersemar Foundation away from educating impoverished children. Prosecutors said more than $500 million was channelled through state-owned banks to companies controlled by Soeharto''s business associates and children.   When meeting Mr Zoellick today, Dr Yudhoyono will endorse using the UN Convention Against Corruption to seize graft funds from abroad. A joint UN-World Bank team will go to Indonesia later this year to provide help.
	Top UN official urges human rights body to begin country reviews by Louise Arbour United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights   17 September 2007   DR Congo Government forces commit worst of widespread abuses – UN report.   Government soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remain responsible for the country’s worst human rights abuses, carrying out arbitrary executions and raping, robbing or extorting civilians, according to the latest report by the United Nations peacekeeping mission.   The human rights assessment for July, released today, shows that Congolese police, soldiers and members of rebel groups fighting the Government have also perpetrated serious abuses, especially in the violence-wracked Kivu provinces in the far east of the vast country.   The UN mission, known as MONUC, reported that a widespread climate of impunity allows many of these abuses to go unpunished, even months after they were committed.   It cited a separate report by the UN Human Rights Office in the DRC indicating that Congolese soldiers and police officers used indiscriminate and excessive force – and in some instances carried out summary executions – in quelling protests in Bas-Congo province by an opposition movement in late January and early February. Six months after those events, the people responsible for the human rights violations have not been arrested.   Today’s report details numerous instances of human rights abuses by the Congolese armed forces (FARDC), including at least 10 documented cases of arbitrary executions and one particularly gruesome case on 29 July in which a soldier in North Kivu province allegedly raped and then chopped to death a Hutu woman and her three-month-old baby.   It further outlines rights violations by the Congolese national police (PNC) and by armed rebel groups, including the murder and rape of villagers and the extortion and robbing of civilians.   The assessment also finds continued weaknesses and systemic failures in the administration of justice across the DRC and that prison inmates and family members who visit them in jail have been beaten by authorities.   Yakin Ertürk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, conducted a 12-day visit in July to the DRC, where she met with Government officials, UN agencies, national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and victims of violence.   Ms. Ertürk denounced the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in dealing with cases of sexual violence, including the high number of alleged perpetrators who have been granted bail after being charged with serious crimes.   She described the patterns and level of sexual violence in South Kivu province as the worst she has ever seen in four years as a Special Rapporteur.   13 September 2007   Top UN official urges human rights body to begin country reviews.   United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour today urged the Human Rights Council to press forward with its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which allows the human rights records of every country to be scrutinized.   “We are acutely aware that the credibility of the United Nations human rights system hinges upon satisfactory implementation of the review, since the UPR has the potential to greatly influence and address human rights situations on the ground,” she told the Council which is currently meeting in its sixth session in Geneva.   Under this new mechanism, over the course of four years, all UN Member States – at the rate of 48 a year – will be reviewed to assess whether they have fulfilled their human rights obligations.   “Through the UPR all UN Member States will now be reviewed in the same comprehensive manner on the basis of universal and equal parameters and standards,” she said. “At the same time, countries under review will be fully involved in what is envisaged as a participatory and inclusive review process.”   In her address to the 47-member body, the High Commissioner also highlighted problems faced by countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Iran and Myanmar.   On the DRC, Ms. Arbour voiced concern over the lack of progress in the vast Central Africa nation which is seeking to rebuild after a brutal six year civil war that killed 4 million in fighting, attendant hunger and disease.   The High Commissioner pointed out that no perpetrators who committed serious crimes committed in the first half of this year have been arrested and brought to justice. “Interference by military and political authorities in the administration of justice is prevalent, particularly in high-profile cases,” she noted. “Recent trials raise serious questions about the independence of the judiciary.”   While visiting Teheran, Iran’s capital, earlier this month, Ms. Arbour met with senior Government officials as well as with local women’s rights defenders on how to improve respect for human rights. She expressed to them her particular concerns regarding the death penalty being applied to juveniles and the need to defend the right to peaceful public expression, she told the Council, which began its session on 10 September.   Ms. Arbour also said that she has been following the suppression of peaceful protests in Myanmar with mounting concern. “I urge the authorities to release detainees and political prisoners and ensure respect for fundamental rights,” she told the Council, whose three-week session wraps up on 28 September.   In a related development, UN independent experts today jointly called on Myanmar to immediately release over 150 people brutally arrested last month after protesting the surge in fuel prices.   “It is shocking that peaceful demonstrators have received life sentences in trials without any basic guarantee of the due process of law and that local journalists were prevented from reporting on these measures,” three Special Rapporteurs said in a joint statement.   Noting the “important and courageous role” that women, student leaders and monks played in the protests, the experts said that the “Myanmar authorities should be proud of its vibrant civil society and engage without hesitations in a constructive and transparent dialogue with all parties so as to lay down a roadmap for a healthy and empowered democratic society, for the benefit of the country and the region at large.   They also warned that Myanmar can push forward with political transition unless “ordinary people have the space to express their views and discontent, peacefully and in public.”   The three experts who issued today’s statement are Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar; Ambeyi Ligabo, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and Leandro Despouy, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.
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