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U.S. "Deadbeat-Gate" Draws Midnight Clarification from UN's
Ban Ki-moon: He Said It, But...
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
CAPITOL
HILL, March 12 -- As UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon met members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on
Wednesday morning, ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen emerged and
told the
Press that Ban "used the word deadbeat when it came to describing the
United States... unbelievable."
Minutes later, Ban stopped and spoke to
the three reporters present, including Inner City Press, all three of
whom had
tape recorders running. He was asked, did you use the word 'deadbeat'?
Inner
City Press asked, "Ros-Lehtinen seemed to say you did."
"Yes I did, I did," Ban replied, and then smiled
impishly. His spokesperson, who also
tape recorded the exchange, then said Ban had to go.
He rushed away down the hallway surrounded by
aides.
At least two stories
were written. Then, past midnight, Ban's
Spokesperson's office issued a midnight "clarification" --
Subj:
To clarify any misunderstanding about the Secretary General
From:
unspokesperson-donotreply@un.org
To: Inner City Press [et al.]
Sent:
3/12/2009 12:19:10 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
The
Secretary-General said: "The United States generously supports the work
of
the UN , both in assessed and voluntary contributions".
The
Secretary-General also added that while the United States is the most
generous
contributor to the United Nations, it is also the largest debtor, with
more
than one billion dollars of arrears owed to the organization.
The
Secretary-General enjoys an excellent working relationship with the
United
States and appreciates the many ways that it supports the United
Nations.
New
York, 11 March 2009
One problem with this clarification is that it does
not address the
point raised by Rep. Ros-Lehtinen and the stories, Ban's use of the
term
deadbeat. Ban's Spokesperson was there with tape recorder running. Ban
said
that the U.S. has $1 billion in arrears to the UN, "soon to be" $1.6
billion.
UN's Ban on Capitol Hill later Wednesday,
"deadbeat" call not shown
The irony is that Ban is widely viewed in the UN as,
if anything, too pro-United
States. Another Republican who spoke to
the Press outside the meeting on
Wednesday, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, said he prefers Ban to
Kofi Annan,
noting that Ban supported Israel by speaking about and publicizing
Hamas'
rocket fire.
One interpretation of Ban's laughing statement that he called the
U.S. a deadbeat is that Ban was trying to show some "street cred,"
that he is not in the pocket of the Americans.
The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee on
international
organizations, Massachusetts' William
Delahunt, told the Press he think Ban is
right, that the U.S. should pay all its arrears before it criticized
the UN.
In this context, it appears to some far to defensive
and craven for
Ban's Office to issue this midnight clarification. "If you said it, you
said it," one source argued. "Stand behind it. And if you put out a
clarification, at least address that quote you are trying to clarify."
Ban's promised monthly press conference, already
delayed, is now
scheduled for Thursday at 11 a.m.. Inner
City Press is still in Washington and cannot ask these questions. Most
current
UN correspondents, it seems, would agree with Ban's word choice if not
his
midnight retreat. Will the issue come up and be clarified by the man
himself?
Watch this site.
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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
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