Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

With UN Ban in Bangkok, Political Gatherings Banned, Myanmar Voting on Giri Back Burner?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 26 -- The Asian tour of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon began in Thailand, with all political gatherings banned. Ban gave a speech saying that Thai problems are for Thais to solve, reported then as “internal affairs.”

  When Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky for Ban's view the right to assemble for the redress of grievances, Nesirky replied that Ban had received a letter of protest, from the Red Shirt movement. But does that replace the right to assemble? Ban's spokesman wouldn't answer. Video here from Minute 29:12.

  In Nesirky's read out of Ban's time in Thailand, he did not mention the critique by the UN's special rapporteur on the right to health Anand Grover of violent anti-drug programs in the region. (When Inner City Press asked Anand, he said he would raise it with Ban Ki-moon or the Secretariat, video here.)

Myanmar was raised by Ban Ki-moon, but it is not clear how. In New York, the Good Office on Myanmar team, created by the General Assembly, have been reassigned to do other work under the Department of Political Affairs Tamrat Samuel.

  The shift, without GA approval, is not mentioned in the Secretariat's “Special Political Missions” submission to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

Inner City Press asked the UN's humanitarian chief Valerie Amos about media reports that the UN's officer to help Myanmar with Cyclone Giri were rebuffed.

UN's Ban & Thai Abhisit, political gatherings and Myanmar vote not shown

 She said that “joint assessments” -- the same term used by the UN in Sudan -- have begun and indicate that the damage may be much larger than first thought, up to 400,000 people.

  Can a free, fair and transparent election be held among the impacted people, Inner City Press asked Ms. Amos, in Arakan State and elsewhere? She said this couldn't be known until the joint assessment is completed. The election is slated for November 7. Ban Ki-moon's next stops are Vietnam and Cambodia, where violent anti-drug programs are most extreme. Watch this site.

From the UN transcript of October 25, 2010 --

Inner City Press: I want to ask about the Secretary-General’s impending trip to Asia. There is a report to the Third Committee by the Special Rapporteur on the right to health about, among other things, what he sees as the violated practices in anti-drug programmes in many of the countries that Ban Ki-moon is going to be visiting — Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand — and he calls very strongly for the UN to move against people who are incarcerated. This is all according to his report. I just wonder: of the many issues obviously on the Secretary-General’s agenda as he visits these countries, is he aware of that? And there is a separate issue in Cambodia, where people has said that they are going to try and rally in front of Ban Ki-moon about evictions, forced evictions, in Cambodia. Are these… Can you sort of… Can we get a run-down of what issues he is planning to raise, and I just wonder whether these two are among them?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Sure. And again, I seem to recall that Farhan gave you a bit of a run-down on the trip last week, sitting here. As the trip progresses, we will be giving details. The Secretary-General and his delegation are en route at the moment to Thailand where, as you know, the visit starts. They then move to Cambodia and on to Viet Nam for this UN-ASEAN [Association of South-East Asian Nations] meeting and then to China, where, as you know, the Secretary-General will be visiting Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing. On the question of health, the very specific point that you raised, we can find out and probably tell you as the visit progresses. The same goes for the second part that you mentioned.