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In UN's Culture of Peace, Pomp and Sleaze Compete
With Middle East Politics
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 12 -- As a two-day
"Culture of Peace" extravaganza began at the UN, three luxury tour
busses with golden tire rims and blackened windows burst out of traffic
on 42nd
Street. They turned into the UN's compound, disgorging an entourage in
dish-dash robes. Some carrying what observers called Aladdin lamps were
whisked
past security, to the side of the metal detectors. Meanwhile the Press
was
barred from the area in front of the General Assembly chamber, even
blocked
from covering the Security Council meeting at which, ironically, the Al
Qaeda
sanctions committee was being discussed.
Trying to
reach the meeting by way of the UN's basement, Inner City Press
stumbled on a
gaggle of security officers in front of Conference Room A. Minutes
later, the
Permanent Observer of Palestine came out, with another larger flotilla
behind
him. In the emptied room were tipped over water bottles and crossed
Israeli and
Palestinian flags.
On the day
before the conference, the UN's envoy Terje Roed Larsen was spotted on
the
fourth floor by the bank, in an expensive brown coat said to be of
camel's
hair. Beyond working in or through the UN, he heads a think-tank on the
other
side of First Avenue which is said to receive substantial Saudi
funding. This
conflict of interest is not disclosed, because Roed Larsen has not made
the
public financial disclosure that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has
called on
all senior envoys like Roed Larsen to make. The man, it's said, has
protectors.
He is a diplomatic entrepreneur, who in this case seems to have
arranged the
lucrative renting-out of the UN's vacuum for two days.
UN's Ban among the Saudis, "Culture of Peace" not shown
The night
before the conference, there was bitter and some said petty talk about
the
impending deployment in the General Assembly hall of ceremonial chairs
which
are supposed to only be used during the annual General Debate in
September.
Suspects in veering from the past include Protocol and the head of the
Department of General Assembly and Conference Management, Shaban
Shaban., who had yet to hold a press briefing. "If you let the Saudis
break even this precedent," one well-placed
staff member complained, "then others will ask start asking the
same." But what others will rent out hotels and pay other delegations'
costs?
General
Assembly President Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, asked about the
event,
said that while he wrote the invitation letter, the idea had come from
Saudi
Arabia and Ban Ki-moon. He did not answer Inner City Press' question
about the role of Terje Roed Larsen. When asked about the pending GA
resolution against the
defamation of religion, he said he hadn't heard about it, adding
regarding the
United States that "those who live under glass houses shouldn't throw
bombs." How about those in a glass building?
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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