UNITED
NATIONS GATE, April 9
– How corrupt and
lawless is the
United Nations of
Secretary General
Antonio Guterres?
His head of Security
Peter Drennan
did not in
his tenure
even respond
to detailed
complaints
about his
Lieutenant Ronald E.
Dobbins roughing up
the Press
while it
covered
Guterres' deals
in the UN Budget
Committee.
Then Drennan
directed his
officers to
try to get
NYPD to restrain
Inner City
Press on the
sidewalks of
New York City,
96th Street most recently.
Now Drennan is
gone, too
late, and
another Guterres
Guard is being
recruited.
Whoever it is
must answer
for the decay
of DSS under
Drennan,
which drove at
least one
officer to
suicide.
Here's the
announcement:
"The
Secretary-General
is pleased to
announce the
following job
opening:
Under-SecretaryGeneral
for Safety and
Security,
based at the
United Nations
Headquarters
in New York.
In order to
ensure a wide
pool of
candidates for
this position,
the
Secretariat
welcomes
applications
to supplement
the
Secretary-General’s
search and
consultations.
Applications
of women
candidates is
strongly
encouraged.
Applications
should include
the curriculum
vitae of the
candidate with
full contact
information
(email and
telephone) and
must be sent
to the
Secretariat of
the United
Nations by 29
April 2019.
Applications
may also be
sent to
eosg2019dss@un.org."
We'll have
more on this.
In
the midst of Inner
City Press'
questioning
in 2018 about
Guterres' links to
now convicted UN
bribery Patrick
Ho's China Energy
Fund Committee and
Guterres' failures
on Cameroon
and elsewhere, his
UN Security twice
roughed up Inner
City Press on June 22 and July
3, 2018.
Then
after Inner City
Press filed a New
York Police
Department
complaint against
the UN and its
Lieutenant Ronald
E. Dobbins, none
of its written
questions to UN
Security chief
Peter Drennan
and Guterres
were answered.
On March 14,
Inner City
Press UN bureau
chief, this reporter,
was invited to
press freedom
event in the
UN sponsored
by the UN
Missions of
France,
Lithuania and
Greece. I RSVP-ed and
was told to
come up up my
ticket at the
Visitors Entrance.
I did; I was
given a ticket
with my
name on
it. Tweeted
photo here.
After
waiting in
line, I showed
my drivers
license and
the
ticket and was
waved
into a second
line for the
metal detectors,
where a
sign said no video
allowed. Periscope
video here,
until voluntarily
turned off. Halfway
through the
line, four UN
Security officers
and a
supervisor
came over and
ordered me to
leave, saying
I am on
their
barred list.
I asked to see
the list. I
was pushed from behind
and told I
would be shown
the list
outside. They took
the paper
ticket, saying
it is
property of
the UN.
(There's still
this
photo.) But
once
they pushed me
out onto the
stairs, no one
came out with
the list.
First of a
series of
Periscope
videos here.
To this has the
UN sunk.
After
a UN media
accreditation
"review"
that did not
include any
opportunity to be
heard for Inner
City Press,
Guterres' Under
Secretary General
Alison Smale on 17
August 2018 issued
a
letter
"withdrawing"
Inner City Press'
UN media
accreditation.
Smale was asked
how Inner City
Press could
appeal, including
by UN Special
Rapporteur on
Freedom of
Expression David
Kaye, but did
not answer
that.
On 3
September 2018,
facing the
prospect of being
unable to enter
the UN to cover
the General
Assembly "high
level" week for
the first time in
a decade, Inner
City Press
submitted an
application for
accreditation. But
there was no
action on it - in
fact, during high
level week, it
emerged that Inner
City Press had
been put on a
non-public
"barred" list such
that even if
invited by a
member state or UN
agency, it could
not enter the
building.
Patrick
Ho of CEFC was
convicted on 5
December 2018.
Inner City Press
again exclusively
reported
that Guterres had
failed to include
his paid position
on the board of
the Gulbenkian
Foundation in his
Public Financial
Disclosure
covering 2016 -
and that
Gulbenkian in 2018
was trying to sell
its Partex Oil and
Gas affiliate to
CEFC as Guterres
refused to audit
CEFC and had Inner
City Press which
asked roughed up
and banned.
And
now on 2 January
2019 Smale's Media
Accreditation and
Liaison Unit has
issued a denial of
Inner City Press'
September
application for
accreditation,
stating only that
"Greetings
Matthew LEE from
ICPINNER CITY
PRESS,
Your
media
accreditation
request, with
reference no:
M72295425, has
been declined for
the following
reason:
Accreditation was
withdrawn on 17
August 2018."
This is
Kafka-esque. Accreditation
was withdrawn without any
hearing or chance to
appeal, but that decision
is used to deny future
accreditation. While
preaching about due
process and freedom of the
press, Guterres' UN has a
"one strike and your out"
policy - even if there is
no strike. The alleged
violations were filming in
place Smale's own MALU
staff told Inner City
Press it could film with
out an escort, and
recording her deputy in a
known media stakeout
position.
