Who
Picked Ban's
Google+
Hangout
Guests, Soft
on UN, No
Cholera or
War Crimes Qs?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 10, updated
-- Partnering
and not for
the first time
with
Google, UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon on
Tuesday
afternoon took
scripted
questions over
YouTube and
Google+ from
six young
people, up
to 29 years of
age, from the
US, Kenya, UK,
Brazil and Sri
Lanka.
It
was unclear
how
the
questioners
were selected.
(Inner City
Press
submitted this
as a
question, but
it was not
answered by
the end or
this
publication.)
The youth jobs
question came
from the
self-proclaimed
owner of a
technology
company
receiving
investment
from a Hong
Kong
billionaire.
A
questioner
from
Nairobi, Kenya
-- from where
there appeared
to be two --
asked how to
avoid
discrimination
by ethnicity
while
combating
terrorism.
While
this might
seem to refer
to crackdowns
on ethnic
Somalis when
Kenyan
including
soldiers
suffer losses
to Al Shabaab,
Ban's answer
was to
tout the UN's
bureaucratic
CTITF,
then thank
Kenyan "women
and
men" as troops
in Somalia.
The
UN
is under
fire for
having brought
cholera into
Haiti and then
refused to
acknowledge or
try to make
amends for it.
Inner City
Press
wondered,
including
online,
whether the
"hang out"
would include
this
Haiti cholera
question,
about which
Inner City
Press also
asked at
the day's noon
briefing.
Ban,
as it
happened,
brought up
Haiti but
largely to
praise the
band Linkin
Park. When
they came to
the UN, Inner
City Press
asked some
band
members about
the complaints
of Haitians
against the
UN, but the
band
did not
answer.
It
appears that
Linkin Park,
like Google or
at least the
executive who
moderated the
hangout,
vaguely
believe the UN
to be only
good, that
promoting the
UN without any
questioning or
accountability
is a good
thing in
itself.
Perhaps
most
strikingly,
this small
Google+ plus
hangout
included a
youth (of 27
years old) in
Colombo, Sri
Lanka. Despite
the
controversy
about the
UN there, with
many Tamils
feeling sold
out by the UN
and Ban, and
Sinhalese
nationalists
denouncing the
UN Human
Rights Council
for its
recent vote,
the question
was about Rio
+ 20, from a
UN Volunteer.
Who selected
this guests?
The question
remains.
Through
the UN
site and
otherwise,
Inner City
Press asked
again how Ban can say
nothing about
having as an
adviser on
peacekeeping
Shavendra
Silva,
whose 58th
Division is
depicted in
Ban's own
Panel of
Experts report
as engaged in
war crimes,
and why Ban's
"minders" now
seek
to hinder
press coverage
of this.
The question
itself has led
to
pushback, and
was asked
again at
Tuesday's noon
briefing.
Watch this
site.
, 
