On Cameroon UK
Asserts Biya Positive Steps
As UN Hochschild Declines To
Address Censorship of Press
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFT Q&A
UNITED NATIONS,
September 5 – Hours after in
the UN Security Council
chamber UK Ambassador Karen
Pierce said
she supported the morning's
meeting about Nicaragua due to
refugee flows, across the
street from the UN Inner City
Press asked her why this logic
didn't apply to the confict in
the former British Southern
Cameroons and the flight of
Anglophones from state
violence into Nigeria.
Periscope video here.
Pierce replied that a country
is less likely to end up on
the Security Council's agenda
if it is taking some positive
steps. But given 36 year
Cameroonian head of state Paul
Biya's torching of villages,
what are his positive steps? A
sceptic might point to the
natural gas deal he signed
with UK-based New Age, which
UK Minister Liam Fox
bragged around as showing UK
companies can still get deals
after Brexit.
Also
on the panel on the "Culture
of Peace," moderated by Kevin
Rudd, was Secretary
General Antonio Guterres' head
of policy planning Fabrizio
Hochschild. When Inner City
Press began a question to
Hochschild, who had spoken
with gruesome examples from
Colombia of the need for
opposing sides to humanize
each other though
“dignification,” Rudd cut it
off.
Stepping off the
crowded elevator at ground
level Inner City Press
endeavored to ask Hochschild
the questions, both Cameroon
and whether Guterres and his opaque
Global Communicator Alison Smale,
purporting to ban Inner City
Press from the UN for life
without once speaking with it,
should engaged in some
dignification. He declined to
answer -- declined to dignify
the question, so to speak --
then said “Ask Steph.”
It was a
reference to Guterres'
spokesman Stephane Dujarric,
who Smale has twice written
would answer Inner City Press'
question but who has refused
to for a full week.
This as
Inner City Press, already
banned from the UN for 64 days
amid its questions on
Guterres' inaction on Cameroon
with the country's ambassador
Tommo Monthe heading the UN
Budget Committee, has an
application pending to cover
the UN General Assembly as it
has for the past 11 years.
Dignification, indeed. We'll
have more on this.
***
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