UN
Visit
of France's Minister NKM Brings Out Le Roy Amid Unanswered
Qs
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 11 -- Monday was a very French day at the UN. The
main buzz was the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo after 30 French armored
vehicles surrounded his house in Abidjan. The UN's main stakeout
about the arrest was given by (French) chief Peacekeeper Alain Le
Roy.
And
in the
afternoon, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with French minister
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet about “sustainable financing” related
to climate change.
Inner
City Press
attended the photo op. Waiting to be patted down for metal, the
French delegation swept by, with France's minister for climate
change, Permanent Representative to the UN Gerard Araud and a
spokesman and later upstairs, Alain Le Roy himself.
On
Ban Ki-moon's
side of the table were the S-G, his “global goods” advisor Robert
Orr and Chinese development chief Sha Zukang.
French Climate minister, NKM & Araud; Orr, Ban
and Sha, equip (c)MRLee
Recently
the
Chinese firm Suntech announced it had won a $80 million contract to
provide solar panels to the peacekeeping missions run by Alain Le
Roy. Questions about using the UN for advertising purposes remain
unanswered, as do many
other questions.
On
each side of the
photo op table were four sets of headphones. In the corner stood two
translators. Araud speaks English well; the minister of climate
change greet Ban in English. Was it NKM who asked for the headphones?
Or did France just want to make a point, on this day they'd already
made so many points?
Nathalie
Kosciusko-Morizet
is known, among other things, for proposing driving
the old motor scooters of the poor out of France's cities, and for
dealing with the wreckage of the Air France flight from Brazil.
NKM with smart phone before meeting Ban (c) MRLee
Nathalie
Kosciusko-Morizet
was said to be having a press conference at 6:15
pm, but apparently only for those providing positive coverage of
France's Mission to the UN. The same was done for the visit of
France's “sherpa” for the G-20, whose meeting with the General
Assembly was also closed. Innovative, indeed. Watch this site.
* * *
After
Fleeing
NY Cocaine Charge, French Diplomat Serman Resurfaces in
San
Francisco as
Sarkozy
Consul : Press Questions
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
10 -- When French diplomat Romain Serman was arrested
in Manhattan in 2006 for “attempting to purchase cocaine” and
resisting arrest, he never faced trial or punishment.
As
reflected in
the New York
Police Department arrest document Inner City Press has exclusively
published,
here, Serman immediately -- or after resisting
arrest -- insisted to police that he was a diplomat with the French
Mission to the United Nations.
Yet,
after
fleeing
the US to escape this charge in 2006, Serman has re-appeared
in the US representing France as its general consul in San Francisco.
Several sources interviewed by Inner City Press say this is legally
problematic, and may reflect a failure to disclose by France,
negligence by the United States -- or both.
When
Serman
signed
the
arrest document, he added “Dip. Fr” after his name. And,
sure enough, under then French
Permanent Representative to the UN
Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, Serman left the United States before any
trial on the charge of purchasing cocaine.
Back
in
Paris,
Serman was not punished, but rather continued to work for President
Nicolas Sarkozy, on Africa and other issues.
In
July 2010,
Serman was sent back to the United States, to become France's General
Consul in San Francisco.
Serman gives French award to WWII veteran in Sacramento
Most recently
Serman hosted Sarkozy minister
Frederic Mitterrand during a visit
to
San Francisco where he met,
among others, executive of Google, Amazon and Apple, and linked his
visit to what he called the Facebook revolution in Egypt.
Click here
for Serman's statements on his Twitter account, here for a video of
Serman speaking in
Salt Lake City about the education of children.
Six
hours after Inner City
Press published
Serman's
arrest document as part of an investigative
story on France's policy and actions regarding its now war torn
former colony the Ivory Coast / Cote d'Ivoire, Inner City Press was
admonished that the publication, particularly of the arrest record,
was
gratuitous.
But
several
diplomatic sources, including in the US Mission to the UN, whom Inner
City Press interviewed prior to publication said that Serman to
re-appear in the United States as a French diplomat after he fled the
country to escape charges of purchasing cocaine and resisting arrest
is problematic.
It
is illegal, one
diplomat said, citing a provision of 8 U.S. Code Section 1101
regarding “a failure to appear before a court pursuant to a court
order to answer to or dispose of a charge.”
In
this case, the
well placed source said, while Serman may have tacitly been allowed
to flee the United States as a diplomat, he was “not supposed to
come back in, as a diplomat.”
The
source said
that when he has been sent to other countries, it has always been
vetted by the country to which he was sent, seeking “agreement,”
a French diplomatic word meaning consent.
He noted that
this comes at a time when the US is
using visa law to block diplomatic status for some at the UN in New York.
This
diplomat
wondered
whether this is a case in which France falsely did not
disclose the previous charge against Serman when he was sent to San
Francisco last year, or whether US authorities were “negligent”
-- or both.
Inquiries
are
being
made. Watch this site.
* * *
, 
