Occupy
the UN Called
For As
Bank of
America
Invited In by
Ban Ki-moon,
Who Excludes
Africa,
Proposes UN
Drones
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 24 --
"Occupy Wall
Street is
coming," a UN
Security
officer told
Inner City
Press on March
23. "We've
been
told to get
ready for
them."
Inner
City Press
since last
Fall has
called on and
off for an
"Occupy the
UN."
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon and
his
spokespeople,
when Inner
City Press
asked
questions
about the mass
arrest of 700
peaceful
protesters on
the Brooklyn
Bridge or the
shooting of
Scott Olsen in
Oakland, were
slow
to comment
- then told
Inner City
Press the
Oakland Police
Department
"acted
responsibly,"
click here for
that story.
Telling, as exposed on
March 22, UN
Peacekeeping
is quietly
proposing to
intercept
communications
and use
surveillance -
drones, as
member states
complained
to Inner City
Press.
When
Inner City
Press asked
how Ban could
name as the
co-chair
of his
"Sustainable
Energy for
All" group
Charles
Holliday,
the chairman
of Bank of
America
which has been
protested
as the
number one
funder of
mountaintop
removal coal
mining,
the UN called
Holliday a
responsible
businessman.
Ban's
adviser
Robert Orr
further
defended Bank
of America to
Inner City
Press; now
Orr is in
charge of
"public
private
partnerships"
for the
UN. The UN
also has a
Global Compact
with business
which
essentially
blue washes
multinational
corporations.
When
as is rare,
non-violent
protesters
came on to UN
grounds to
protest
Dupont, they
were stopped
and ejected.
Apparently,
there is no
right to
peaceful
dissent in the
UN.
(UN Security
have their own
grievances:
when they were
beaten by the
bodyguards of
a member state
last
September, Ban
immediately
apologized to
the member
state.)
And
so it is
entirely
appropriate
that the UN
now become the
target of
protest by
Occupy. The
only question
is "what took
so long?" It's
important to
recognize that
the corporate
domination
that will be
protested is
not limited to
corporate
lobbying of
the member
states
that will
attend the Rio
+ 20
conference --
the
corporation
have
gotten into
the UN
Secretariat,
have been
invited in by
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon and
his team.
The
invitations,
even at the
level of
staff, are
more and more
selective. Ban
is
letting go his
African Deputy
Secretary
General Asha
Rose Migiro of
Tanzania, to
be replaced by
a 71 year old
European. His
top Africa
adviser post,
Ban recently
gave to an
Egyptian
diplomat who
represented
now deposed
dictator Hosni
Mubarak.
When
Ban spoke
with Yemen's
Ali Saleh,
Inner City
Press asked
Ban if he had
raised
the immunity
deal Saleh was
seeking and
got, after
killing over
1000
civilians. No,
Ban told Inner
City Press, it
didn't come
up.
Nor
has Ban's UN
admitted, much
less provided
compensation
for, having
brought
cholera
into Haiti.
Ban
himself is, as
usual, out of
town. Most
recently he
met with the
President of
his
native South
Korea,
devoting seven
sentences of
his read-out
to North
Korea, two to
Syria, with a
mere passing
reference to
Africa,
congratulating
Lee Myung-bak
for sending a
small group of
engineers
to the UN
mission in
South Sudan.
In
Sudan, the UN
offered free
helicopter
flights to
Darfur
genocide
mastermind
Ahmed
Harun, despite
him having
been indicted
for war crimes
by the
International
Criminal
Court. Ban
has accepted
without
comment
another
alleged war
criminal, Sri
Lankan General
Shavendra
Silva, as his
Senior Adviser
on
Peacekeeping.
To
Syria, UN
envoy
Kofi Annan has
an adviser
Nicholas
Michel, who
was he was
chief
lawyer for the
UN
nevertheless
took $12,000 a
month from his
government, as
exposed by
Inner City
Press, to rent
a seven
bedroom
apartment on
Park Avenue.
He told Inner
City Press he
couldn't find
anything
"appropriate"
that was
cheaper.
There
is an
overlap
between the
top echelons
of the United
Nations and
the 1%,
one hopes the
connect gets
made now, even
if only as
part of a
"Mock'Upation,"
and even more
going forward.
Watch this
site.
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