In
Guterres' UN, June Passed
Without Reforms, Press Banned
From Stakeout, No Answers on
Town Hall
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive Series
UNITED NATIONS,
July 5 – Inner City Press
asked UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres why he hasn't
released his budget speech, or
reform plans on May 25, the
day after Guterres' holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
refused to provide the speech
to Inner City Press when it
asked. Guterres paused then
said it should be public,
seeming to believe that
Dujarric had, in fact,
released it. Video
here. But he had not and
has not. Diplomats from a
number of countries complained
to Inner City Press about it.
On June 30 Inner City Press
asked Dujarric where the
reforms are, now that June is
ending. Dujarric replied that
Guterres will brief ECOSOC on
July 5. When he did, Inner
City Press was made to leave
the stakeout,
here. Afterward, Inner
City Press asked Dujarric, UN
transcript
here: Inner City
Press: I staked out that
ECOSOC [Economic and Social
Council] QCPR meeting until I
was asked to leave, but I know
there's a town-hall meeting
with staff on 21 July and some
kind of a retreat with Member
States on the 22 July.
It seemed to me, like the… I
talked to some Member
States. They said that
this retreat on 22 July with
the Secretary-General is about
the political one. Is
the one on 21 June about
management since that would
seem to be… or is it
about… what are the
topics of these two…?
Spokesman: I have to
check… I have to check about
the town hall.
Six hours
later, no answer. Ah, reform
and transparency.
Diplomats told Inner
City Press Guterres will then
hold a "retreat" in UN
Headquarters about his
political proposals -- they
added that the date of even
this had been pushed back from
July 15 to July 22 or 23
(diplomats grumble, they have
to make plans); then Guterres
put forth his management
ideas. On July 2 and July 3
Inner City Press asked
Guterres' top two spokespeople
to confirm the date of the
reform retreat; on July 3 the
deputy replied, "The retreat
with Member States is
scheduled for 22 July." That's
a Saturday, and the Friday
before, Guterres is set to
brief and take questions -
curated? - from UN staff, some
of whom forwarded this to
Inner City Press:
"Secretary-General António
Guterres will hold a global
townhall meeting with UN staff
on Friday, 21 July 2017, 9:30
am - 11 am (NY time) in the
Trusteeship Council at United
Nations Headquarters in New
York. The topic of the
townhall meeting will be the
reform of the Organisation.
The Secretary-General will
present an outline of the
reform proposals and address
staff questions about this
important topic." One would
assume then that this is on
the proposed management
including promotion reforms or
restrictions. This, the
diplomats tell Inner City
Press, is with an eye to
producing a written proposal,
for review by ACABQ, by
September. They add that it
will be a single report, a
single pillar. But when will
Guterres brief the Security
Council about his trip to
Afghanistan, and fly-by of the
Cyprus talks? And what of some
staff's complaints to Inner
City Press on July 3 that they
had to work / staff the whole
day? The food service workers
were mostly off - enforced
layoffs for the summer - and
the Spokesperson's Office
closed at 3:30 pm. Meanwhile
the UN wouldn't initially even
say where Guterres will be
from July 1 to 5, and
continues to restrict Inner
City Press which alone asks.
We'll have more on this. On
June 19, Guterres and his
deputy met with new UN
Development Program
administrator Achim Steiner of
Germany. In front of the UN
Security Council, diplomats
told Inner City Press that
Germany had been slated to
"get" the top job at the UN
Department of Management. But
after Steiner got UNDP, the DM
post was given to long time UN
official Jan Beagle of New
Zealand. But the Department of
Management, the diplomats told
Inner City Press, is slated to
lose powers to the Department
of Field Support, just as UNDP
under Steiner - agreed in
advance, the diplomats said -
is slated to lose the Resident
Coordinator system to the
Secretariat. It's been 167
days: where are the reforms?
And will the arguments be made
the public, We the Peoples, or
just to member states vying
for posts? This as NGOs met in
Conference Room 7 to urge
reforms to open the UN. We'll
have more on this. On June 13,
Guterres gave a vague speech
in Turkmenistan soon after the
show trial of 18 people who
are being torture, vaguely
name-checking human rights. So
on June 14, Inner City Press
asked Guterres' holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric,
UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: I wanted to
ask you, in Turkmenistan, when
the Secretary-General met with
the President of Turkmenistan,
I did see his speech, and it
did refer to human rights, but
many… there's been a lot of
talk about these 18 people
that were sentenced to 25
years in jail after a
two-year… two-hour-long secret
trial. And I wanted
know, can you say whether this
issue was raised by the
Secretary-General?
