After
Eviction, UN Chides Press for
Covering Briefing Room,
Power's Coleman Cites Friends
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Part of Series,
Video
UNITED NATIONS,
February 24 –
After getting evicted and
restricted by the UN, I tried
to make my purgatory work. I
found a way to get back to
swimming - I had to be back in
the building before 7, so I
could only even try to go up
to the New York City public
pool on 54th Street Monday,
Wednesday or Friday. Even then
it would be rush to get back -
one evening, or afternoon
really, a UN guard said no,
no, the rules say you can't
get in after 6.
“I have the rule right
here,” I told him.
“I don't care what you
have,” he said. “I have my
orders.” He was Eastern
European and I thought back to
a long ago run in with just
such a guard, when I used to
play racquetball down in the
third sub-basement garage,
where now I met some sources.
The guard had written down my
ID number, said he had to file
it. They had a file on me, but
refused to show it when I
asked. This was the UN.
There were other
refusals. I learned there
would be an 8:30 am Security
Council meeting about Western
Sahara. I covered this every
April and came in early - but
this time, the glass doors to
the Council were locked, and
there wasn't even a guard to
ask, manning the turnstile. I
gestured to Ambassadors
walking in, on the other side
of the glass. Some shook their
heads. It was hard to
understand, and they had other
priorities, other things to
spend their and their
countries' political capital
on. This was what Gallach was
counting on.
I e-mailed the
Congressional staffer about
this new exclusion; he told me
to start an “exclusion log” on
GoogleDocs where we could
share it. “No editorializing,”
he told me. “Just the facts.
When, where and by whom you
were excluded.”
He said his meetings in
New York hadn't gone well.
Gallach had invited in a group
of insider reporters and let
them do most of the talking.
Then when he met with US
Deputy Permanent
Representative for "Management
and Reform" Isobel Coleman at
the US Mission, Coleman had
told him matter-of-the-factly
that “The other journalists
don't like him.”
“But it's not a
popularity contest!” I told
him. He said he agreed. But
all he could suggest was to
start the exclusion log. I
started to fill it in.
Where my logs and exclusion
got no respect was in the
briefing room, the one I'd
been thrown out of on January
29, triggering all this if
only as a pretext. Lead
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
was away, or on vacation, or
hiding in his office, so his
Deputy Farhan Haq was in
charge.
Farhan even
before the ouster had told
other reporters, as far away
as Burma or Myanmar as he
called it, with an arrogant
over-pronunciation he applied
to every leader's name, that
Inner City Press told lies. He
maintained this even in the
face of leaked documents. Now
he had the podium and took
full advantage of it.
I asked why it was that
the glass doors to the
Security Council were locked
and I got excluded.
But you're not
excluded, Haq said with a big
smile. You're right here! He
looked at the UNCA scribes in
the front row for approval and
got it. He was like the nerd
in high school, trying to get
in with the supposedly cool
group by being even nastier
then they were. I'm sure
they'd call me nasty, but one
thing I didn't and don't do is
gang up.
I told Farhan, or at
least the UN transcript I
thought, that because the
glass doors were locked they
only way to the Security
Council was through the
turnstile but my non resident
correspondent pass didn't work
on it.
That's not true, Haq
announced. I was a non
resident correspondent, a
Green P, for a while and I was
always on the second floor.
It's not that way
anymore, I told him. Like
twenty years ago he'd worked
at IPS. That wasn't what got
him the UN job, either, I'd
been told. His father was an
economist, or at least a UNDP
economist, Bubala Haq. Maybe
I'd written that once. Because
Haq didn't hide his hatred of
me.
You're trying to
obscure what you did in this
room, he said.
And what was that?
You hid in the
interpreters' booth, Haq said.
Hid? The booths are
glassed in. Who hides in a
glass box?
You know what you did,
and your colleagues do too. He
always said, “Right?” And if
he had, at least the ones
these days filling the front
row would have said, “Yes.” It
was like The Enemy of the
People.
***
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