Ban Ki Moon: UN Delisted Saudis from Child Abuse due to Undue Pressure

Local Editor

Ban Ki-moon publicly acknowledged Thursday that he removed the Saudi-led coalition currently bombing Yemen from a blacklist of child killers - 72 hours after it was published - due to a financial threat to defund United Nations programs.

The secretary-general didn't name the source of the threat, but news reports have indicated it came directly from the Saudi government.

The UN's 2015 "Children and Armed Conflict" report originally listed the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen under "parties that kill or maim children" and "parties that engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals." The report, which was based on the work of UN researchers in Yemen, attributed 60 percent of the 785 children killed and 1,168 injured to the Saudi-led aggression.

After loud public objections from the Saudi government, Ban said on Monday that he was revising the report to "review jointly the cases and numbers cited in the text," in order to "reflect the highest standards of accuracy possible."

But on Thursday, he described his real motivation. "The report describes horrors no child should have to face," Ban said at a press conference.

"At the same time, I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many UN programs. Children already at risk in Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and so many other places would fall further into despair."

"It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure," the secretary-general said. "Scrutiny is a natural and necessary part of the work of the United Nations."

Ban called the decision "one of the most painful and difficult decisions I have had to make."

Diplomatic sources earlier said that Ban's office was bombarded with calls from Persian Gulf Arab monarchies' foreign ministers after the blacklisting was announced last week.

"Bullying, threats, pressure" was behind the UN move, a diplomatic source told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that it was "real blackmail."

The sources said there was also a threat of Wahhabi clerics in Riyadh meeting to issue a fatwa against the UN.

In Saudi Arabia, fatwas can only be issued by the group of top, regime-appointed clerics and are sometimes commissioned by the ruling family to back up its political positions.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team