Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

At UN, GRULAC Delay of Council Vote for Ban Is To “Send A Message,” UNheard?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 16, updated -- After Ban Ki-moon's second term as UN Secretary General was delayed on Thursday in the Security Council, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky about it, and whether Ban had spoken with countries in the Latin American and Caribbean states group GRULAC, whose failure to endorse Ban was twice exclusively reported by Inner City Press.

Nesirky declined to provide any readout of Ban's meetings with GRULAC representatives including heads of state. Later on Thursday, a GRULAC diplomat told Inner City Press “we want to send Ban Ki-moon a message that we are not satisfied by his first term, that he must do better in his second. There is no other candidate, so this is all that we can do.”

Meanwhile the Security Council, which would like to say that it recommendation to the General Assembly is just that, and not an unfair domination by the Permanent Five members, decided that it will adopt a resolution recommending Ban behind closed doors on Friday at 11 am, whether or not GRULAC delivers its endorsement by them.

While some see that as a disrespect of the regional groups and their process -- there is, after all, no rush to re-annoint Ban -- others see it as honest: as one GRULAC Permanent Representative told Inner City Press, “Once the Permanent Five express themselves, we are all just window dressing.”

Interestingly, some in GRULAC have endorsed Mexico's Carstens to head the IMF, over France's Christine Lagarde. One said, “At least the IMF has more than one candidate.”

Ban, who traveled this week to Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, might want to look closer not only at the ALBA countries (see below) but also at Mexico, Guatamala and Paraguay, peacekeeping contributor countries...

Meanwhile work circulated Thursday that Ban's spokesperson's office was already inviting select UN correspondents to be “briefed” by Ban on June 21, when obviously Ban and his office expect to receive the final General Assembly vote. Some call it jumping the gun, or worse -- watch this site.

Ban & book; rights communications withheld to keep access

From the UN's June 16 transcript of its noon briefing:

Inner City Press: various diplomats early today said that it is because the GRULAC, the Latin American and Caribbean regional group, has not yet endorsed the Secretary-General for a second term, that it was postponed until tomorrow at 11 a.m. Now, what I wanted to know is, is that the Secretariat’s understanding: as of 7 June, five countries in GRULAC had said they hadn’t gotten instructions or weren’t, didn’t endorse. Has the Secretary-General or the Secretariat spoken, do you believe, with those five countries on this topic?

Spokesperson Nesirky: I think anything to do with this matter needs to come from the Member States, and particularly anything related to the Council deliberations, and then indeed the General Assembly deliberations needs to come from the Member States.

Inner City Press: But I guess it’s because sometimes we get readouts of the Secretary-General’s communications with, certainly, Heads of State, but sometimes even foreign ministers. So I am asking really about the Secretary-General’s own communications with Heads of State.

Spokesperson Nesirky: As I have said, we’ve said from the outset and the Secretary-General announced it here that he was making himself available for a second term, should Member States so decide; then he would be honoured to be able to serve a second term. And it is for the Council, in the first instance, to discuss and decide, and then for the General Assembly to follow up on that. And I think that’s the process that needs to run its course, and any other comment at this point is really not for us to make.

But why then already be making invitations to a victory party / briefing?

Update of 9:10 pm -- the Cuban Mission has put out a denial that it is behind the delay in GRULAC and the Security Council of a second term for Ban:

“Today, June 16, Reuters reported from New York that, according to a “Western diplomat”, “the Security Council of the UN delayed Thursday the voting to recommend Ban Ki-moon for a second mandate as Secretary General, after Cuba prevented the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States from supporting the candidacy of the former South Korean Foreign Minister”. The Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations firmly rejects this allegation, especially when the mentioned Group has not even met today, and in the previous occasion in which the GRULAC considered this issue,

Cuba was not among the countries that informed not having received instructions to support the Secretary General, nor has it been opposed to this re-election. It would be useful for the readers of Reuters to know the identity of the “Western diplomat” that so happily spreads unfounded rumors on such a serious and important act as the election of the Secretary General of the United Nations.”

Note that Inner City Press has never named Cuba as one of the five, or in this more recent delay. Watch this site.