Spokesman: The
Secretary-General, I think,
raised the issue of human
rights in Central Asia both in
the speech he gave to the
Shanghai Cooperation
[Organization] and I think in
the speech that he gave
yesterday, which was very… on
counter-terrorism, which was
very explicit in his call for
smart policies in countering
terrorism, which means
promoting human rights.
The issues that the
Secretary-General raises in
bilateral conversations remain
issues that he raises in
bilateral conversation, and
I'm not going to go into
details.
This is
the "new" - dying - UN. Where
has the UN's "conflict
prevention been in, for
example, Cameroon? On June 9
Inner City Press asked
Dujarric, UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: the
Secretary-General on this
Central Asian trip is going,
among other places, to
Turkmenistan. As you may
have seen, Amnesty
International and other groups
have put out a… a… a pretty
damning report that 18 men
have been condemned to 12 to
25 years to prison after a
trial that took two
years. It just
happened. The press
release is dated
yesterday. So my
question is… two
questions. One, is the
Secretary-General going to
intend to raise this type of
pretty extreme human rights
issue during his trip to
Central Asia and, in
particular, in
Turkmenistan? And, two,
I see that he leaves there the
13th and he's back here the
15th. Is there some secret
diplomacy taking place, or
what's his itinerary in terms
of coming back?
Spokesman: If it's
secret, I'm not aware of it.
Inner
City Press:
All right. Is he stopping in
Portugal? Just a
question.
Spokesman: Is he
stopping in Portugal?
I'm not aware if he's stopping
in Portugal, but wherever he
is, we're always happy to say
where he is on the day where
he is.
Inner
City
Press: On
the day of. Okay.
Spokesman: You had asked
something else.
Inner
City
Press: I'd
asked if he's going to raise
human rights issues…
Spokesman: Oh,
yes. I mean, obviously…
I mean, I think he's already
mentioned human rights in a
regional setting at the
[Shanghai Cooperation
Organization] session.
He will mention that, among
other things, as he continues
his travels wherever…
Inner City Press: What about a
trial that just took place and
people were sentenced to 25
years…
Spokesman: I don't have
any specific guidance on that
specific event.
It
was Dujarric who evicted Inner
City Press, and has kept it
restricted in its movements in
the UN for the 144 days so far
of Guterres' tenure. On May
25, Inner City Press asked
Dujarric again, video
here
On May 26, Inner City Press
asked Dujarric's deputy Farhan
Haq, video here,
UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: Jeffrey
Feltman said that the proposal
for the new office has been, I
guess, approved by the
Advisory Committee on
Administrative and Budgetary
Questions. And since
yesterday in this room, the
idea was that's all
confidential, I wanted to just
know, first, is it true, did
Mr. Feltman say that? Is
it true that ACABQ has signed
off on it? And if it's
true that the UN can speak
about ACABQ, can we get a copy
of the Secretary-General's
speech to ACABQ given earlier
this week?
Deputy Spokesman:
No. The, the speech was
basically about the budget
proposals which are available
as a document, as Stéphane
pointed out earlier this week.
Inner
City Press:
I, I searched it, and it said
document not available on the
UN document site. I’d
like the speech.
Deputy Spokesman: You
know, you can deal with my
colleagues with the document,
but there's no remarks to
share for the public.
Regarding the particular
proposal, there's a proposal
that's going to go before the
General Assembly, and you'll
be able to see what happens
once they consider it.
Inner
City Press:
Right, but I guess it goes
back to [inaudible]
question. In most
Governments in the world, an
executive like the
Secretary-General, the
executive branch, will
announce publicly what its
proposals are. Just the
fact that to only announce it
after it's been approved by
the Member States doesn't seem
to make sense if you're
pronouncing reforms and if
there's public interest in how
the UN works. What's the
problem with releasing the
speech?
Deputy Spokesman: This
is not a Government.
This is an organization
bringing together
Governments. And what we
try to do is engage in
dialogue with governments in
order to flesh out these
proposals. Ultimately,
it's not finalized until the
various governments agree on
this. You simply can't
argue that something's not
transparent if it goes to 193
Governments. That's a
lot of people. It's not
a secret process by any
means. All of them are
involved in this discussion.
Inner City Press: But, I've
heard the Secretary-General
say he wants to open up the UN
to civil society and the
public and we the people, so I
guess I'm just wondering, is
there something in that ACABQ
speech that's so confidential
that it can't, as I took him
to understand on the steps,
just be released and made
public?
Deputy Spokesman:
No. It's not
confidential, but it's part of
a dialogue with Member
States. And we try to
engage the Member States
directly in that
dialogue.
So, public
be damned? UN May 25
transcript here:
Inner City Press: I just
now asked the
Secretary-General about what I
had asked you yesterday, about
whether his speech at ACABQ
can be released and whether
his reform proposals will be
released. He seemed to,
maybe I misunderstood and you
can look at the video, but he
seemed to think that it had
been released so I wanted to
ask you, can it be
released? Also… Go
ahead.
