| As Blinken
and Austen Head East Burma Sure To Come Up
But China Bribes At UN Less So
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
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SDNY / UN GATE,
March 12 – In advance of the
Japan and South Korea trip by
US Secretaries of State and
Defense Antony Blinken and
Lloyd J. Austin, an embargoed
press call was held. Inner
City Press was disappointed
but not surprised the China's
dominance including at the UN
barely came up. But Burma /
Myanmar did.
A senior
US official said "the plight
of the Burmese people in
Burma" would surely be
discussed with the US'
partners. The official
declined to answer on the
Anchorage sessions with China.
While during the
call a read-out of Blinken's
call the day before with UNSG
Antonio Guterres was issued,
the issue of Guterres' links
with the China Energy Fund
Committee as he seeks a second
term was UNtouched. For now.
Notably,
the only mention of the
"United Nations" on the call
was a reference to, in Korea,
the "United Nations Command" -
which is not really a UN body.
No oversight.
Meanwhile the US
Mission has yet to circulate
the letters and CVs of
challenges to Guterres. We'll
have more on this, and on the
Secretaries' trip.
In the UN,
from which Guterres still has
Inner City Press banned, after
the Burma coup regime fired
its New York-based UN
ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun for
his speech in New York in the
usually scripted UN General
Assembly, PGA President Volkan
Bozkir, who in fine Myanmar
fashion refuses to even name
the authors of the letters and
CVs of opponents to Guterres,
bragged about the session.
Now after
Guterres and his spokespeople
dodged about who is Burma's
ambassador -- eager to get
China's support for a second
term, taking the US for
granted -- this from the US
Mission: "Ambassador Linda
Thomas-Greenfield met
virtually this afternoon with
Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun,
Permanent Representative of
the Republic of the Union of
Myanmar to the UN. Ambassador
Thomas-Greenfield commended
Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun for
his courageous and
compassionate statement at the
UN General Assembly informal
meeting on Burma last week and
expressed the United States’
support for the people of
Burma and the restoration of
the democratically-elected
government."
Dujarric,
while taking public money to
work for the UN, says he is
the spokesman for the
incumbent, like part of a
political campaign. We'll have
more on this.
The United
Kingdom as President of the
UNSC for February, now virtue
signaling, did not even push
to have the February meeting
on Burma be open, and UK
Ambassador Barbara Woodward on
February 1 banned the Press -
which was given access to
Tuesday's background briefing
- from her UN "press"
conference (at which not a
single question on Africa, for
example, was taken).
At
the February 2
US State
Department
briefing,
Spokesman Ned
Price said,
"When it comes
to Burma,
look, I don’t
think the
military
takeover, the
military coup,
is in the
interest –
it’s certainly
not in our
interest.
It’s certainly
not in the
interest of
our likeminded
partners.
I think you
will also find
that it’s not
in the
interest of
the
Chinese.
So our first
concern, of
course, is the
restoration of
civilian
leadership in
Burma.
Our concern,
consistent
with that, is
ensuring that
as we
undertake this
review, now
that we have
determined
that a coup
has taken
place on
February 1st,
the
civilian-led
government has
been deposed
by the
military – our
first concern
as we do that
review will be
to ensure that
of the $135
million we
contribute
annually to
the people of
Burma, that we
don’t do
anything that
would affect
the
long-suffering
people of
Burma,
including the
Rohingya in
this case." Inner
City Press will have more on
this.
***
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