At
UN As US Promotes Currie
Ignoring UN Censorship Cuba
Asks Conflicted Guterres To
Cancel
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR PFT NY
Post
UNITED NATIONS,
October 14 – When Donald Trump
nominated Nikki
Haley as his Ambassador
to the UN, it seemed she would
be a disruptor and clean up
corruption. As she prepares to
leave, though, at most one of
those things is true: she was
a disruptive force. But the
UN's corruption and censorship
remains. Now as didn't happen
before, and ignoring
the exclusion of the Press,
the US is promoting
one of Haley's deputies
Currie: Ambassador Kelley E.
Currie, U.S. Representative on
the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations,
will deliver remarks at an
event launching the campaign
“Jailed for What?” about the
continuing plight of Cuba’s
political prisoners. Her
remarks will take place at
United Nations Headquarters,
Economic and Social Council
Chamber in New York City on
Tuesday, October 16, at 1:15
p.m. EDT." Now the Cuban
Mission has fired back: "The
event constitutes a political
farce of the worst taste,
staged on false arguments and
with supporting actors, some
of Cuban origin, who with a
dark history at the service of
a foreign power, join the
escalation of anti-Cuban
actions by the current U.S.
Administration, engaged in
justifying the genocidal
policy of economic, commercial
and financial blockade against
the island. This policy
constitutes the main obstacle
to Cuba's development and a
flagrant violation of the
human rights of its people. It
would be therefore worthwhile
for the United States
Government to transform its
ignominy campaign into sincere
forgiveness and reparation to
the Cuban people for the
damages caused by the 56 years
of the application of the
blockade.
In view of these events, the
Ambassador and Permanent
Representative of Cuba to the
United Nations, H.E. Mrs.
Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo, has
sent a letter of protest dated
13 October to the
Secretary-General of the
United Nations, H.E. Mr.
António Guterres, and to other
senior officials of the
Secretariat. In the said
letter, she recalls that the
rules concerning the use of
conference rooms clearly set
out the holding of events that
are solely in accordance with
the purposes and principles of
the United Nations and further
justified by their relevance
to the work of the
Organization.
The Ambassador's letter states
that the aforementioned event
flagrantly violates the above
rules and the Charter of the
United Nations, and therefore
has Cuba's total rejection.
Consequently, it "calls for
the cancellation of the event
planned by the United States
within the perimeter of the
United Nations premises and
for an internal investigation
to be conducted in order to
determine accountability for
the said violations".
Cuba prides itself on its
human rights record, which
denies any manipulation
against it. The United States
lack the morals to give
lessons, and much less in this
matter. That country, with
poor adherence to
international human rights
instruments, has a pattern of
systematic violations of all
human rights, including the
use of torture, detention and
arbitrary deprivation of
liberty, as is the case of the
Guantánamo Naval Base, an
illegally occupied Cuban
territory; the murder of
African-Americans by police
officers; the death of
innocent civilians by their
intervention and occupation
forces; xenophobia and
repression and the
imprisonment of immigrants,
including children separated
from their families.
Cuba condemns and rejects in
the strongest possible terms
this new anti-Cuban action by
the United States Government
and hopes that the Secretariat
will enforce the established
rules, will act in accordance
with the UN Charter and
consequently, will cancel the
holding of this event in the
premises of the Organization.
" What will Antonio Guterres
do or say? Inner City Press
has been banned from "his"
noon briefings for 103 days,
now on Guterres' secret banned
list that includes
"political activists" - and
his spokesmen have been
refusing written questions
despite claims to the contrary
by Guterres' Global Censor
Alison Smale. The US Mission
said, "The event will be open
to the press.. Journalists
should be seated in the United
Nations Headquarters, Economic
and Social Council Chamber in
New York City on Tuesday,
October 16, no later than 1:00
p.m.
Journalists will need UN
credentials to be admitted to
the event.
Journalists should apply for
their credentials directly
with the UN’s accreditation
office.. Media who have
already completed the UN’s
self-accreditation process but
who have additional questions
can contact Loyda Garcia."
Self accreditation?? The US
Mission still claims not to
know that Guterres' UN censors
and bans journalists it
doesn't like? This is
collusion.
