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By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT CEFC Video

UNITED NATIONS, December 20 – At the UN under Secretary General Antonio Guterres there has been entirely unaddressed bribery, including offers of weapons for oil by UN non governmental organization China Energy Fund Committee of Ye Jianming which Guterres refuses to even audit - while roughing up and banning the Press which asks him about it. Now as Guterres prepares on December 21 to take off on another 11 day trip to Lisbon, still-banned Inner City Press can report that Guterres has essentially killed off the UN's already weak public financial disclosure system. His most recent online disclosure is from 2016, and it omits for example his listed role through 2018 in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Inner City Press has repeatedly asked Guterrs and his spokesmen Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq, "When will the public financial disclosures, in past years already online by this time, be made available?" For four days in a row, December 17 - 20, they did not answer a single written question from Inner City Press including about Cameroon and Togo, despite the promise by Guterres' Global Communicator Alison Smale to UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye. We have noted that Guterres' spouse Catarina Marques de Almeida Vaz Pinto has been Executive Coordinator of the Gulbenkian Programme for Creativity and Artistic Creation / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. There is still no answer to Inner City Press' detailed written questions about the business links in Africa and elsewhere of Guterres' son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres. Guterres and these named individuals have taken the UN to a new low of corruption. We will have more on this. Guterres refusal to initiate any audit, as even Ban Ki-moon did after the indictment of Ng Lap Seng for also bribing UN President of the General Assembly John Ashe, has allowed not only CEFC but another Ye Jianming NGO, known by names including the China Academy of Culture and the China Cultural Institute, to remain in the UN. In a 22 August 2017 press release, soon before the arrest and indictment of CEFC's Patrick Ho, this entity bragged: "Recommended by the UN NGO Committee of 19 countries, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) conducted its final review in New York in July 2017 and officially approved the granting of the Chinese Cultural Council to the UN Economic and Social Council in August. status". This is the first non-governmental organization approved by the United Nations to promote the "special consultative status" of Chinese culture. It is a high priority for Chinese culture and an affirmation of the work of the Chinese Cultural Institute created by China Huaxin. This marks the establishment of a formal cooperative relationship between the two sides, providing a new stage for the Chinese Cultural Institute to further carry out international cooperation and exchanges and to tell the Chinese story.
Since its establishment, the Chinese Cultural Institute, under the leadership of Chairman Ye Jianming and under the leadership of all directors, has implemented the "One Body and Two Wings" work principle proposed by President Xu Jialu with the purpose of "promoting the culture of Chinese culture and harmonious world." This is the same Ye Jianming who used UN accredited CEFC to bribe PGA Sam Kutesa, and to offer weapons for oil and a stake in the Chad Cameroon pipeline to Idriss Deby. Guterres refusal to audit, and his and his spokesman's refusal to even answer questions, make clear how corrupt the UN has become and that both should go. On 1 December 2018, before seven UN bribery guilty verdicts against Patrick Ho of China Energy Fund Committee, Inner City Press reported that Jeffrey Sachs, a long time UN (part time) official, was on a CEFC-UN Advisory Board, and tweeted the photograph, here.  On December 15 Sachs denied it, saying it is absurd. Really? Pressed, Sachs said "I attended an annual luncheon on two occasions (1 per year) hosted by the Chinese Gov for UN Ambassadors, which CEPC apparently catered.  I once went to a HK reception Mr. Ho was present.  That's it." Really? China Energy Fund Committee was more than a caterer. And this denial shows more clearly than ever why an audit of with whom CEFC has dealt with at and through the UN is necessary, and how irresponsible or worse Guterres is being. On December 17 Inner City Press in writing asked Guterres and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric, "December 17-7: On CEFC in the wake of the US v Ho verdicts, this is a request that the SG confirm and act on the other UN officials depicted as advisers to CEFC and its UN program - including Jeffrey Sachs, who has over the weekend online denied any such role, stating he may have attended a lunch “catered” by CEFC. Since this denial shows the absolute need for an audit at least like the previous SG did of Ng Lap Seng's groups, please state why the SG has not even begun such an audit." Five hours later, Dujarric had not answer this or any other question from banned Inner City Press. And those he allowed in "his" briefing room did not ask. Inner City Press has published the CEFC document listing Sachs' role, here on Scribed, here for download on Patreon.

