UNs
Ban Picks 4
Softballs,
Egypt &
Syria, No DRC
or Haiti,
Heads to S.
Korea
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 19 --
When UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon did a
belated press
"encounter" at
UN
headquarters
on Monday, one
expected him
to have to
answer for
what the UN
actually does
(and
doesn't do)
with its
100,000
peacekeepers
in Sudan,
the Democratic
Republic
of Congo,
Haiti
and now Mali.
But no.
In
Haiti, it has
become
increasingly
clear Ban's UN
brought
cholera and
killed 8,000
people. On
Friday, the Washington
Post
editorialized
for
the second
time,
specifically
calling Ban's
office's reply
non-responsive.
But Ban did
not mention
it, nor did
any of the
four
questions
selected by
Ban's
spokesperson.
In
a speech
Monday morning,
Ban bragged
about his
supposed Human
Rights
Due Diligence
Policy. But in
the DRC, his
peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous
still supports
the Congolese
391st
Battalion,
implicated in
135 rapes in
Minova and
since then
desecration of
corpses.
But Ban
didn't mention
this; nor did
any of the
four questions
selected.
(Ladsous'
spokesperson
or spoon-feeder
in chief Kieran Dwyer was in
the room, and
quite happy
afterward.
Ladsous
refuses Press
questions
on these
topics.)
In
Mali,
the coup
leader Sanogo
has been made
a general, and
the UN has
said nothing.
Nor did Ban,
nor did the
questioners.
Instead,
the
first question
was given to
UNCA, now
known as the
UN Censorship
Alliance, and
was wasted on
a garbled
softball
question about
Egypt.
Ban was
allowed to say
he "finally"
sent his envoy
Jeffrey
Feltman, which
is the
spin belatedly
spoon-fed on
August 16
to Reuters
(which also
"feeds" the
UN, click here
for that.)
But as shown
by Inner City
Press on
August 15 with
audio,
Feltman's
trip was
planned and
arranged
BEFORE the
August 14
killing
of hundreds of
protesters.
There
was the
obligatory
question about
chemical
weapons in
Syria, and one
about a bone
Ban threw over
the weekend
about
discrimination
against
Israel. (This
questioner to
his credit
pressed to
follow-up).
There
was a question
about the
election in
Zimbabwe -- a
fine
question, at
least on
Africa where
most of the
UN's work is,
but not
a country in
which the UN
has a
peacekeeping
mission or
does much
beyond
covering up
the spread of
disease and
then punishing
whistleblowers.
And
then it was
over. Ban
insisted on
calling his
upcoming to
South Korea
an "official
trip" and not
a vacation.
But Inner City
Press
long ago
emailed Ban's
spokesperson's
office to ask
for his
position
on the civil
society
movement to
demilitarize
Jeju Island
there. No
answer on
that.
It
had been said
that Ban would
hold month
press
conference
with more
than four
questions. It
has not
happened, but
UNCA (formally
the UN
Correspondents
Association)
has done or
said nothing.
(We note, for
fairness if
nothing else,
that UNCA's
2013 president
Pamela Falk
was not the one
throwing
UNCA's Monday
softball, was
not here for
August 15 on Egypt
either.)
The new Free
UN
Coalition for
Access,
established in
part to defend
journalists
from
attacks by the
UN and its UN
Censorship
Alliance,
will now
expand
work
on this. (Here
is UN's
reaction.)
Watch @FUNCA_info
and this site.