In
ILO
Race, Africans
Bemoan Lack of
Unity, UK
Pushes,
Melkert, Press
Tales
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 28 -- As
secret ballot
voting gets
underway in
Geneva to
name the next
head of the
International
Labour
Organization,
in
New York
African
diplomats
bemoaned to
Inner City
Press their
increasing
under-representation
in the UN
system.
They
said, for
example, that
in the ILO
race neither
the candidates
from Niger
(Ibrahim
Assane Mayaki)
nor Benin
(Charles Dan)
would stand
down and
defer to the
other, so that
African votes
would be
split.
They
marveled
bitterly at
the increasing
dominance in
the UN system
not only of
Europeans --
many predicted
that "the UK
candidate, Guy
Ryder"
would win at
the ILO -- and
of South
Koreans under
the reign of
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon, but
also of Latin
Americans,
specifically
Argentines.
If
you want a job
in DFS, said
one of them,
referring to
the Department
of Field
Support headed
until recently
by the
Argentine
Susana
Malcorra who
is
now Ban's
chief of
staff, you
need to be
Argentinian or
work for the
World Food
Program.
"Soon the
Argentines are
going to
dominate
whole parts of
the UN,"
concluded an
African staff
member.
British
Guy Ryder's
candidacy for
ILO chief is
being pushed
particularly
hard in this
context, and
in the UK's
limitation to
the top
position at
the Office
of
Humanitarian
Affairs, no
longer the
Department of
Political
Affairs which
will go to the
second
American in a
row Jeffrey
Feltman
as Inner City
Press exclusively
reported on
March 28
and as stolen
without
credit by
Reuters on May
21.
Inner
City Press'
questioning of
Reuters
refusal to
credit, unlike
Foreign
Policy's The
Cable,
has triggered
a move to try
to expel Inner
City Press led
by
Reuters'
Lou
Charbonneau,
who has
said he has a
POLICY of not
crediting
Inner City
Press.
For
the ILO top
post to
replace Juan
Somavia on
September 30
there are
other
candidates,
for example
current UN
DESA official
Jomo Kwame
Sundaram
and Dutchman
Ad Melkert,
who while at
the UN
Development
Program also
went after
Inner City
Press for its
investigative
reporting for
example on UNDP in
Myanmar, transparency,
and retaliation.
If
Melkert
couldn't expel
Inner City
Press, how
could
competitors
like
Charbonneau
and fellow
wire reporter
Tim
Witcher of
Agence France
Presse, who
was used by
the French
Mission to
target Inner
City Press
for
reporting how
out of touch
the Mission
was with Paris
that it
didn't even
know, the day
of the
announcement,
that Herve
"The
Drone" Ladsous
would replace
Jerome
Bonnafont as
the
intra-French
replacement
for Alain Le
Roy at UN
Peacekeeping?
But
the gambit
appears to be
that UN
officials to
the highest
level who
would
themselves
like to expel
Inner City
Press but are
concerned
their
anti-media
proclivities
would thus
become known
could now rely
on and
hide behind undisclosed
charges by
less than
critical
corporate
media
against Inner
City Press.
But this ballot
and proceeding
cannot, or
should not, be
secret,
unlike today
at the ILO.
Watch this
site.
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