UNITED
NATIONS, April
4 -- When
accused drug
kingping Bubo
Na Tchuto was
snatched off
the coast of
Guinea Bissau
one might have
expected the
wires that
covered it,
Reuters and Agence
France Presse,
to note that
the UN
provided
shelter for
Bubo Na Tchuto
for three
months.
After
all, the UN
admitted
putting him
up, before the
most recently
coup. Inner
City Press and
the then-LUSO
correspondent
at the UN repeatedly
asked UN envoy
Mutaboba about
sheltering
Bubo Na Tchuto,
including on
UN Television.
But
no. Neither
wire services'
stories
mentioned it.
Reuters,
in fact,
quoted the UN
as get-tough
on drugs.
This
is no
surprise: both
AFP and
Reuters have
been willing,
apparently in
exchange for
access or
simply out of
laziness, to
become
pass-throughs
for UN
officials like
UN
Peacekeeping's
Herve Ladsous.
After
four months of
questions from
Inner City
Press about
126 rapes in
Minova from
November 20 to
22, 2012 by
the Congolese
Army which
Ladsous' DPKO
supports,
Ladsous spun
the two wires
first with an
ultimatum then
some
“assurances”
that have yet
to be
disclosed.
But
AFP's
Tim Witcher
and Reuters'
Louis
Charbonneau
wrote both up
with
no context,
making it
appear that
the UN was
getting tough
-- as now
echoed by both
wire services
in the case of
Bubo Na Tchuto
of Guinea
Bissau.
Witcher
of AFP,
working with
Charbonneau's
supervisee
Michelle
Nichols, filed
pretextual
complaints
with UN
Security, and
DPI, about
being called
lapdogs after
Witcher cut
into a
conversation
of Inner City
Press with
another
journalist,
hissing "lies
and
distortion."
Can one claim
to feel
threatened in
such
circumstances?
The UN is a
circus of
censorship.
Both
Witcher
and
Charbonneau are
on the
Executive
Committee of
UNCA, now
known as the
UN
Censorship
Alliance. To
get to use the
UN
to raid their
critics,
have
the two
committed to
write
superficial
articles which
don't
question,
much less
criticize, the
UN? So it
appears.
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