Ban
Ki-moon
Withholds Sri
Lanka Report,
UN Spox Bans
Qs, FUNCA
Erased
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 1 --
Amid death
threats to journalists
seeking to go
to Sri Lanka
and the
Commonwealth
Heads of
Government
Meeting there,
and just after
Action
Contre La Faim
slammed the
Rajapaksa
government
for impunity
in the murder
of aid workers
in Muttur,
Inner City
Press went to
the August 1
UN noon briefing
to ask about
Sri Lanka.
It
was high time.
Back
on July 5 Inner
City Press asked
Deputy
Secretary
General Jan
Eliasson about
the report he
was to hand to
S-G Ban
Ki-moon,
lessons
learned from
the UN's
inaction and
worse as
40,000
civilians were
killed in Sri
Lanka in May
2009. Would
the report be
made public?
Eliasson
said it would
be up to Ban
Ki-moon. So
Inner City
Press went on
August 1 to
ask Ban's
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
about the
CHOGM
death threats,
about impunity
and the
report.
But
Nesirky
wouldn't take
the question.
While giving
others two
rounds of
questions,
including
Pamela Falk
the 2013
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association
(history here),
Nesirky cut
Inner City
Press off when
it said, quite
audibly, where
is the Sri
Lanka report?
Nesirky
refused
to take the
question; the
UN Television
webcast does
not even
have the
question, as
Inner City
Press'
microphone got
turned off.
This is the
UN's new
system. Video
here at
Minute 14:34
and 20:46.
Many
have said that
inaction and
worse on Sri
Lanka is the
lowest point
of
Ban Ki-moon's
tenure so far
as UN
Secretary
General. The
question
should be
taken, it
should be
answered.
Previously,
after
UNCA's
Executive
Committee
sought the
removal from
the Internet
of Inner City
Press' reporting
about their
screening in
the UN, in a
room given by
the UN to
UNCA, of a Sri
Lanka
government
film denying
war crimes,
UNCA's first
vice president
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters
immediately gave to
the UN's top
accreditation
official an
internal
anti-Press
document
he promised,
three minutes
prior, not to
give.
Story here, audio
here, document
here.
Neither UNCA
nor the UN
have explained
or taken
action on
this.
Inner
City Press
quit UNCA, to
the Executive
Committee of
which it had
been
repeatedly
elected, and
co-founded the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access.
The UN's
Department of
Public
Information
has threatened
to suspend
or withdraw
Inner City
Press'
accreditation
for merely hanging a
sign of the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access on the
door of its
shared
office.
Meanwhile
the
UN
has given UNCA
Room S-310 to
hold more "UN
briefings"
which it
publicizes
only to those
who pay it
money;
Nesirky's
office
has refused to
answer the
simple
financial
question Inner
City Press
asked about
this on July
26.
When
Eliasson gave
his briefing
on July 5,
after UNCA was
given the
first
question
(which it
reserves only,
again, to
those which
pay it
money), Inner
City Press
perfectly
audibly when
called on
thanked
Eliasson for
the briefing,
and asked for
more, "on
behalf of the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access."
In
a form of
censorship
which has been
raised to the
penultimate
level
of the UN
without any
explanation, this "on
behalf of the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access"
was cut out
from the
transcript of
the
briefing.
The US
Mission to the
UN, as simply
one example,
leaves it in.
What
is wrong
with Ban's UN?
The Sri Lanka
experience was
and remains
telling. Watch
this site.
, 
