AFP's
Witcher Didn't
Know or Ask
How Many DRC
Rapes or
Deadline,
Ladsous'
Lapdog
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
9 -- The UN
does not
improve
because deadwood
officials
are dumped on
it by powerful
countries like
France and
media like
Agence France
Presse grant
them
anonymity, to
declare war
or cover up
inaction on
mass rapes,
without asking
any questions.
On
March 7 Tim
Witcher on AFP
published a story
ostensibly
about the 126
rapes in
Minova by the
Congolese
Army, which UN
Peacekeeping
supports.
Inner City
Press had
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon on
December 19
then March
5 about the
UN's inaction.
AFP's March
7 story
was based
entirely on
the
statements of
an anonymous
UN official
who claimed
that he had
given
notice “to the
DR Congo
government in
early February
that it had to
take action
against the
two battalions
which had been
in Minova.
'The
deadline now
is getting
very near,'
the official
said... on
condition
of anonymity.”
On
March 8 at the
stakeout in
front of the
Security
Council, Inner
City
Press openly
asked UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to occupy
that post, to
name the
two battalions
he has
supposedly
given a
deadline to,
and what the
deadline was.
Ladsous
refused to
answer.
After
another
reporter asked
why and Inner
City Press
explained, Tim
Witcher who
was present at
the stakeout
but had not
been spoken to
chirped that
Inner City
Press was
engaged in
“lies and
distortion.”
Really?
Inner
City Press had
never noticed
Witcher or
read any of
his stories
until in
September 2011
he claimed
that AFP was
the source of
a
portion of
Inner City
Press' exclusive
report on how
France dumped
Ladsous on the
UN as a
last minute replacement
for Jerome
Bonnafont.
Witcher
was
angry that
Inner City
Press
reported,
correctly,
that even the
morning of the
announcement
the French
Mission was
unaware of the
switch that
had been made
in Paris, from
Bonnafont to Ladsous -
who,
notably, had
been rejected
for the same
job by former
Secretary
General Kofi
Annan.
Then
and now
Witcher is a
“member at
large” of the
Executive
Committee
of the UN
Correspondents
Association,
an
organization
in a decline
even faster
than UN
Peacekeeping
under Ladsous.
Witcher
wrote
to another
UNCA “leader,”
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters as
well as the
now gone UNCA
president to
request
some kind of
action by UNCA
over a story
published by
Inner City
Press about
the new head
of UN
peacekeeping
which seems to
have relied on
information
overheard
in a
canteen
conversation.
The only
French media
that the
spokesman had
communicated
with that
morning was
the AFP
correspondent.
It
was
impossible,
arrogant even,
for Witcher to
claim to know
for a
certainty
which French
media then
French Mission
spokesman
Stephane
Crouzat had
spoken with
that morning.
Worse
was AFP's
attempt to use
UNCA,
ostensibly a
organization
to defend
and expand the
rights of
journalists to
get
information at
the UN, to
censor an
entirely
accurate story
about an
incompetent
French
official being
dumped into a
high UN
position.
Witcher
pursued
his, Ladsous'
or the French
Mission's
complaint for
weeks in
UNCA,
using useless
and
scatological
judgment on
Inner City
Press'
accurate and
exclusive
story and
asking UNCA to
reprimand
Inner City
Press.
Inner
City Press
asked to
attach a
dissent to the
UNCA executive
committee's
resulting
statement
about not
using
conversations
with
journalists as
source
material --
absurd, really
-- but was
told no,
that the UNCA
Executive
Committee or
some members
owned the
group's
e-mail list
serv.
At
that time
Inner City
Press was an
elected member
of the
Executive
Committee, but
due to the
group's
descent into
censorship and
worse,
fronted by Voice of
America
but abetted by
the UN bureaux
of Agence
France Presse
and Reuters,
it quit and
on December 7,
2012
co-founded the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access.
In
2013, UNCA now
increasingly
known as the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance
under “new”
president Pamela Falk
of CBS has
tried to use
the UN Department
of Public
Information
official
Stephane
Dujarric
to order Inner
City Press to
stop
accurate
reporting of on the
record
meetings.
Meanwhile
UNCA
“leaders” have
used anonymous
social media
accounts
to try
to undermine
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
have scrawled
insults on
FUNCA flyers
and as noted
chirped about
lies and
distortion.
Witcher
continues
his slavish
stenography
for the French
Mission and
for
Ladsous, all
the while
claiming that
accurate
quotes about
it are,
yes, “lies and
distortions.”
After
on March 7
typing up and
publishing the
statements of
the anonymous
UN official
who claimed to
have given
notice “to the
DR Congo
government in
early
February” and
that 'the
deadline now
is getting
very near,'”
Witcher after
hissing about
lies and
distortions
went
to the March 8
noon briefing.
There
he asked
questions he
should have
asked to the
UN official to
which
he and AFP
granted
anonymity the
day before.
What is the
deadline?
How many
rapes? Witcher
mis-took the
number of
witness
statements for
the number of
rapes. Video
here, from
Minute 8:54.
If
Witcher in the
“off the
record”
session with
the UN
official asked
to know the
deadline and
was not told,
why omit that
from the
story,
other than to
make the
official look
good? And if
he didn't ask,
what kind of
journalism is
this? Oh, we
forgot: lies
and
distortion.
Watch this
site.
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