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In UN Budget Committee At
1 AM There's
$853,800 for Myanmar
Envoy, Liberia Asleep, 10
AM GA
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive, G77 draft, Video
UNITED NATIONS,
December 24 – The UN budget
was supposed to be adopted on
December 22 then, the
Committee chairman told Inner
City Press, noon on Saturday
December 23. This same
chairman, Tommo Monthe of
Cameroon, emerged from UN
Conference Room 6 past 9 pm on
Saturday and told Inner City
Press, C'est cuit,
it's cooked, by consensus. The
Fifth (Budget) Committee would
meet at 11:30 pm and run
through the agenda items. But
others told Inner City Press
that the General Assembly
Hall, to which the items must
next go, was going closed. At
11:30, the President of the
General Assembly confirmed
this: the GA session would be
10 am on Christmas Eve. After
that, a delay for printing of
documents, then Monthe marched
methodically through the vote.
On a document Inner City Press
obtained, Speial Political
Missions was blank. The
Comptroller read it out
orally, including $853,800 for
the belated UN envoy to
Myanmar. On a vote on R2P,
Liberia spoke up and said
having been asleep, an
abstention was intended. There
was laughter. It was after 1 am.
Earlier Tommo Monthe confirmed
Inner City Press' reporting on
constraints on freedoms the vacationing
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres had wanted, the
overall $166 million budget
cut figure including 15% and
higher in human rights. (He
smiled.) Others told Inner
City Press about North Korean
ships, here.
Particular opprobrium was
reserved for the Department of
Public Information under
Alison Smale. DPI had
requested 18 new posts or
jobs, all of which were
rejected, with the word
"abolished" reserved for
(GS)OL and Public Information
officer (Japan) and UNIC-DC
(G77 and China). Quitting
time? On the other hand, no
thanks to Smale, the push
continued for posts in the
Kiswahili and Portuguese UN
Radio units. 18 posts or not,
Smale or not, the UN and DPI
must implement content neutral
accreditation and access
guidelines. We'll have more on
this. When Inner City Press
came in through the tourists'
entrance Saturday at 2,
nothing was moving except
diplomats sleepwalking down in
the 1B basement. One told
Inner City Press the vote
might not happen until 8 pm on
Saturday; another gave it a
copy of the "negotiators'
broad agreement" including 10%
to 25% cuts in human rights.
Exclusive photo here.
(Inner City Press would scan
the whole document, but its
scanned was evicted from UN
along with all in its office
by UN Department of Public
Information, run by Alison Smale.)
Where was UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, with the
reforms he ran on and
supposedly cares about also
getting bogged down? He was on
vacation already, for the next
ten days, leaving the
investigative Press restricted
and killings in Cameroon and
elsewhere unaddressed. Among
the parts of the UN facing
budget cuts for waste is not
only the Department of Public
Information, increasingly a
propaganda arm which, as if as
a sidelight, engages in
censorship of the
investigative Press, but also
the UN's Regional Commissions,
Budget Committee officials
told Inner City Press on
December 13. On December 21,
as Inner City Press covered
the process down in the UN
basement past 11 pm, this was
confirmed. The US wants to cut
from Regional Commissions, the
sources said, while others
target "human rights" and
DESA, the Department of
Economic and Social Affairs,
respectively. Inner City Press
asked the spokesman for the
President of the General
Assembly about it on December
22, then at 3 pm headed down
to Conference Room 5. After
other reporting, Inner City
Press asked the chair,
Saturday? He said, Yes, we'll
vote as the Fifth Committee
plenary at noon on Saturday,
then GA in the afternoon.
During this, Secretary General
Antonio Guterres is already on
vacation, through January 3.
The chair told Inner City
Press, we're just working
through associated issues.
These include the Group of 77
and China's response to
vacationing Antonio Guterres
requesting more discretion. See G77 draft Combined
Proposal as of 8 am on
December 22, which for example
"15. decides not to implement
any changes at present
regarding any expansion of
exceptional budgetary
authorities, unforeseen and
extraordinary expenses, and
the Secretary-General’s
limited budgetary discretion."
Full draft here
on Patreon. Late night on
December 21-22 Paraguay bought
in empanadas just before
midnight; UK Deputy Jonathan
Allen, who had spoken on
Peacekeeping much earlier in
the day, told Inner City
Press, "Could be a long one."
It always is - and this year,
there are more cuts publicly
threatened. Inner City Press
was exclusively informed by
sources that of the $250
million cut proposed by the
US, the cutting number is now
$166 million, "it's just a
question of where." In the 1B
basement there were meetings
on Reform, Construction and
the all-important Budget in
multiple locations. "China has
gotten involved," another
source told Inner City Press,
naming Cherith Norman as
involved for the US and
contrasting her to former US
rep Joe Torsella. "We will
work all night," another
source said," and vote it
through at 3, or 6, or 10 pm."
