| After
UN Evicted ICP, Sources Says
Ban OK-ed It, Of Gallach, W
Sahara & Cameroon
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Series,
Video, Reply
UNITED NATIONS,
March 15 – After the UN's
eviction of Inner City
Press, I couldn't go to the
Delegates Lounge anymore with
my reduced access pass. But
walking past the World Bar in
the Trump International Tower,
a voice I recognized called my
name. It was, how to phrase
it, a well-placed UN staffer.
Walk with me, he said. I did.
Ban knew all about it,
he began. There was a Monday
morning meeting, of all the
USGs -- Under Secretaries
General - and Gallach brought
it up, said you have to be
punished. He paused. “A few
spoke in favor of you, I won't
tell you who because then
you'll go after the others.
But the point is, Ban listened
but didn't say anything. He
didn't stop it. It was an
implicit OK from him.”
We had crossed Third
Avenue and just kept walking.
Hadn't Ban told me, “That is
not my decision”?
He ran through other things I
didn't know: that John Ashe's
former chief of staff had kept
her diplomatic status even
while the UN was paying her,
that Gallach's immediate
underlying, formerly of
Reuters, had hated Gallach so
much she'd taken a demotion
from D2 to a D1 in Brussels
just to get away from her.
The guy went bigger
picture, as we walked west.
“Maybe you're going to have to
wait it out for the next SG,”
he said. That would be eight
more months, seven of them
after my pass ran out. Would I
stop covering the UN, or
really covering it, for half a
year? On what basis could or
would I return?
They hate you, he told
me. They really hate you.
They've always hated you, on
issues from Sri
Lanka to Western
Sahara to Burundi
[and now Cameroon]. But
when you started asking about
Ashe and Ng Lap Seng, tying it
to Ban Ki-moon, after you'd
already asked about Ban's son
in law Sid Chatterjee being
promoted and that nephew
Dennis Bahn, that was it. He
wants to run for President of
South Korea, everybody knows
it. So this is inconvenient.
You're inconvenient. He got
you out, and they are going to
keep pressing.
And I'll push back, I
said.
Good luck, the guy
said. He'd gotten to his
subway stop. That's all I can
tell you, he said. And he was
gone.
And on my way back east
I chanted it again: Ban Ki
Moon.. is corrupt. Ban
Ki-moon. Is so corrupt.
***
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