UN
Cherry-Picks Two of Five Press Qs,
Gallach & Bashir, Leaves
Cameroon & W Sahara
UNanswered
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 29 – What is the bare
minimum a spokesperson should
be expected to do, for an
organization like the UN?
Should it include at least
providing some response to
Press questions submitted,
rather as happened at the UN
on March 29, providing two
responses to five Inner City
Press question, simply
ignoring questions on
Cameroon, corruption and
Western Sahara? Inner City
Press on the morning of March
29 asked the UN's top three
spokespeople "questions in
advance of the noon briefing,
to be answered at that time:
1) What is the Secretary
General's comment on Jordan
rolling out the red carpet for
Sudan's Omar al Bashir,
subject to an ICC arrest
warrant for genocide? 2) Given
that the UN Economic
Commission for Africa has had
to delay its meeting with
African finance ministers at
the Dakar meeting the 38th
floor is tracking due to
Morocco seeking to exclude the
Polisario, does the SG / DPA
think these developments move
the situation in Western
Sahara closer to a peaceful
solution and referendum? 3) In
one of two UN-related bribery
prosecutions in the US
District Court for the
Southern District of New York,
Ng Lap Seng's co-defendant
Jeff C. Yin is now engaged in
plea negotiations, as Ng Lap
Seng's trial draws near. Will
the UN be monitoring the trial
as to what it shows of UN
involvement, and what was done
regarding the DGACM official
who provided a falsified /
amended for “technical”
reasons document regarding the
proposed Macau convention
center? 4) Because UNanswered,
asking again: In Cameroon,
former UN legal adviser (in
UNAMA and elsewhere) Felix
Agbor Balla now, according to
a UK-based barristers'
organization, faces a military
trial with the death penalty
on the table for speaking out
about conditions in the
country's Anglophone areas,
where the Internet has been
cut for 71 days and counting.
Particularly given
Agbor-Balla's former position
as a UN legal expert, what is
not only the UN's comment, but
what is the UN doing to
attempt to ensure he receives
due process? Also, what about
the arrest of human rights
lawyer Robert Fon and his
transfer to Yaounde? Also,
yesterday your Office replied,
regarding the USG of DPI, “We
will announce arrivals and
departures as they occur.” Now
that your partner has arranged
a farewell for this USG for
March 30, what is the
rationale for your Office
refusing to confirm her
departure and the status of
recruiting a replacement? And
the unanswered questions
below."
To those
Inner City Press questions,
the UN Spokesman provided,
past 2:30 pm, only this --
"Regarding your question about
Omar al-Bashir, our position
on him remains
unchanged. We urge all
States, including the States
Parties to the Rome Statute of
the ICC, to abide by their
obligations. Regarding the
naming of senior officials, we
have announced two
appointments today (for the
Executive Director of WFP and
the High Commissioner for
Disarmament Affairs).
Other announcements will be
made in due course.
Regarding
Under-Secretary-General
Cristina Gallach, her position
will be filled by an
Officer-in-Charge upon her
departure while the process to
find a new
Under-Secretary-General for
Public Information continues."
So, nothing on Cameroon or
Morocco / Western Sahara /
ECA, nor other questions on UN
costs and corruption. We'll
have more on this.
Again, what
is the bare
minimum a
spokesperson
should be
expected to
do, for an
organization
like the UN? Should
it include, if a spokesperson
has no answer to a
journalist's questions at an
in-person briefing, e-mailing
an answer when it becomes
available? Not in today's UN
Spokesperson's office, at
least not for Inner City Press
which that Office evicted
from the UN Press Briefing
Room and then
the UN, and still
restricts. On March 7,
holdover Deputy Spokesperson
Haq wouldn't even explain why
he had not provided available
UN information,
video here. On March 6,
Inner City Press asked Deputy
Spokesman Farhan Haq about
Nepal. From the UN
transcript:
Inner City
Press: I know that the
UN used to have a mission in
Nepal, but there's been kind
of increasing problems in the
Madhesi and Tharu communities
there, including now today
people killed by security
forces. And it seems to
be politically there are
groups trying to
mobilize. So, I just
wondered, since the
Secretary-General talks about
preventative diplomacy, is the
UN actually looking at this
growing problem in
Nepal? And does it have
any idea of trying to somehow
get involved as well as
commenting on the killing of
unarmed individuals by the
security forces?
Deputy Spokesman: Well,
of course, we want to make
sure that any excessive use of
force will be
investigated. Beyond
that, we're monitoring the
situation. If there's
anything further down the
line, we'll let you know at
that point.
"We'll let you know." Well,
the UN Office in Nepal put out
a statement that it is
"seriously concerned by the
escalation of tensions in the
lead-up to the local elections
announced for May," which
others (not in the UN) then
sent to Inner City Press. From
the UN's two holdover
spokesmen, nothing. On March
7, Inner City Press asked Haq
why he hadn't followed through
on his "if there's anything
further down the line, we'll
let you know" line. From the March 7
transcript:
Inner City
Press: yesterday I’d
asked you about Nepal, and you
said, you know, “I’ll get back
to you if something comes
out”. Something actually
did come out from the office
of Nepal. So I… maybe
you’ll read it from here, but,
like… wasn’t that… when you
say “I’m gonna get back to
you”, does it mean I’m going
to send you something if the
UN system provides the
information? Like, what
happened?
Deputy Spokesman: It
means exactly what it
means. We’ve been
dealing with each other for
years. You’ll get
answers down the line once we
get them.
Inner City Press: So do
you have… you’re unaware that
the office of Nepal has
actually put out a statement
about the incident I asked you
about yesterday, or do you
have that?
Deputy Spokesman: I’m
aware that they’ve put out a
statement. That was
after I was at the
briefing. If it was
before the briefing, we could
have mentioned it then.
Inner City Press: Right,
but since… between the two
briefings, like, once they put
it out.
Beckett.
Or Pinter. This is similar to
lead spokesman Stephane
Dujarric, when Inner City
Press asked last week about
the abuse of Anglophones in
Cameroon, not even asking or
providing a response from the
Department of Political
Affairs, whose Jeffrey Feltman
in a rare Q&A session on
March 6 said that ONUCA's
Francois Lonseny Fall had
visited the region. Lazy spox,
indeed. UNacceptable. We'll
have more on this.
Earlier (2016) here.
***
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