ICP
Asks Evo
Morales About
UNGASS,
Billionaire
Buying Ban's
UN
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, April
21 -- When
Bolivia's
President Evo
Morales came
to New York
for the
Special
Session of the
UN General
Assembly on
the World Drug
Problem or
UNGASS on
April 21,
Inner City
Press asked
him about the
closed manner
in which the
UNGASS
document was
negotiated,
and about UN
corruption.
Morales began
his answer by
raising up two
green coca
leaves, saying
that he chews
them, as does
his vice
president and
cabinet. How
is the US to
unilaterally
declare things
legal and
illegal, he
asked, while
leaving the
financiers of
crime opaque?
On
that, Inner
City Press asked
about the
billionaire Ng
Lap Seng who
bought his way
into the UN,
including
through the
Global
Sustainability
Foundation and
Cristina
Gallach's
Department of
Public
Information
and South
South News and
the UN Correspondents
Association.
Morales
said he read
about the scandal
"in the media"
- which was
more than the
UN's Public
Administration
experts Inner
City Press
questioned the
previous hour
could say. He
ended with a
story about
running for
President with
just a
backpack against
a corporate
opponent with
a whole
entourage.
In the next
hour Inner
City Press
asked Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman Stephane
Dujarric why
it had been
ousted and
evicted by the
UN for
covering
corruption,
while South
South News,
with its President
(pleaded
guilty) and
Vice President
charged with
bribery still
has its UN
office. Does
this mean that
the UN only
gives due
process to
those with
money?
Dujarric
replied, "You
have been
afforded quite
a lot of
courtesies."
We'll have
more on this.
(UNCA,
which
previously
demanded the
first question
from Morales
even when he
wanted to give
it to another,
this year
didn't even
show up.)
Back on April
19, Inner City
Press asked
UNODC's Yury
Fedotov why
lower income
civil society
was, like harm
reduction,
excluded. Video here.
Specifically,
Inner City
Press asked
about
confining the
already
restrictive
drafting
process to
expensive
cities like
Vienna and New
York, and
Geneva.
Fedotov's
reply
mentioned New
York, but not
Nairobi, for
example. He
said while the
phrase harm
reduction is
not in, the
concept it.
That's not
what's being
said just
outside the UN
on 47th
Street, nor in
the literature
being handed
out across
from the UN.
There, groups
complained
that UN guards
confiscated
their
materials,
which Inner
City Press
finds not hard
to believe,
given how it
was evicted
from the UN on
April 16,
video here
and here.
Some claimed
the banning of
pamphlets was
a
misunderstanding.
But Ban's and
Cristina
Gallach's
ouster and
eviction of
Inner City
Press was no
misunderstanding:
it was
premeditated,
and
retaliatory.
Amid
the Panama
Papers and UN
bribery
scandals, now
linked, Inner
City Press
went to the
April 18 press
conference of
the Civil
Society
Organization,
Financing for
Development
(FfD) Group.
There,
while the
group's "Tax
Body" globe
mascot stood
on stage,
photo here,
a UN staffer
who
participated
in the
eviction of
Inner City
Press'
longtime UN
office on
April 16 (video
here and here; petition
here) came
in and waited.
After saying,
"I am not
reading your
laptop," the
staffer
stepped
forward and
pulled the
globe mascot
off the
podium.
Inner
City Press
asked about
it, and Tove
Maria Ryding
said the
groups had an
agreement with
the UN that
the mascot
could be on
the podium.
But the UN is
lawless. It is
not the UN
staffer's
fault - this
rot comes from
the top.
See
Vine, here.
Inner
City Press
asked about
the presence
in the Panama
Papers of
Macau-based
businessman Ng
Lap Seng and
his South
South News,
which paid
money to the
UN
Correspondents
Association
then at the UN
Ball at
Cipriani's was
given by UNCA
a photo op
with Ban
Ki-moon.
Moderator
Stefano Prato
answered about
the corporate
capture of the
UN's public
spaces - an
apt
description of
UN DPI's
Cristina
Gallach
letting
Ng-funded
Global
Sustainability
Foundation
take over the
Visitos Lobby
for an event
that broke UN
rules. If you
pay, you are
invited. The
Global Tax
Body and
investigative
Press? Show
them the door!
More to
follow.
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