There were jokes made about a
UNGA speech on "puppets"
earlier in the day. "Watch
out, though," one source said,
"like the lady across the
street, he might rising up in
his government." Antonio
Guterres was long gone, on
vacation through January
3. His deputy Amina Mohammed,
the spokesman told Inner City
Press, would remain. But she withheld
information even from her
public schedule.It was the UN
caste system at work, although
UK Deputy Permanent
Representative Jonathan Allen
was still there at 10 pm,
telling Inner City Press,
"Live the dream." Only at the
UN. Inner City Press has
previously reported on and
asked about the presence of
the Latin American Regional
Commission (ECLAC) chief
Alicia Barcena with Antonio
Guterres when he spoke before
the Committee. The UN then
told Inner City Press Barcena
was called on by Guterres for
her expertise, but remains
head of ECLAC. We'll have more
on this. The Budget Committee
officials told Inner City
Press that if the Advisory
Committee on Administrative
and Budgetary Questions does
not finish "five big reports"
by the end of this week,
concluding the session on
December 22 may be unlikely.
At the noon briefing on
December 14, Inner City Press
asked the spokesman for the
President of the General
Assembly for the status of the
ACABQ reports, and about the
budget process. The question
has been answered in writing:
"The President of the General
Assembly is aware of and
concerned by the late arrival
of documents to the Fifth
Committee for its
consideration. This has been a
persistent problem, hampering
the work of the Committee. The
President has discussed this
issue with the Chairs of the
Advisory Committee on
Administrative and Budgetary
Questions (ACABQ) and the
Fifth Committee. He has also
been kept abreast of the state
of play in the Fifth
Committee, including through
periodic contact with the
Fifth Committee’s Chair. ACABQ
is a subsidiary organ of the
General Assembly and is
represented in the Fifth
Committee by its Chair." We'll
have more on this. At the noon
briefing on December 13, Inner
City Press asked UN Spokesman
Farhan Haq, UN transcript
here: Inner City Press: I'm
sure you're aware that, in the
Budget Committee, proposals
have been made for more
substantial cuts than… than
the Secretary-General has
proposed. He's proposed
200 million. There's a
proposal for 2… an additional
$250 million in cuts.
And I wanted to ask you about…
part of it, I've heard from a
Budget Committee official, is
the regional commissions to
face… as well as special
political commissions, DPI
[Department of Public
Information]. And I
wanted to know, number one,
are there contingency plans to
implement it? Do you
have any response to this
desire for cuts? And Ms.
[Alicia] Bárcena, who I know
is the head of a regional
commission, is this… I'd asked
Stéphane [Dujarric], I think,
what… she was, you know,
sitting behind the
Secretary-General in the
presentation to the Budget
Committee. Is this her
role? What's the… what
is the response to the… the
desire to cut these regional
commissions? Can you
justify their current
budget?Deputy Spokesman:
Regarding this, this is a
matter that's up for
discussions among the Member
States, and we'll let the
Member States discuss amongst
themselves how to proceed
forward with a budget.
And so, the matter is in their
hands, and we're not going to
comment while they're dealing
with it." New DPI chief Alison
Smale's swearing in ceremony
was closed to the Press; she
has still not even responded
to Inner City Press' three
petitions for review of its
eviction and restriction for
reporting on corruption at the
UN. Meanwhile, the UN Budget
Committee head for the year,
the Cameroonian Ambassador who
joined DPI in its censorship
after Inner City Press asked
about abuses by his president
Paul Biya, told Inner City
Press it will all be done by
December 22. We'll see. The UN
delivered a threat
to Inner City Press to
“review” it accreditation on
October 20 at 5 pm. The UN
official who signed the letter,
when Inner City Press went to
ask about the undefined
violation of live-streaming
Periscope video at a photo op
by UN Secretary General
Antonio Guterres, had already
left, minutes after sending
the threat. This comes two
days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the
UN inaction on threatened
genocide in Cameroon, and the
UN claimed
Guterres hadn't heard the
15-second long question.
It also
comes after Alison Smale the
head of the Department of
Public Information which would
“review” Inner City Press'
accreditation has ignored threeseparatepetitions
from Inner City Press in the
six weeks she has been in the
job, urging her to remove
restrictions on Inner City
Press' reporting which hinder
its coverage of the UN's
performance in such crises as
Yemen,
Kenya,
Myanmar,
and the Central African
Republic where Guterres
travels next week, with
Smale's DPI saying its
coverage of the trip will be a
test of its public relations
ability. But the UN official
who triggered the complaint is
Maher Nasser, who filled in
for Smale before she arrived.
His complaint is that audio of
what he said to Inner City
Press as it staked out the
elevators in the UN lobby
openly recording, as it has
for example
with Cameroon's Ambassador
Tommo Monthe, here,
was similarly published.
A UN “Public Information”
official is complaining about
an article, and abusing his
position to threaten to review
Inner City Press'
accreditation. The UN has
previously been called
out for targeting Inner
City Press, and for having no
rules or due process.
But the UN is entirely
UNaccountable, impunity on
censorship as, bigger picture,
on the cholera it brought to
Haiti. And, it seems, Antonio
Guterres has not reformed or
reversed anything. This threat
is from an official involved
in the last round of
retaliation who told Inner
City Press on Twitter to be
less "negative" about the UN -
amid inaction on the mass
killing in Cameroon - and who
allowed pro-UN hecking of
Inner City Press' questions
about the cholera the UN
brought to Haiti and the Ng
Lap Seng /John Ashe UN bribery
scandal which resulted in six
guilty verdicts. We'll have
more on this.
***
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