At UN,
Call for
Election
Boycott, No
Ban Answer on
Samsung TV to
Scribes
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 10 --
Of the two
elections
scheduled this
week
in the UN, in
the one of the
UN Staff Union
voting began
Tuesday
morning in the
UN lobby. The
other in the
UN Correspondents
Association
features a request
for a Samsung
television
and little
competition --
none for the
top two spots.
The UN in more
than 24 hours
had not
answered Inner
City Press'
December 9
question about
Samsung and
"donations." This is
a pattern, updated and updated
here: UNCA
mis-spoke in
saying no
mission was
involved in
the donation.
To Inner City
Press'
December 10
question about
the Staff
Union
election,
spokesperson
Farhan Haq
said the UN
does not get
involved.
An hour after
Haq's
statement, an
officious
e-mail went
out urging UN
staff to
boycott the
election - a call that
when made by a
political
party in
Nepal, the UN
denounced.
Here's the key
part:
Date:
Tue, Dec 10,
2013 at 1:37
PM
Subject: no to
fake
elections!
From:
Egor
Ovcharenko
[at] un.org
Dear
colleagues,
given
the number of
false
statements
circulated
last days, I
decided that
it is my duty
to clarify
what is going
on.
Last
Friday Staff
Union informed
all of you
that its
Polling
Officers have
been recalled
by Unit
Chairpersons,
the very same
body that
elected
them.
From
that day on,
these recalled
officers have
no right to
act as Union
officials, and
their actions
or
communications
do not engage
our
Union in the
slightest.
(Administration
has
been duly
informed, as
it has an
obligation, in
accordance
with
staff rule 8.1
d), to ensure
the fairness
of the ballot.
Unfortunately,
its actions,
for instance,
suspension of
Polling
Officers'
e-mail, are
still
pending.)
Therefore
fake
elections the
recalled
Polling
Officers are
preparing must
be
called by
their proper
name:
electoral
fraud...
Everyone
can make his
or her own
judgment. My
opinion is
that these
fake elections
are, in fact,
a private
enterprise.
I
advise you not
to participate
in it, as
there are
reasons to
believe
that the
motives of its
organizers are
far from
innocent, as
their
record clearly
shows.
Best,
Egor
Ovcharenko
Rapporteur of
the United
Nations Staff
Union
Coordinator of
DGACM Staff
Representatives
This back and
forth has
echoes of the
election in
Cote d'Ivoire
that led to
military
intervention.
By contrast,
no Permanent
Five members
of the
Security Council
has enough of
an interest
here for even
a public
relations
intervention,
thus far.
The other
"election" --
though four of
the six top
posts are
clean slates
with no
competition
-- is of
the United
Nations Correspondents
Association,
whose more
than a dozen board
members
participated
in efforts
to get the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN.
Nothing has
been reformed
since; tactics
in 2013 devolved
into anonymous
social media
trolling and
counterfeit
Twitter
accounts of
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
and of Inner
City Press.
An argument is
still being
made that the
2013 president
of UNCA,
Pamela Falk of
CBS, is
somehow not
responsible
for this, for
trolling done
under her
watch, and for
heading an
organization
which
functions as
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance. This
is contrary to
the very
"command responsibility"
principles the
two top
candidates
awaiting
coronation have
espoused.
The decision
to accept
"through" the
UN a Samsung
television is
defended by
referring to
some vibrant debate,
with no record
sent out of
any voting,
much less a
roll call
disclosing who
voted to take
the Samsung
television.
The defenders
of the gift,
Inner City
Press is told,
pointed out that
UNCA already
takes
corporate (and
governmental)
advertisements
in its
(partial) book
of journalists
covering the
UN, including
for example
from the Italian
oil firm ENI.
At the December
9 noon
briefing
Inner City
Press asked:
Inner
City Press: is
there a
comprehensive
place to go to
see what
donations the
UN receives
from
corporations?
In particular,
I’m
asking about
what I
understand to
be a donation
of television
screens
or sets from
Samsung and I
wanted to
know, what are
the rule
applicable to
these
donations? Is
the UN aware,
for example,
of
pretty serious
organizing
drive in South
Korea about occupational
diseases
at Samsung?
What are the
rules
applicable and
is there a
database of
such
contributions?
Spokesperson:
I’ll check,
Matthew.
Thanks very
much. Have a
good
afternoon.
But 26 hours
later, there
was still no
answer.
Unaccountability
is
increasingly
pervasive
throughout the
UN, in ways as
small as this
and large, for
example on the
scandal of UN
Peacekeeping
having brought
cholera to
Haiti and now
refusing
to even accept
(or
confirm
denying)
service
of legal
papers.
At
least in the
UN Staff
Union, when it
was claimed
last week that
a vote was
taken to
recall the
poll officers,
a request was
made for the
names of who
voted which
way.
In the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance,
as documented
by ongoing
Freedom of
Information
Act requests
including to
Voice of
America, "UNCA"
reached out to
the UN to seek
the expulsion
of Inner City
Press without
any vote even
having been
taken.
There have
been no
reforms since
-- but again,
a
re-coronation
of Pamela Falk
of CBS as the
2014 president
of UNCA,now
known as the
UN Censorship
Alliance, is
set for next
week.
A second
midnight
defense has
been mounted,
that Falk has
not "done anything"
to anyone, or
even spoken
badly. Well,
the UNCA
trolls are
attributable
to her,
including
under command
responsibility. In
2013, she was
asked to reign
in those UNCA
"leaders" who
used the
organization
to try to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN,
as they
descended into
anonymous
trolling
social media
accounts,
counterfeiting
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
and
then Inner
City Press.
Falk's
reaction in an
on
the record
meeting
was to demand
that she not
be
written about,
despite having
sought this
position, and
putting
herself
forward at
every
opportunity to
ask softball
questions the
answers to
which are most
often not
published
anywhere. Audio here,
here
and
here.
The
United Nations
Correspondents
Association
election also
involves
indicters and
purported
judges, and
the Reuters
successor to the
scribe who
spied (click
here for that).
That spying for
the UN was
done by UNCA
first vice
president and
has not been
addressed or
acted on in
any way. Such
an
organization
is in no
position to
preach on
ethics,
journalistic
or any other
kind.
Now
this UNCA is
poised to
raise money,
$250 a plate,
for an event
Ban
Ki-moon is set
to attend,
after fielding
softball
questions two
days
earlier from
his hosts (or
censors). Can
you say,
conflict of
interest? And
this is
another way
that senior UN
officials
remain
unaccountable.
Watch this
site.
, 
