| After UN Evicted ICP, Frozen
Out on Press
Freedom Day, Gallach's South South News Pushed
Back
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Series,
Video, Reply
UNITED NATIONS,
March 22 – After
the UN evicted
and
restricted me it
was soon "UN
World Press
Freedom Day." I
went to
Conference
Room 4 to ask
a question.
But just
after I went
in, the UN's
evicter
Cristina Gallach
said she had
to leave. Her
deputy who'd
applied for
Gallach's job
but been
passed over,
took almost no
questions,
tweeted back
at me that in
any event I'd
left. Yeah: to
go up to the
noon briefing,
the only place
I could ask
anything
anymore. So I
asked, how can
you do this?
Kofi Annan-era
spokesman
Stephane Dujarric
called it a
personal
question and
left the
podium. This
is what it had
come to.
As I
teed off on
the UN for
corruption, I
was being teed
off on by the
corrupt: they
did the work
for the UN.
Sure, the United
Nations
Correspondents
Association or
UNCA had done
this. But now
a
reconstituted
South South
News did it
too, calling
out in a press
release first
unnamed
“independent
journalists,”
then when that
didn't work,
Inner City
Press by name.
And
Reuters
covered it.
Not the UN
bureau, but Reuters'
courthouse
guy. They all
worked as a
team, as an
industry, a
monopoly. South
South News
said it was
unfair and
unprofessional
to even
mention that
their founder
and former
president
Francis
Lorenzo had
pleaded guilty
to bribery,
and vice
president
Vivian Wang
too. They were
a new team,
they said - no
names were
given - yet
this blogger
kept
attacking. Of
course, the UN
continued to
give South
South News as
office, while
evicting Inner
City Press
into the
street. But
South South
News, it
seemed, wanted
Inner City
Press shut up
completely.
How could they
accomplish it?
Alongside my
other projects
including my
exclusion log,
now
for no one, I
kept my eyes
out for the
South South
crew. One
afternoon in
the basement
near the
Vienna Cafe I
saw a former
South South
big wig,
Carlos Garcia
of El
Salvador,
talking with a
white and
white-haired
man with three
what looked to
be interns. I
staked them
out, taking a
few photos,
then following
the white
haired man and
his encourage
down what's
called The
Neck and into
the General
Assembly
basement.
The
white haired
man sat on one
bench talking
on his cell
phone; the
entourage, now
including a
beefy guy I
dubbed The
Russian, sat
on another,
waiting. I set
up on a table
in the
Visitors'
Cafe. I filmed
some but
didn't
live-stream,
not wanting to
blow my cover.
Who were these
guys? It was a
race against
time.
Online I
found another
constellation,
including
Carlos Garcia
and some
others: the
Global
Governance for
the UN SDGs. I
asked about
GGUNSDG, whose
webmaster had
been Ng Lap
Seng's, at the
noon briefing;
South South
News put out
another press
release
trashing me.
Who were these
meant for? To
help the UN
further target
me? The UN
Corruption
Alliance?
***
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