AFP's
Witcher
Complained to
UN of How
Press
Questioned
Ladsous At
Syria Meeting
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 29 --
How does the
UN work? Today
we re-examine
how
media like
Agence
France-Presse,
doing the
bidding of
"their"
country and
the officials
they foist on
the UN, try to
get other
journalists
thrown out of
the UN by
filing
complaints
they seek to
keep secret.
Based
on a US
Freedom of
Information
Act request,
the fact that
AFP sought
to get Inner
City Press thrown out of
the UN has
been exposed,
in a
document
published
online here.
But there's
more to it.
On
March 8, 2013
Tim Witcher of
AFP wrote to
the UN
Department of
Safety
and Security
complaining
how Inner City
Press asked a
question of
Herve Ladsous,
the fourth
Frenchman in a
row to head UN
Peacekeeping.
Witcher wrote
to UN DSS:
"At
the UN
Security
Council media
stakeout area
on Friday,
March 8, 2013,
I was stood [sic]
with other
news agency,
television and
newspaper
journalists
waiting, as
per normal
practice, for
officials to
arrive
for a meeting
on Syria. Mr
Lee started
shouting at
and abusing
under
secretary
general
Ladsous as he
came down the
stairs for the
meeting.
Mr Ladsous did
not respond...
Mr. Lee has a
longstanding
campaign of
harassment
against AFP,
Reuters and
other UN media
in his written
blog."
It
is noteworthy
not only that
AFP's Witcher
thought to
complain to UN
Security about
a written
blog, but also
that it was
Witcher, and
not
Ladsous, who
filed this
complaint.
In fact, all
Inner City
Press did
was ask
Ladsous a
question about
a UN cover-up,
and repeated
it when
Ladsous
refused to
offer any
answer, as
even his
predecessors
Alain
Le Roy and
Jean-Marie
Guehenno would
routinely do.
(Inner
City Press asked Guehenno about
the kidnapping
of
peacekeepers
from
Nepal in the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo
and Guehenno
replied
with what the
kidnapper,
still free,
was asking
for. Le
Roy answered
on the obvious
question of
whether UN
Peacekeeping,
ceded to
France
for more than
a decade, was
being used to
advance French
colonial
foreign policy
in Cote
d'Ivoire.)
The
meeting that
day was about
Syria. Ladsous'
UN
Peacekeeping,
as first
exposed by
Inner City
Press, had
pulled the
plug on the UN
mission
there, as
while the head
of the mission
there Robert
Mood did not
know about it.
Ladsous never
explained his
role; AFP's
Witcher on
this and other
topics never
published but
sought to keep
the
investigative
Press away
from Ladsous,
to the point
of trying to
get
it thrown out
of the UN.
AFP's
Tim Witcher at
UN; his March
8, 2013
complaint not
then shown
Even
though or because
AFP's Witcher
didn't publish
obvious but
critical
stories -- for
recent example
Witcher
allowed the
UN's envoy on
cholera in
Haiti to say
that legal
wrangling
should be
dispensed with
in order
to focus on
the cholera
that UN
Peacekeeping
brought to to
island,
without asking
why the UN
refused legal
papers and if
the case it is
dodging has
cost it any
more -- he
joined a small
group of
similar
reporters in
seeking to get
private,
spoon-fed (or
lapdog)
briefings.
As
luck would
have it, one
of these was captured on video, regarding
Ladsous. After
Ladsous, in a
sense
encouraged and
"empowered"
by coverage
like that of
AFP's Witcher,
openly refused
to answer
Press
questions
about over 100
rapes in
Minova in the
the DRC by
Congolese Army
units UN
Peacekeeping
support,
Ladsous
summoned
Witcher into
the hallway,
behind a glass
door, for an
"all
French"
briefing which
included at
least two
other
non-French
reporters.
The other
reporters are
Margaret
Besheer of
Voice of
America
and Lou
Charbonneau of
Reuters; click
here to view
the video
which
Charbonneau
has yet to get
Google
to block from
its search
mis-using
while citing
Reuters the US
Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act.
(This
too is
how the UN
works.)
The
letter Witcher
gave to the UN
Department of
Safety and
Security cited
another
Reuters
reporter who
works under
Charbonneau.
On March 8,
2013, after
both ran
stories based
on a UN
Peacekeeping
spoonfed
briefing
spinning the
very Minova
rapes that
Ladsous had
repeatedly
refused to
answer public
Press
questions
about -- click
here for
compilation
video, here
for UK
coverage
-- this
Reuters
reporter is
the one who
said to
Inner City
Press, after
Ladsous again
refused to
answer, that
some
correspondents
work behind
the scenes and
have sources.
The response
was and is:
lapdog. This
is how the UN
works.
If
AFP's Witcher
writing, even
this
manipulatively,
to the UN was
a
one-off event
it would be
one thing. But
in fact
Witcher tried
to use
bureaucracy to
defend Ladsous
and the French
Mission to the
UN from
Ladsous' first
day.
Inner
City Press had
reported that
another
Frenchman,
Jerome
Bonnafont, had
been told he
would replace
Le Roy
atop UN
Peacekeeping;
Inner City
Press even exclusively
published a
congratulation
card addressed
to Bonnafont
at the UN by
French
politician
Jean-Marie
Bockel.
But due to
Bonnafont's
bragging, the
UN told France
to send
another
successor,
and got
Ladsous,
previously
twice rejected
in favor of
Guehenno then
Le Roy.
The
morning that
Ladsous was
announced,
Inner City
Press learned
through
sources that
French Mission
spokesman
Stephane
Crouzat had
told a
number of
French
journalists
that Bonnafont
was the guy.
Inner City
Press included
this in the story,
as indicative
of how
last-minute
the switch to
Ladsous had
been.
Witcher
claimed
that he had
been the
source of the
information --
he wasn't
-- and invoked
the
bureaucracy of
the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association
against Inner
City Press.
Inner City
Press said,
and
says, this
benefited and
protected not
only Ladsous
but also the
French Mission
and Crouzat.
Notably,
Crouzat
threatened
Inner City
Press that its
publication of
leaked
documents was
a "hostile
act," while refusing to
provide any
comment on the
documents.
This too is
how the UN
works, still.
And it is why
the new Free
UN
Coalition for
Access has
been founded:
to defend the
right of free
press and
independent
investigative
journalism in
the UN system.
The
old UNCA, now
under Pamela
Falk of CBS,
cannot be
counted on to
defend free
press, quite
the contrary.
As simply one
example, when
a
journalist was
thrown out of
the UN for a
single error (bringing a
rubber prop
gun from an
independent
film in as
equipment by
mistake)
not only did
UNCA not
defend the
journalist --
Reuters'
Charbonneau
wrote a story
mocking the
journalist's
media and the
country it
comes
from.
Witcher's
next
step is away
not only from
the UN but
also from
non-sports
reporting: he
will cover "le
sport" for
AFP in Paris.
Will
he become as
defensive of
French sports
figures as he
did of Ladsous
and the French
mission? Will
he tell other
journalists
how to ask
questions of
these French
figures? Watch
this site.