Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

At UN, Push For Vote on Ban Without Reform Answers, 5 Latins Ask Time

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 7 -- In Ban Ki-moon's continuing drive for a fast rubber stamp of five years as UN Secretary General, with no process to even solicit any other candidates, Ban met Tuesday afternoon with the Latin America and Caribbean States in GRULAC, then with the Western European and Other States Group known as WEOG.

In the GRULAC meeting, attendees told Inner City Press, at least five countries said they have to check with their capitals for instructions.

Meanwhile a push is on in the Security Council to have consultations and a fast resolution for Ban as early as this Friday June 10, or at early next week.

Even questions asked of Ban at his June 6 press conference announcing he wants a second term remain unanswered. For example, Inner City Press asked Ban if he ever followed up on his 2007 announcement, through his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, that top UN officials shouldn't stay more than five years in the same position:

Inner City Press: on reform, this idea that five years should be the maximum service for your senior officials?I think this was announced in 2007 by Mr. [Vijay] Nambiar. Are you going to be implementing that going forward? The Chief of Staff, Mr. [Robert] Orr – there seems to be a number of people who have been here that long. Is that going to be implemented?

SG Ban: on reform, I think I have explained extensively, but if you are interested, we can sit down together and I can explain more on the United Nations reform.

Ban & Nambiar, implementation of 5 year term limits not shown

Inner City Press: Another one on reform. Do you think there should be another candidate? All this call for democracy in the Arab world? I understand, you announced for the second term, that's all to the good. Do you think the UN should have a process – almost like the IMF [International Monetary Fund] has now in which they have a time for the solicitation of other candidates, a process for interviews and then a vote? Or do you think that's not necessary here?

SG Ban: That's what Member States will have to decide. Member States have been discussing this matter extensively for quite a long time, as a way of revitalizing the role of the General Assembly. That's why I am reaching out to all Member States and I am also meeting the Forum of Small States, which has more than 100 Member States. So, as I said, there is no such “taken for granted”. I am just humbly submitting my desire to serve this Organization. It's up to Member States who will make the decision.

Ban is of course free to ask member states, for his own legitimacy, to at least provide a time for other candidates put their names forward, rather than pushing for a near-immediate vote. And why is it, that he is going to explain what he has done about his five year limit announcement? Watch this site.

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At UN as Ban Pushes for 2d Term, Sees No Need or Time for Other Candidates

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 6 -- Ban Ki-moon on Monday told the press he is seeking a second term as UN Secretary General. Inner City Press asked Ban if he thought the UN should have a more formal process of soliciting more than one candidate, holding interviewed, developing a short list.

“It's up to member states,” Ban said, then said it would be natural if both the Security Council and the General Assembly took up his request for a second term this week, while the Presidents of Nigeria and Gabon are at the UN. So, no time for any other candidates to declare.

Ban intends to meet with the African Group Monday at 3, then on Tuesday with the Eastern European states then Western European and Other Group and GRULAC.

Ban's first move was to tell the Asia Group, at a breakfast Monday morning, that he wants a second term. Ban said they have supported him.

After Ban's press conference, Inner City Press interviewed a Deputy Permanent Representative who attended the meeting. He said that no vote was taken, but rather “acclamation.”

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?

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Amid UN Praise of Arab Spring, a One Candidate Coronation of Ban Begins

By Matthew Russell Lee, News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 6 -- While leaders in the UN loudly praised the Arab Spring as a move toward democracy, Ban Ki-moon is being anointed without any competition or even debate for another five year term as Secretary General.

If democracy is good in the Middle East, why not in the UN itself? Wouldn't a more formal process, including questions ranging from Libya through human rights to the budget, benefit the UN and its legitimacy?

Even the International Monetary Fund, derided for lack of transparency, last month announced a process whereby candidates can put in their names by June 10, with three or four to be interviewed and a decision made by June 30.

At the UN by contrast, there is no deadline, and no explanation of the sudden rush. Much is made of the lack of other candidates, but no formal process for nominations was ever announced.

There is no transparency: the Security Council could take up and adopt, without vote, the dipositive resolution without any notice to the public, in any closed door consultations as early as today.

Some have said Ban would like to do it with the Presidents of Gabon and Nigeria in town: that is, on the margins of Tuesday's speeches about HIV / AIDS.

Beginning with an Inner City Press report midday on Friday that Ban would meet with the Asia Group on Monday morning then announce to the press Monday at 11:30, it has been widely reported that the process has begun (and just as widely predicted that there is no opposition.)

Monday in the UN's North Lawn Building, Inner City Press observed a slew of high UN official going up to Ban's third floor office: Alain Le Roy and Susana Malcorra of Peacekeeping, information technology's Mr. Choi, manager in waiting Franz Baumann -- whom Inner City Press thanked for a recent written answer -- Ban's Special Adviser on Africa and other issues, and top Political adviser Lynn Pascoe, who told Inner City Press “it's just the boss holding his normal Monday morning meeting.” We'll see.

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Amid UN Complaints on Ban Ki-moon's "Arbitrary" 3.7% Budget Cuts, His Pre-Coronation Is Reported

By Matthew Russell Lee, News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- Even before it is decided who should be UN Secretary General from 2012 through 2016, news wire services have predicted with “100%” accuracy that Ban Ki-moon will and should be re-appointed, quoting unnamed “UN diplomats.”

But why? Beyond questions about silence on human rights issues, and compromising the UN's purported impartiality in Cote d'Ivoire and elsewhere, on June 3 members of the UN's budget advisory committee complained to Inner City Press about Ban's just-made budget proposal.

“He said it would be a three percent across the board cut,” a member of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs told Inner City Press. “Then he comes in with three point seven, but implemented very haphazardly. There are no cuts to UN Women, but larger cuts to other departments.”

Another ACABQ source wondered why member states would move so quickly to rubber stamp Ban for five more years right after he made a controversial but still secret budget proposal.

“This wouldn't happen in any democracy in the world,” the source said. In these fiscal times, how leaders proposal budgets is the major issue to judge them on. "Ban just dropped this one on us, the member states haven't even debated or even heard it -- and they want to give him a second term?”

Ban with Zoellick & DSK: successor & musical chairs not shown

Beyond this, as Inner City Press has pointed out since the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the IMF and before, if that now vacant post goes to an Asian or even South Korean, it would change the UN balance, and quite possible bring out another candidate for the top UN spot.

If Ban is preaching democracy, why not at least wait to see if a competing candidate emerges? Watch this site.

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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