Need for UN Audit Shown By ... by on Scribd

Three years ago Macau based businessman Ng Lap Seng was arrested and charged with bribing UN General Assembly President Josh Ashe and others, though Sun Kian Ip Foundation and other groups still in the UN. Ng was convicted of multiple violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and money laundering. But the issue of faux NGO purchase of the UN hasn't gone away. In fact, a second UN bribery case ended this week in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York with seven guilty verdicts.

In this second case, Patrick Ho was found guilty of seven of eight counts of FCPA and month laundering. (He was only not guilty on money laundering in Chad - where the bribe was not through any US bank but in cash, $2 million in a gift box). The evidence showed that the NGO he ran, China Energy Fund Committee, used its ongoing UN consultative status to pay bribes to Ugandan foreign minister - and Ashe's successor as President of the UN General Assembly -- Sam Kutesa. He was working with precedessor Vuk Jeremic while Jeremic was UN PGA. CEFC even offered weapons, tanks and drones, to Chad's long time president Idriss Deby for oil blocks or a stake in the Chad Cameroon pipeline. (Inner City Press published documents here.)

The night of the verdict I asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres what he will do to clean up the UN, where he has left CEFC without any audit, still in consultative status with the UN. On his way from his Mercedes to a glitzy fundraiser including George and Amal Clooney, Guterres refused to answer. The next day when asked by another journalist why Guterres had refused to answer banned Inner City Press' question, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric claimed that the UN has “cooperated” with the prosecution. But the bribery group remains in the UN, unaudited.

Why has the case of US versus Ho, and now the guilty verdicts, garnered relatively so little interest, with the corruption of the UN exposed by it scarcely mentioned all? SG Guterres is hoping it goes away. In terms of corruption, he did not disclose and refuses to answer on the African business links of his son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres. He refuses to answer how much he spends in public funds flying to his home in Lisbon at least sixteen times sofar as SG.

   So CEFC remains an accredited non governmental organization with the UN's Economic and Social Council, while investigative Inner City Press for which I have been covering the case has been dis-accredited by and ousted from the UN, put on a list of those permanently banned without notice, due process or appeal. On December 7 I was informed I am banned from a “UN Human Rights” event on December 10 to be addressed by Guterres and his human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet. But this reporting will not stop - Guterres' corruption of the UN must be addressed, through oversight or as is discussed elsewhere, impeachment. From the lofty goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Guterres' censorship for corruption is UNacceptable.

  With UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her Deputy Andrew Gilmour set to speak in the UN on human rights day on December 10, Inner City Press responded to an invitation and was told, "Thank you for registering to attend the Human Rights Day event at the United Nations on Monday 10 December. On Monday, please come to the UN Visitors’ Gate on First Avenue opposite 45th street starting at 2pm, at which time entry passes will be distributed."

Then, past six p.m. on Friday, December 7 this from Bachelet's and Gilmour's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: "Dear Matthew, We have received notification from UN Security that your name was flagged as "BARRED" on the list we submitted for passes for Monday's event (3pm, ECOSOC Chamber). We will therefore not have a pass for you and are unable to facilitate entry.
Thank you for your interest and best regards,
OHCHR New York Office." Photo of email here.

   Inner City Press immediately wrote back, to the sender and Bachelet and her assistant, to Andrew Gilmour and to the moderator of the event, "Particularly since you are the UN Office of the High Commissioner for *Human Rights,* did you not ask why a journalist who asks the Secretary General and his spokesmen about the killings in Cameroon, Burundi, UN corruption, UN peacekeepers' sexual abuse of civilians, and Sri Lanka, is “BARRED” from attending your human rights event - without any hearing or appeal? I will appreciate your Office's answer to this."  We'll have more on this.

 Bachelet gave a speech on October 15 in the UN's Third Committee, she emphasized a prioritization of social and economic rights and said one of the officials of her office is "on mission in Silicon Valley" in the US. There are questions about this - but Inner City Press which has covered human rights and the UN for more than a decade was for the first time banned from access a High Commissioner's speech. This has been raised repeated to Bachelet since she took office but she has so far done nothing, not even responded. Meanwhile on October 12 Cameroon, from whose Paul Biya Secretary General Antonio Guterres took a golden statue and favors in the Fifth (Budget) Committee and remains silent on the slaughter of Anglophones, was elected to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. This system is failing - but if Bachelet cannot even answer on Guterres maintaining a secret banned list including not only Inner City Press but also "political activists" - and anti-corruption campaigners - then the UN of Guterres has hit its newest low.

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