ICP
Asked UNSG Guterres for
Speech, Haiti Read-out, None
Provided, Now S Korea-Japan,
Money Talks?
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
May 28 – 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' 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, after three days
later. Instead, Dujarric's
office has selectively
provided read-outs of some few
of Guterres' meeting, to some
on the basis of the money or
power of the countries
requesting transparency.
Previously, Inner City Press
asked Dujarric three times for
any read-out of Guterres'
meeting with the Dominican
Republic' foreign minister,
who afterward said the issue
of the UN's dubious impact on
Haiti was discussed. No
read-out was provided, Now,
Dujarric issues the below,
what's the difference? "n
response to questions received
on the meeting between the
Secretary-General and Prime
Minister Abe of Japan, the
Spokesman had the following to
say: During their meeting in
Sicily, the Secretary-General
and Prime Minister Abe did
discuss the issue of so-called
“comfort women”. The
Secretary-General agreed that
this is a matter to be solved
by an agreement between Japan
and the Republic of Korea. The
Secretary-General did not
pronounce himself on the
content of a specific
agreement but on the principle
that it is up to the two
countries to define the nature
and the content of the
solution for this issue.
Regarding the report of
Special Rapporteurs, the
Secretary-General told the
Prime Minister that Special
Rapporteurs are experts that
are independent and report
directly to the Human Rights
Council." Again, what's the
difference? On May 26
Dujarric's deputy Farhan Haq
again refused,
video here,
saying that the UN responds to
member states (not We the
Peoples). 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
***
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