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At UN, Lack of GRULAC Endorsement Delays Ban's Re-Appointment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 -- When Ban Ki-moon ten days ago announced he wanted a second term as UN Secretary General, he went to meet behind closed doors with the UN's Regional Groups. As first reported by Inner City Press on June 7, in the Latin American and Caribbean States group, called GRULAC, at least five countries said they needed more time.

Nevertheless it was announced that the Security Council would meet on June 16 to recommend Ban for a second term. Ban's Spokesperson's Office on June 15 issued a schedule with re-appointment on the Council's agenda.

But early on June 16, this changed. Ban's Spokesperson's Office put out another announcement, that only the Council's “Program of Work” would be considered on June 16.

Sources tell Inner City Press this is because GRULAC has still not endorsed Ban for a second term. Ban has spend the last five days in Latin America. But as one source put it, “look at his record, especially in Latin America.”

In typical UN fashion, the source pointed first to Ban's appointments, or doling out of top posts. “Oscar Fernandez Taranco he calls a high Latin appointment. But some say the guy's Italian,” the source said. Asked about Ban's recent appointment of Mariano Ferandez, a Chilean to head up the UN's Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), another source said “that was only for Bachelet.” The Haitian government, it's said, preferred a Trinidadian candidate. “What has Bachelet accomplished for Ban?” the source asked.

(Inner City Press notes that Bachelet's UN Women office has responded to questions about allegations of rape by UN peacekeepers in South Kordofan in Sudan, by asking the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the highest level.)

More generally as one GRULAC source told Inner City Press, “Ban has not focused on Latin America enough. We want a commitment that this would change in a second term.” Watch this site.

* * *

As Ban Ki-moon Moves For 2d UN Term, Human Rights Groups Go Silent To Keep Access, Press Controlled

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 13 -- Ban Ki-moon has been subject to critiques for being weak on human rights for nearly all of his four and a half years as UN Secretary General. While such weakness is surely a comfort to many UN member states, to others at least on paper it should be a problem, in supporting him for a second term. So how did Ban seek to turn this around?

One way is to control what people say. In the run-up to Ban's drive for a second term, Human Rights Watch had been critical of Ban's record. But after HRW director Kenneth Roth met with Ban this Spring, and Inner City Press asked HRW on the record if Roth had brought up Ban's record in Myanmar, Sudan or Sri Lanka, the response by HRW's UN Director,a former journalist, was:

“To preserve our ability to have frank discussions with UN officials and advance our advocacy goals, we don't typically communicate on the content of discussions we have with them.”

UN officials, of course, should not condition listening to or acting on human rights concerns on the silence of their interlocutors. (Separately, it is unclear to whom HRW would communicate what it raised: only donors?)

But such a non-answer, delivered less than ten days before the June 6 campaign kick off for a second term as UN Secretary General, is certainly better for Ban.

Earlier this Spring a group of ethnic Tamils came to the UN trying to deliver a petition calling for an international investigation into what they -- and Ban's own Panel of Experts -- call the killing of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians by Sri Lanka's government.

They asked Inner City Press to cover their demonstration across First Avenue from Ban's office. The Ban administration told them that a mid level official would be willing to accept the handover of their petition in the lobby of the UN General Assembly, but that no members of the press should be among their group.

Inner City Press stood to the side, to not hear anything that was said, and took two photographs of the handover. Shortly thereafter, Inner City Press was told that if photos of the handover were published, the Ban administration would not meet again with that group.

There are in the wider world worse ways to silence people. But questions exist as to whether these actions are appropriate to the UN, not only for the past five years, but for five to come. Watch this site.

Ban & Gaddafi: one candidate elections not shown

Inner City Press asked if Sri Lanka spoke, and the DPR said yes, Syria as well. He did not see any North Korea representative in the room, he said. We will have more on this.

Update of 1:30 pm -- US Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo, exiting the Security Council, answered about Ban second term by saying the US will be issuing a statement. In the IMF race, Timothy Geithner hedges on whether US supports Christine Lagarde, there being a Mexican candidate Agostin Carstens in the race. So why this one-candidate process at the UN?

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

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

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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