UN's
Posture on Guatemala Undercut by
Retaliation Against
Kompass, Rejected by Morales
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
September 1 – Today's UN
presenting itself as a
champion against corruption,
as in Secretary General
Antonio Guterres' August 27
statement about Guatemala,
is more than a little ironic.
Beyond the UN bribery / Ng Lap
Seng guilty verdicts in late
July - on which Guterres has
refused to answer Inner City
Press so far, including on
retaliation - the UN blatantly
retaliated against Anders
Kompass for blowing the
whistle on peacekeepers'
sexual abuse in the Central
African Republic. Now the two
stories or worlds collide:
Guatemala's Jimmy Morales has
rejected Kompass as Sweden's
Ambassador to Guatemala. We'll
have more on this. Less than a
month ago, Macau-based
businessman Ng Lap Seng was
convicted in the U.S. on six
counts of UN bribery. Yet UN
officials exposed in the trial
as having helped Ng still work
at the UN; there has been no
accountability. When Inner
City Press directly asked
Guterres for his comment on
the verdict, he refused
to answer. His lawyers have
claimed that the UN was the
victim and should get paid.
And on August 25, when
Guatemalan President Jimmy
Morales came to New York to
meet with Guterres,
simultaneously in the UN's
ECOSOC chamber an event
was allowed to take place
sponsored by an NGO with
multiple links to, for
example, former El Salvador
ambassador Carlos Garcia who
was shown in Ng's trial to
have helped him launder bribe
money. Inner City Press asked
Guterres' spokesman Stephane
Dujarric about these links
before the August 25 event -
and during it, written
questions that have still not
been answered. Dujarric had
Inner City Press evicted from
the UN Press Briefing Room -
empty this week - and from its
office, still
restricted, for its
pursuit of the Ng Lap Seng
scandal. We'll have more on
this. As to Guatemala, on
August 25 media mostly Spanish
and Inner City Press set up a
stakeout in the UN Secretariat
lobby, to afterward hear his
views on Ivan Velasquez and
the future of the CICIG. The
meeting began at 5 pm, but it
was well after 6 pm when
Guterres came down to his
waiting car and driver. Inner
City Press asked, Que pasa con
la CICIG? But Guterres merely
waved. Moments later his
spokesman Stephane Dujarric,
who declined to answer or even
confirm receipt of written
questions from Inner City
Press, issued a canned
read-out which "reiterated his
confidence in Commissioner
Ivan Velásquez.” Now on August
27, after not speaking at or
even coming to the waiting
stakeout at the UN, Morales
has issued a video, on
Twitter, declaring Valasquez
persona non grata. Here.
Guterres is with sheikhs in
Kuwait; Inner City Press asked
his spokesman Stephane
Dujarric: "This is a Press
request on deadline for the
UN's / Secretary General's
response to this,
from Jimmy Morales of
Guatemala. Also please explain
why UN Photo still does not
have any photo of the Morales
/ SG photo op online, and
state where Yemen envoy IOCA
is, if he is not in Kuwait
(didn't see him in the photo).
Inner City Press has more
questions and will be
submitting them for responses,
while noting that Friday's
question was not even
acknowledged, much less
answered. Please explain." He
replied, "Statement coming
shortly." Then, a tweet from
Jeffrey Feltman's DPA: ".@UN
Secretary-General shocked at
announcement that Guatemala's
President has declared
@Ivan_Velasquez_ persona non
grata." Shocked implies that
Morales didn't raise this
possibility in their long
meeting on Friday. More to
follow.
More to
come.
***
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