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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFT Q&A

US STATE DEPARTMENT, March 12 – With the new proposed U.S. budget the topic of a briefing at the State Department on March 11, Inner City Press went to ask about the provision that 15% of U.S. contributions to the UN should be cut if, as is the case, the UN is not protecting whistleblowers. (And see photos here.) Too few questions were taken but afterward it was suggested to Inner City Press ask the question in writing. So it has: "Hi - earlier this afternoon after the (short) briefing about the budget, I asked about the provision that 15% of US contributions to the UN would be cut if the UN is not protecting whistleblowers.   It was suggested to me that I email you to ask: does the State Department currently believe that the UN is or is not sufficiently protecting whistleblowers, in light of such case as Anders Kompass and others who blew the whistle on UN and French peacekeepers' sexual abuse in CAR, recent cases at WIPO, etc." On March 12, this was the response to Inner City Press from a State Department spokesperson on background: "The United States believes that all international organizations should operate under modern, accountable management practices, including robust protections for whistleblowers.  The Department of States assesses these protections in the context of preparing the report to Congress required by section 7048(a) of the appropriations act, and raises shortcomings with senior leadership and other UN member states to spur corrective action.  The Department has been monitoring the UN’s protection of whistleblower protections, including recent improvements to the organization’s whistleblower protection policy, which has been a priority for Secretary-General Guterres." We'll have more on this - given Kompass, WIPO, etc. "Policy" and practice are two very different things. Watch this site. When Helen Clark who ran an open campaign for Secretary General won by the significantly less open Antonio Guterres spoke about drugs near the UN on November 19, Inner City Press went to ask and cover it. On the panel also were two UN officials, Craig Mokhiber of the office of Michelle Bachelet and Simone Monasebian, the New York Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Ms Monasebian recounted how some member states were prepared to break consensus on a paragraph on harm reduction in the annual resolution in the UN's Third Committee so that paragraph was removed. Inner City Press when called on asked the panel about the Security Council's heavy handed and military approach to drugs, for example in Afghanistan, and asked for more detail on the Third Committee which it for 138 days has been banned from accessing by UNSG Guterres. Ms. Monasebian noted that beyond Afghanistan the Security Council addressed drugs from 2009 under the Presidency of then Council member Burkina Faso through 2014. Mr. Mokhiber said that military approaches are counter productive. And Helen Clark when she spoke chided the shrinking of civil society space and attacks on journlists including exclusion from the UN across the road. Video here. It was appreciated, as were the event's hosts. Also on panel was Ann Fordham of IDPC and Moderator Jimena Leiva Roesc. The US sponsored and strong-armed statement of September was panned, and Ms. Fordham noted the US is not even pressing it in Vienna. There are relatively better parts of the UN - from which for now Inner City Press remains entirely banned by Guterres, without any due process. What other candidate would have done this? When youth leaders from South Sudan and DR Congo took questions on October 26, it was across the street from the UN and Inner City Press went to ask and live-stream. Video here. It asked about the performance of the UN Missions UNMISS and MONUSCO. Emilie Katondolo of the DRC's Young Women for Peace and Leadership said MONUSCO must do more to protect civilians, giving the killings in Beni as an example. Inner City Press before the October 26 noon briefing it was banned from for the 114th day in a row - and which featured not a single question on anything in Africa - asked Spokesman Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq, as well as USG Alison Smale who's banned it, "on deadline, what IS the UN doing? Also, from South Sudan Susan Kyunon Sebit William  told Inner City Press that UNMISS does not sufficiently protect civilians, particularly women, citing Terrain Hotel etc. What IS the UN doing? What did it learn?" Apparently nothing - these has been no answer. But it was an interesting GNWP event, with Lynrose Jane Dumandan Genon from the Philippines and Katrina Leclerk from Canada, where she says students in Manitoba have partnered with the Eastern Congo. Meanwhile today's UN bans press. When "the Role of Conventional Arms in Preventing Conflicts" was debated across First Avenue frm the UN on October 25, Inner City Press went, to ask a question. Video here. It asked UN Peacekeeping official Thomas Kontogeorgos what the UN has done about its negligent loss of weapons and ammunition - which Inner City Press asked about IN the UN before being banned as cover up by SG Antonio Guterres and his USG Alison Smale. Kontogeorgos to his credit answered, only somewhat evasively, that DPKO "provided inputs" to the Small Arms Survey, and now UNPOL passes information to INTERPOL (the disappearance of whose head Guterres has said nothing about, despite written questions from Inner City Press.). At the end of the IPI program, Youssef Mahmoud spoke about the elephant(s) in the room, selling arms. Afterward Dr. Mihaela Racovita of SAS told Inner City Press they are trying to make further inroads with DPKO, for example with the mission in Mali. We hope to have more on this - the lawless ban by Guterres and Smale, for reporting on UN corruption, is not helpful. But we will not stop. Back 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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