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UN Ends Year Refusing to Answer on Africa, Larsen
and OIOS, Passes Buck to Others
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 24 -- After the UN General
Assembly passed resolution
calling on Ban Ki-moon to retain and urgently fill
the Office of the Special Advisor on Africa, which he has being trying
to
eliminate, Inner City Press asked Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Marie
Okabe to
explain the his desire to cut, and to comment on member states'
rejection of
it. Two days before, Spokesperson Michele Montas
had said that her Office would
not comment until after the budget resolutions were voted on. Now
with that
finished, it seemed fair to expect a response on this and other things.
But
it was
not to be. Ms. Okabe first tried to blame Inner City Press for missing
her
opening statement. But all that did was to welcome the resolutions, not
to
respond to any of the detailed critiques contained in them, ranging
from Inga-Britt
Ahlenius'
Office of Internal Oversight Services to Ban's Lebanon envoy Terje Roed
Larsen.
Video here,
from Minute 10:27.
Next, Ms.
Okabe tried to say that since it was only hours after the
resolutions had been
finally passed, there was as yet no response. But these critiques
were in the drafts for
weeks, and were known to the Secretariat. Okabe's answers, particularly
when
contrasted with Ms. Montas earlier statement of no answers under after
the
votes, seem calculated to never answer to critiques, not only from NGOs
and the
press, but now from member states as well.
UN's Ban raises coupe de Champagne with PGA, answers to GA critiques
not shown
Finally,
Ms. Okabe tried to pawn the questions off on the spokesman for the
President of
the General Assembly. But when Inner City Press asked Enrique Yeves and
his
budget expert colleague to confirm the Secretariat's push to cut the
Office of
the Special Advisor on Africa, and to stated when the passed
resolution's call
for urgent filling of the position is anticipated to take place, the
latter
said "I am not comfortable speaking" for the Secretariat. Video here,
from Minute 22:20. Yeves said "that
is a proper question" but "it is for the Secretariat to answer."
But the
Secretariat has studiously avoided answering on December 22, had it
Spokesperson's Office closed through the final Budget Committee and
General
Assembly meeting, and had already left on December 24. "There are no
more
briefings this year," Ms. Okabe said. So perhaps, as on what
Robert Fowler
was doing in Niger visiting a Canadian-owned gold mine, the UN
thinks it will
never have to answer. "Sorry to end this year's press conference in
this
way," Okabe said. Then answer the questions, no?
Here's
hoping -- including for the sake of the UN -- that in 2009 such
evasions are
less frequent, and less allowed.
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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