As
Ban
Launches Book,
Kim Jokes of
Missile, Lanka
in Princeton
Club
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 12 --
The UN's story
should be
better told.
That was the
stated goal
when the idea
for Tom
Plate's
“Conversations
with Ban
Ki-moon” was
born, in 2010,
at Singapore's
Mission to the
UN.
Plate had
profiled Lee
Kuan Yew as
his first
“Giant of
Asia” and let
it be known
that he saw
Ban as a
future Giant
in his series.
Fifteen
hours
of
interviewing
later, a
smallish
236-page book
was belatedly
launched
Tuesday night
at the
Princeton Club
in Manhattan.
The crowd
included some
press, some
students from
Loyola
Marymount
where Plate
has taught for
the last three
years, and
Permanent
Representatives
from the UK,
Sri Lanka, New
Zealand,
Kazakhstan and
South Korea.
Ambassador Kim
Sook, saying
he's known Ban
for thirty
years, joked
that he
prefers book
launches to
missile
launches. The
word
armistice,
however, was
not used.
Ban
said when he
read the first
draft of the
book, it
seemed to him
too light
hearted, like
EZ-Listening
music. But, he
said, it might
work in
letting people
know how the
UN works.
And
how does
the UN work?
Earlier on
Tuesday, Ban
met for more
than two hours
with the Group
of 77, mostly
about
“post-2015
development”
but also his delayed
plan for
mobility,
which has been
opposed by
staff, at
least in New
York.
Ban used the
word “selfish”
in referring
to some of
this
opposition;
this was
followed by a
Staff
Union
vote of No
Confidence.
This was not
mentioned
Tuesday night.
But Ban's
Under
Secretary
General for
Management,
Yukio Takasu
of Japan, was
in attendance.
How
does the UN
work? Also
present was
the Ambassador
of Sri Lanka,
Palitha
Kohona. The
UN's failure
to speak and
act while
40,000
civilians were
killed in Sri
Lanka in 2009
is one of the
UN's biggest
failures under
Ban.
In fact, the
anti-Tamil
impulse of Sri
Lanka's ruling
family was
raised by Lee
Kuan Yew in
Plate's first
Giant of Asia
book.
But
what's been
done since?
Ban recently
accepted
what's called
a “whitewash”
report about
Sri Lanka
from Japan's
Ambassador
Nishida, along
with
Bangadesh's
Ambassador
Monem, Kohona,
the Permanent
Representative
of Romania and
the Deputy
Permanent
Representative
of Nigeria.
The UN
didn't release
the report,
which Ban
went on to
praise when
asked in
Geneva about
Sri Lanka.
And Ambassador
Nishida, when
Inner City
Press asked
for the
report, said
it would first
be given to
all member
states.
Kohona
on Tuesday in
the Princeton
Club's lobby
told Inner
City Press
this hand-over
took place
last week, but
not in the UN
-- in the
Japanese
mission. It
seems timed to
counteract the
belated talk
of
accountability
at the Human
Rights Council
in Geneva.
This is how
the UN works:
Giants of
Asia, indeed.
Hardly
mentioned
Tuesday night
was Africa,
where most of
the UN's work
is. On March 5
Inner City
Press asked
Ban, at the
Security
Council
stakeout,
about inaction
on 126 rapes
in Minova by
the Congolese
Army, which
the UN
supports.
After the
rapes, under
Ban's stated
Human Rights
Due Diligence
Policy, the UN
support was to
have stopped.
But it still
hasn't.
Two
days later his
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
led for the
fourth time in
a row by a
Frenchman --
this is how
the UN works
-- offered
belated spin
to friendlier
journalists
about
threatening
two
unidentified
units of the
Congolese Army
with loss of
support if
they don't
prosecute by
an unspecified
deadline.
So has Ban
allowed his
Human Rights
Due Diligence
Policy to be
less than
meaningful,
under France's
Under
Secretary
General for
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous?
Inner
City Press'
critique of
this has given
rise to a
formal but undisclosed
complaint
against it,
in a Kafka-esque
system without
rules. The
head of the
Ban's
Department of
Public
Information
was in
attendance
Tuesday night,
and quite
polite.
But despite
requests,
including from
New York Civil
Liberties
Union then
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
there are
still no due
process rules
for
journalists at
the UN. We
will have more
on this, how
the UN does
not work.
We
will also have
more about the
book, about
mobility, Sri
Lanka, and
Asia. Watch
this site.
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