Haley's
disruption of the UN was
concentrated in her first few
months, when she famously
stood in the UN lobby and said
she would be "taking
names" of countries who
opposed US interests, and when
she
blocked Secretary
General Antonio Guterres'
nomination of Palestinian
candidate Salam Fayyad to be
the UN's new envoy to Libya.
After that,
however, Haley seemed to
settle down and go native at
the UN. Trump bragged at her
send-off that Haley got to
know "everyone" in the
organization. But not well
enough to get Russia's
Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia to
answer her calls before the
UN's mechanism on Syria's
chemical weapons expired. She
cast vetoes on Jerusalem and
Gaza, popular in some quarters
but hardly a measure of the
she-knows-everyone diplomacy
that Trump spoke of.
Haley called for
a UN Human Rights Council
Commission of Inquiry into the
murder in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo of
American expert Michael Sharp
and his Chilean-Swedish
colleague Zaida Catalan. But
the Commission never happened,
and by June
2018 Haley was standing
next to Mike Pompeo,
explaining why the US was
leaving the Human Rights
Council. The answer,
some said, was John Bolton...
Haley got her
fellow South Carolinian David
Beasley installed as the
head of the UN World Food
Program; at her Press-less
press conference as
president of the Security
Council in September 2018 a
South Carolina journalist
who'd flown up for the event
asked if she'd be taking the
Council members down to her
home state. It didn't happen -
until, in a different
form, just after her
resignation.
Perhaps
the most disappointing of
Haley's failures to disrupt,
or disruption interrupted, is
on UN corruption. UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres no
fewer than 15
times since assuming
office in January 2017 has
used public money to fly to
his home in Lisbon, where his
spouse still lives. After for
Inner City Press I asked
questions about this, I was
ousted from the UN and Haley
did nothing. In fact, another
journalist was told by the UN
that the US Mission
supported my ouster.
Haley's spokesman also worked
for Samantha Power; her Deputy
Jonathan Cohen has yet
to speak to the Press, now
asking questions at the UN
Delegates Entrance gate.
Haley never even commented
much less demanded UN action
on a UN
bribery case proceeding
in Federal court in lower
Manhattan against Patrick Ho
of the China Energy Fund
Committee for allegedly
bribing then UN President of
the General Assembly Sam
Kutesa for oil and other
concessions in Uganda. While
Guterres has refused to even
start an audit to determine
the full scope of CEFC's
bribery at the UN, Haley has
stayed quiet. Perhaps an
expanded scope would call into
question her oft-repeated
claim that it is a new day at
the UN. It is not. The UN
tends to drag those who pass
through it to its level. So it
was time for Haley to declare
victory and move on.
After twenty four
Congressmembers urged Haley to
schedule a Security Council
meeting about the slaughter of
Anglophones in Cameroon, I
asked her about it, and she
said she was “open” to such a
Council meeting. But it never
happened, and now even amid
the re-coronation of 36 year
president Paul Biya, there is
no meeting on the horizon.
Haley came out a
winner when the New York Times
mis-reported that she had
accepted $52,000 curtains
for her penthouse apartment
(the curtains were bought and
paid for by the Obama
administration). But the real
story may have been her living
in a $58,000 a month
apartment. From there, how
could she criticize Guterres
spending public money to fly
home? Haley herself was taking
rides on private jets, as
detailed in a formal complaint
the day before her resignation
was made public.
Haley's shift from taking
names to taking selfies was
exemplified on the 4th of July
2018, when the UN gave her its
fourth floor Delegates Dining
Room and balcony for a party
to watch the fireworks.
Ambassadors of all stripes
lined up, wanting photos with
her just as she wanted photos
with them, to show how well
she was getting along. But
what that supposed to be the
point?
The UN is
the ultimate swamp, with
reform always a chimera,
blocked by immunity. Haley's
narrative is that she came and
quickly cleaned up the UN.
Twenty one months in, little
has been cleaned up. Perhaps
it was time to get out before
demands came for results and
not rhetoric. At the UN, the
corruption and censorship
continue -- including with the
discovery that under Guterres
the UN maintains a secret
"active ban" list that
includes "political activists'
- and Inner City Press. But
that's another thing that
Haley hasn't acted on; that's
another story.
Watch this site.
***
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