UNITED
NATIONS, May
14 -- The UN
makes more and
more claims
about
transparency,
including
financial
transparency.
For
the "ribbon
cutting
ceremony to
inaugurate the
new Conference
Room of the UN
Advisory
Committee on
Administrative
and Budgetary
Questions"
Tuesday at 3
pm, the
"international
media"
was invited to
attend.
The UN
Media
Accreditation
and Liaison
Unit
notice said
that Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon would
make remarks.
And
so Inner City
Press, which
covers ACABQ
most recently
on its review
of UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous' Cote
d'Ivoire drone
proposal,
for which he
has no
approval,
went to cover
the event.
But
in front of
Conference
Room 10, where
ACABQ meets,
UN Security
stopped Inner
City Press.
No, they said,
you cannot
come in. Only
UN
Photo, the
UN's in-house
photo service.
Particularly
on
the UN body
dealing with
money,
wouldn't
non-UN,
outside
indepedent
coverage be
important? To
all other room
re-openings,
from
the Security
Council
through ECOSOC
to the Trusteeship
Council
Chamber,
the press had
been invited.
And Inner City
Press has
covered
each of them.
And
so the only
way, for now,
to "cover" the
UN and its
budget
advisory group
is to report
that the press
and thus
public were
excluded. The
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
opposes and is
fighting this
trend.
Now what FUNCA
wants to know
is who,
between the
invitation
to cover sent
Monday before
6 pm and the
last minute
2:47 pm
closure,
decided that
the media
should be
excluded? And
why?
Just
the day
previous, a UN
correspondent
complains
to FUNCA she was
attending
an open
meeting in the
Trusteeship
Council
Chamber,
moderated by
Jim
Clancy of CNN
on the topic
of human
trafficking,
when she was
told
to leave by UN
Security, she
says,
related to a
previous
complaint she
made of
sexual
harassment.
Human
trafficking
and
transparency,
indeed. Watch
this site.
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