Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

On Syria, Ban & Annan Stonewall on Mandates, Censor Selectively

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 25 -- With the UN observer mission in Syria widely seen as failing, Press questions about the division of labor and responsibility are referred from New York to Geneva back to New York, never getting answered. Rather, a focus seems to be been to selectively censor Press coverage of the failures.

 On May 21, Inner City Press asked the spokespeople for current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his predecessor Kofi Annan for a "description of the division of labor and mandates between Annan's Deputy Guehenno and UN Peacekeeping chief Ladsous, and if Annan's Deputy El-Kidwa has since taking the post asked to enter Syria, and what the response was."

  When Inner City Press asked this question at the UN in New York, the response was to ask Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi in Geneva, which Inner City Press immediately did.

  It was two days -- and many dead -- later when Fawzi sent an interim (non) response: "Will get back to you on questions related to the Deputies. On questons about the Fijians and USG/Ladsous, please ask Kieran Dwyer" [the spokesman for Ladsous].

  In the two days since, no answer about Annan's Deputies has been provided. Kieran Dwyer, on the other hand, has demanded that Inner City Press remove Ladsous' name from an article which quoted Ambassadors at the UN that he would visit Damascus.

  Dwyer, and Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky, claimed that censorship was appropriate because Inner City Press had put Ladsous at risk.

  Now in the last 12 hours the Reuters news agency, at which both Nesirky and Fawzi proudly say they used to work, has through its UN correspondent Louis Charbonneau (who this week stole Inner City Press' exclusive that US official Jeffrey Feltman will come work for Ban Ki-moon, without giving credit as for example Foreign Policy's The Cable did, and tried to have Inner City Press ejected from the UN) quoted unnamed "UN envoys" that Kofi Annan himself, certainly a higher profile target than the uncommunicative Ladsous, would be going to Syria on May 27.

  Rather than request censorship from Reuters, hours later Fawzi told the agency, his former employer, that "Annan will visit Syria 'soon.'" This two paragraph piece, datelined Geneva, has "reporting" by Louis Charbonneau. Nothing has been said of the previous report naming May 27 as causing danger or needing to be censored.

  In the interim, Fawzi has still not answered any part of the Press questions referred to him by Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's office on May 21. At that day's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Press: this trip that was made by, I believe, Ladsous, Mr. [Jean-Marie] Guéhenno and Babacar Gaye — what's the breakdown? It was described prior to the trip that Mr. Guéhenno was going there on a, quote, “on the political track”. What's the division of labour between them? Is Mr. Ladsous only concerning the observers or is he also something of a mediator on the political track, and was there any request for Mr. [Nasser] al-Kidwa, who is the other deputy of Kofi Annan, to in fact enter Syria?

Spokesperson: I think Mr. [Ahmad] Fawzi made clear that Mr. Guéhenno’s work is to assess what the situation is on the ground, and he had suggested that there would be a deputy of Mr. Annan going there, and that Mr. Annan might make a visit later down the line. As for Mr. Ladsous, I just read out a note about his work and what he was doing. Again, if you didn’t hear it, he was there to meet with observers from the UN Supervision Mission and to assess the progress on the ground to date.

Inner City Press: What about Mr. al-Kidwa? Is he, I mean, what’s, what’s his function as the Joint Special Envoy’s second deputy? Has he ever entered Syria? Has he been denied ability to enter Syria?

Associate Spokesperson: He is one of the deputies; you can talk to the Joint Special Envoy’s spokesperson, Mr. Fawzi, about what he is doing.

  And so an hour after this May 21 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Fawzi:

"just now at the UN noon briefing I asked for a description of the division of labor and mandates between the JSE's Deputy Guehenno and DPKO chief Ladsous, and if the JSE's Deputy El-Kidwa has since taking the post asked to enter Syria, and what the response was. I was told to ask the JSE's spokesman: you. So I am asking, along with the outstanding questions below.

"Relatedly, Syrian state media says that Mr. Annan is the 'UN envoy' - do you correct that? - while KUNA reports that Ladsous 'will meet leaders of opposition groups in Syria to discuss their views of the crisis.' Is that what he is discussing, and what is the division of labor and mandates between the JSE / Deputy Guehenno and DPKO chief Ladsous?"

  Two days later, Fawzi sent an interim reply, "Will get back to you on questions related to the Deputies. On questons about the Fijians and USG/Ladsous, please ask Kieran Dwyer."
 
   In the two further days since then, no responses or explanations from Fawzi. Here is what Kieran Dwyer sent Inner City Press, copying Ban's spokesman Nesirky:

  For the UN to request post-publication removal from the Internet of information, stated on the record by a Security Council's Permanent Representative, seemed to implicate freedom of the press issues which have not been the UN's priority under Ban Ki-moon.

  But within minutes of receiving the above, Inner City Press modified the story, removing the name and an included critique of the individual specified in DPKO's removal request -- that is, Mr. Ladsous and his refusal to answer any questions as DPKO fails under his watch.  And so it goes at the UN.