Spokesman: The budget
documents for the proposed
reform are public documents
and those are available and
that is basically what he
presented, the outline of
which he presented to the
ACABQ yesterday.
Inner
City Press: Two
questions: Is there a problem
with releasing, I'm sure there
was a written and about it was
off-the-cuff what he said to
ACABQ; and, secondly, I've
seen and published a document
called safety and security
pillar model A regarding three
ASGs, a mixture of political
affairs and peacebuilding, a
variety of delegations, and
maybe there wasn't time to
explain the whole thing,
basically the idea is if he is
proposing reforms, why aren't
these proposals public as they
are in most countries…?
Spokesman: Well, I
think, first of all, these
reforms, especially ones that
have to involve, that involve
budgetary issues, first have
to be approved by the Member
States and there is an ongoing
discussion on the peace and
security architecture, and
once things are formally
proposed, I'm sure they will
be shared. All the
budget documents I think are
under, I was told, A/72/6, and
those are all available in
detail.
Question: This chart, I
guess what I'm saying, having
seen the chart…
Spokesman: I haven't
seen the chart, so I…
Inner
City
Press: There
was a meeting yesterday, so
maybe you can ask them.
There seemed to have been a
meeting that went to 6:10
yesterday upstairs.
Everybody was in it, Mr.
Lacroix, Mr. Feltman, you
know, the whole team was
there, and my understanding is
this chart was discussed, so
I'm asking you…
Spokesman: What I'm
telling you is that whatever
meetings may have occurred
upstairs on reform between the
Secretary-General and his top
aides, those are informal
meetings and I have no
documents to share from those.
Inner
City
Press: Can
you just look at the tape of
what he said there?
Spokesman: I did look at
the tape. I did, it
feels consistent to me.
Inner City Press: Well…
Spokesman: Ali?
Inner City
Press saying "double talk" was
not transcribed by the (double
standards) UN. Later on May
25, an NGO representative who
corresponded
"secretly" with Dujarric to
get Inner City Press evicted
and restricted was allowed
onto the UN's second floor
without the UN minders imposed
on Inner City Press. This is
UNtransparent. Even facing
budget cuts, the UN remains as
untransparent as ever, even
more so. On May 24 Inner City
Press asked Secretary General
Antonio Guterres' holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
for a copy of Guterres' budget
speech or budget, but none was
given. Later on May 24 the
head of the Advisory Committee
on Administrative and
Budgetary Questions, which
Guterres spoke before, issued
three tweets about the
presentation. Inner City Press
has obtained and tweeted
a copy of Guterres'
placemat-like "Peace and
Security Pillar" chart, with
three separate Udner
Secretaries General for
Political and Peacebuilding
Affairs, Peace Operations and
Field Management and Support.
Many are left wondering, where
is the reform? Inner City
Press on May 24 asked
Dujarric, UN transcript here:
Inner City Press:
on the budget, could I just…
it's a factual question.
You've listed today at 3
presenting his pro… proposed
programme budget for the
biennium 2018-19 to ACABQ
[Advisory Committee on
Administrative and Budgetary
Questions]. One, is it
open? Two, can we see
the budget? And if…
three, if not, why not?
Spokesman: The process
remains the same. This
is a budget that has start…
that was elaborated before the
sec… this Secretary-General
came into office. As you
know… as you may not know, but
it's kind of a long
process. This is the
first step. It will go
to the ACABQ and then go to
the Fifth Committee. The
Fifth Committee deliberations
are often open, and then I
think we'll get a clearer
picture then.
But
it's not clear. On May
24 before 6 pm Guterres held a
meeting with his senior
management group since after a
two week trip he is in New
York for only three days,
leaving tomorrow. At the
appointed time for Azerbaijan,
streaming out of Guterres'
conference room were USg Jeff
Feltman, Jean Pierre Lacroix
who declined
to answer Inner City
Press' question about France's
20+ year rule of UN
Peacekeeping, Oscar
Fernandez-Taranco, Fabrizio
Hochschild and others. Earlier
on May 24 Inner City Press
asked Dujarric to "please
state if a David J Vennett is
now a/the principal advisor to
the SG, if so why he is not in
iSeek and how he was recruited
and hired and, again, please
provide a list of who works in
/ or the Executive Office of
the Secretary General and
whether they are paid by the
UN, by a UN affiliate like
UNOPS, or by a country and is
so which." There was no
answer. What was in Guterres'
budget speech on May 24, a
copy of which Inner City Press
requested?
Why was corrupt
censor Cristina Gallach
speaking in the General
Assembly Hall on May 24, and
why has her censorship
continued, without hearing or
appeal?
***
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