On UN Credibility
Press Q to Sachs and
Guehenno Goes to PGA Who
Cites Good Will As Guterres
Censors
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFT Q&A
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, September 10 – When
current UN official Jeffrey
Sachs and former head of UN
Peacekeeping Jean-Marie
Guehenno appears on September
10 on a panel discussion on
"Perspectives on the UN of
Today and Tomorrow," Inner
City Press went through the
rain and asked about the
credibility of today's UN
under Antonio Guterres, citing
the examples of peacekeepers'
rapes,
no reparations for bringing
cholera to Haiti,
no content neutral media
accreditation and access
rules, and cover ups of sexual
harassment, from UNAIDS
to UNFPA
and beyond. Facebook video here,
Panel I near end from -24:07
on. Femi Oke of Moderate the
Panel - and Al
Jazeera - directed the
question to outgoing President
of the UN General Assembly
Miroslav Lajcak, who said "no
one can suspect that there is
not enough good will." Really?
Sachs, a UN official who
offered to campaign for Ban
Ki-moon and to whom increased
UN censorship has been raised,
thundered against Trump and
Congress. Another panelist,
Francisco José Pereira Pinto
de Balsemão, former Prime
Minister of Portugal and
Chairman of the Board of
IMPRESA, earlier said that the
reforms proposed by Antonio
Guterres are not "daring." In
fact, Guterres has had Inner
City Press roughed
up and banned
from the UN, apparently for
life, for questioning his
proposals like the Global
Service Delivery Mechanism,
for support of the Budget
Committee chairman for which
Guterres went quiet on the
killings by Cameroon
of Anglophones, and his
spending. Nik Gowing noted
that a video by Susana
Malcorra showed that leaders
don't have to travel three
days to meeting. This week,
Guterres will be away six days
with the pretext
of Kofi
Annan's funeral in
Ghana, with a stop over in
Lisbon, his 15th, the costs of
which the UN will not disclose
when Inner City Press asks
in writing. Credibility?
On 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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