By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 5 --
When UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon unveiled
his “synthesis”
report on
the UN’s
post-2015
development
agenda on
December 5 it
said, "Press
freedom and
access to
information,
freedom of
expression,
assembly and
association
are enablers
of sustainable
development."
This is hypocritical
on more than
one count,
including that
the UN
Secretariat
has no Freedom
of Information
Act or process,
something that
Inner City
Press and now
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
have been
asking about
and pushing
for.
As with legal
accountability
for harm done,
as by the UN
bringing
cholera to
Haiti, how can
the Ban's UN
preach to
member states
policies that
are not
applied to the
UN at all?
The
UN's lack of
accountability,
from bringing
cholera to
Haiti to
using as “peacekeepers”
armies under
investigation
for war crimes
like those of
the DR Congo
and Sri Lanka,
is enabled by
the lack of
even a basic
FOIA covering
the UN.
Inner
City Press,
which has
litigated FOIA
cases all the
way to the US
Supreme Court
and submitted
FOI request to
dozens of
countries, has
long
pushed for
a UN Freedom
of Information
Act.
On November 7,
Inner City
Press for the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access asked
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric point
blank: why not
disclose for
example when
Ban takes
gifts like
Qatar's of
free private
jet travel to
the Middle
East this
year?
Dujarric after
claiming that
disclosing
such
information,
or setting up
"structure" to
disclose such
basic
information,
would required
General
Assembly
approval, said
he had nothing
to add. Video
here.
Nothing to
disclose?
As
reported on
September 15 by the Columbia Journalism Review, “Inner City Press...
reported that
Burnham’s
successor,
Alicia
Barcena, said
it would be in
place by the
end of 2007.
But the
General
Assembly never
agreed on the
scheme, and it
was quietly
shelved.
“There were
differing
views among
Member States
about what
constituted
openness,”
said Stephane
Dujarric,
spokesman for
Secretary-General
Ban Ki Moon,
in an email.”
(Inner City
Press asked
Dujarric about
the quote at
the September
15, 2014, noon
briefing, video here and embedded below.)
What
leadership --
citing
“differing
views,” the UN
Secretariat
gave up before
it even began.
CJR also
quotes a rights
group which
won't disclose
what issues it
raises to Ban,
and
correspondents
happy to get
leaks and text
from their
Western
sources. This
same organization,
beyond
its Executive
Committee
trying to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN,
withheld
its Q&A
with Ban
Ki-moon even
from its own
members, here.
This group,
the so-called
United Nations
Correspondents
Association,
has now
returned its censor
in chief Giampaolo Pioli
to its helm,
to raise
toasts with
Ban Ki-moon
while having
tried to
get the
investigative
Press thrown
out, and
doing nothing
for freedom of
information.
As to freedom
of
association,
Pioli declared
to someone
whose vote he
was soliciting
-- in an
election
without competition
-- that no one
can be a member
of FUNCA and
"his" UN
Correspondents
Association at
the same time.
That is, he
can tell
people what they
can join, and
how they
should think.
This is the
UN's partner.
In order to
pursue more
access to
information --
and the
protection of
the rights of
investigative
journalists
against such
insider
approaches --
Inner City
Press
co-founded the
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access.
FUNCA
says it is
absurd for the
UN Secretariat
to blame
member states
for its own
refusal to be
transparent
with its own
financial
information.
Furthermore,
how can Ban's
UN make claims
about “we the
peoples” while
blaming
unnamed
governments
for banning
accountability
to the
peoples?
CJR
concluded, as
we will for
now, with
this: “Inner
City Press
continues to
advocate for a
systematic
freedom of
information
policy, but
admits that
there is
little binding
pressure
journalists
can put on the
UN legally.
'Ultimately
you end up
making a moral
argument,
which is that
more so than
most
governments,
the UN is
always
pontificating
about good
governance and
transparency,'
he said.
'That’s what I
find so
ironic.'”
Ironic
is a
diplomatic way
to put it.
Watch this
site -- and this (FUNCA) one.
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