UN's Guterres
Wants Invite To Pyongyang, Took
On Kim Party JPO For It, Olympic
Dreamer
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive, Full here
UNITED NATIONS,
January 17 – When UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres goes
to the PyeongChang Olympics
next month, his real dream is
to get an invite to the north,
to Pyongyang, UN sources
exclusively tell Inner City
Press. Having failed on other
diplomatic initiatives like
Cyprus in his first year atop
the UN, Guterres is "desperate"
for some high profile drama,
the sources say. The UN's
acceptance of a "Junior
Professional Officer" who is
the son of a high official of
Kim John Un's Workers Party --
whom Inner City Press in
October exclusively identified
as Kim Joo Song, here
-- was meant to built the
connections to get Guterres
into the country. But isn't it
the US that Kim Jong Un wants
to negotiate with? We'll have
more on this. When the UN's
Committee on Relations with
the Host Country met on
January 17, the representative
of the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea read a
three-page statement
condemning the US for issuing
his Mission to the UN's
tax-exempt card in the name
"North Korea" and not
Democratic People's Republic
of Korea. He said, "We
presumed it would be only a
kind of technical mistake by
the U.S. side, and returned the
card back to the U.S. mission,
while requesting them to
correct that serious mistake."
The statement, which Inner
City Press has exclusively
obtained immediately after the
meeting (photos here,
full PDF of letter via
Patreon, here)
continued that the U.S. mission
replied, "It seems to be a
glitch in our database, we'll
reach out to our office in
DC." That was on December 13,
the statement said, continuing:
"on 14th December there was an
explanation from the U.S.
mission informing that, quoted
as 'Our DC office has indicated
that all country / mission
names on OFM credentials for
Democratic People's Republic
of Korea indicate North Korea
which is the conventional
short abbreviation. The short
name for the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea is
North Korea, so the tax card
will remain the same." The
statement concluded by
condemning "such reckless
political hostile policy" and
demanded an apology. Watch
this site. Throughout 2016 New
Zealand documentary maker
Gaylene Preston and her crew
staked out the UN Security
Council along with Inner City
Press, awaiting the results of
the straw polls to elected Ban
Ki-moon's sucessor as UN
Secretary General. Preston's
focus was Helen Clark, the
former New Zealand prime
minister then in her second
term as Administrator of the
UN Development Program.
Preston would ask Inner City
Press after each poll, What
about Helen Clark's chances?
Suffice it to say Clark never
caught fire as a candidate.
Inner City Press told Preston,
as did many other interviewees
in her documentary “My Year
with Helen,” that it might be
sexism. But it might be power
too - including Samantha
Power, the US Ambassador who
spoke publicly about gender
equality and then in secret
cast a ballot Discouraging
Helen Clark, and praised
Antonio Guterres for his
energy (yet to be seen).
Samantha Power's hypocrisy is
called out in Preston's film,
in which New Zealand's
Ambassador complains that
fully four members of the
Council claimed to be the
single “No Opinion” vote that
Clark received. There was a
private screening of My Year
With Helen on December 4 at
NYU's King Juan Carlos Center,
attended by a range of UN
staff, a New Zealand designer
of a website for the country's
proposal new flag, and Ban
Ki-moon's archivist, among
others. After the screening
there was a short Q&A
session. Inner City Press used
that to point out that
Guterres has yet to criticize
any of the Permanent Five
members of the Council who did
not block him as the US,
France and China blocked
Clark, with Russia casting a
“No Opinion.” And that
Guterres picked a male from
among France's three
candidates to head UN
Peacekeeping which they own,
and accepted males from the UK
and Russia for “their” top
positions. Then over New
Zealand wine the talk turned
to the new corruption at the
UN, which is extensive, and
the upcoming dubious Wall
Street fundraiser of the UN
Correspondents Association,
for which some in attendance
had been shaken down, as one
put it, for $1200. The
UN needed and needs to be
shaken up, and hasn't been.
But the film is good, and
should be screened not in the
UN Censorship Alliance but
directly in the UN Security
Council, on the roll-down
movie screen on which failed
envoys like Ismail Ould Cheikh
Ahmed are projected. “My Year
With Helen” is well worth
seeing.
***
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