Guterres is a censor, to
conceal his own conflict of
interest. He has failed many people,
including the Anglophones being
killed by the Cameroon government of
Paul Biya, from whom Guterres
accepted a golden statue and Budget
Committee favors. This is corruption
and the reporting on and exposing of
it will not cease. No due process
censorship by the UN is
UNacceptable.
While
Guterres was refusing
throughout 2018 to
begin any UN audit
into China Energy
Fund Committee,
implicated in the UN
bribery prosecution
US v Patrick Ho,
Guterres had a
secret: his role
on the board of
Gulbenkian
Foundation which was
trying to sell
its Partex Oil
affiliate to CEFC.
See Inner City
Press' first
exclusive report here.
Today Inner City
Press continues its
exclusive series on
some of the CEFC
connections in and
through the UN that
should have been
identified in the
audit that Guterres
corruptly refused to
begin, with his
conflict of
interest. (Even his
predecessor Ban
Ki-moon ordered an
audit after Ng Lap
Seng was indicted -
Guterres still
hasn't after Patrick
Ho was convicted.)
It's time to
consider the
Guterres-like
hypocrisy of
Gulbenkian, publicly
tying itself to the
"blue ocean economy"
while taking money
from the oil company
Partex they tried to
sell to CEFC which
Guterres has covered
up for. Antonio
Guterres was a paid
board member of
Gulbenkian; his wife
Catarina Vaz Pinto
was paid by them as
well. Antonio
Guterres' daughter
Mariana Guterres
actively promotes
Gulbenkian (as well
as, troublingly,
dead children in
Kenya); his daughter
in law Vanda Onnesjo
Lobo gushes about
its causes.
In fact, Gulbenkian
which tried to sell
its Partex Oil to
CEFC in 2018 partners
with "Oceano Azul
Foundation" - which
just happens to have
in 2018 hired
Antonio Guterres'
daughter in law
Vanda Lobo, see here.
Given Gunbenkian's
business dealings
with UN briber CEFC,
shouldn't this all
have been disclosed?
Isn't it an abuse
that Antonio
Guterres would have
the only media
asking about it
roughed up and
banned? This is UN
corruption.
(His
son Pedro Guimarães
e Melo De Oliveira
Guterres, after
being a part of the
defrauding of PT
Portugal as it
was passed from Brazil's
Oi to France's
Altice, seems to
have gone to ground,
with not a single
legitimate question
about his business
links
answered). But
now in 2018 - and
according to
Guterres' publicly
funded propaganda,
2019 - it is all a
front. Guterres has
shown himself
willing to rough
up a
journalist who asked
about this and more,
banning the
Press for 182 days
with no end in
sight.
Consider
Guterres' lead
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric has
family links
to Gulbenkian.
Inner City
Press asked
Dujarric in
writing to
disclose these
(no answer,
and Stephane
Dujarric blocks@InnerCityPress
on Twitter),
just as it asked
him in person
why CEFC
wasn't being
audited in
March 2018,
before
Dujarric and
Guterres had
Inner City
Press roughed
up and banned,
180 days now.
In March 2018
Gulbenkian
Foundation was
actively
trying to sell
its Partex Oil
and Gas
affiliate to
CEFC China
Energy. And
here's
Stephane
Dujarric's
Tokyo- and
Temple-based
brother Robert
Dujarric
praising and
appearing at
Gulbenkian -
audio here,
program here.
We'll have
more on this.
One of the people
identified in the
Ban Ki-moon audit of
Ng Lap Seng and
South South News was
Ion Botnaru. He was
allowed to retire,
after changing a UN
General Assembly
document along with
then President of
the General Assembly
John Ashe, who died
under indictment
ostensibly crushed
by his own barbell,
to benefit Ng's Sun
Kian Ip group.
Botnaru reappears
again with CEFC, here.
And, crying out for
audit, the President
of the General
Assembly who swore
in Guterres, Peter
Thomson of Fiji,
traveled like Ashe
and Vuk Jeremic and
Sam Kutesa to meet
CEFC's Ye Jianming
in Hong Kong.
Inner City Press has
asked Guterres and
his spokespeople,
among many other
questions, "Beyond
the 37 questions
from Inner City
Press you refused to
answer last week,
still set forth
below for promised
answer, this is a
request, given that
Peter Thomson is the
SG's rep on Oceans
that you describe in
detail Thomson's
2017 meeting with
now disappeared Ye
Jianming of CEFC,
name which UN DSS
officials were with
him and what reports
they filed, what
their duties were;
what was seen by
those accompanying
Thomson, at least
two of whom are
still in the UN (one
is with China)."
Typically, Guterres
and his spokespeople
did not answer. So
here, pending
listing those from
UN Department of
Safety and Security
the group which
roughs up the Press
without
accountability and
maintains a
retaliatory
"lifetime" banned
from the UN list,
are the names:
"During his two-day
visit, the President
of the UN General
Assembly was
accompanied by his
senior advisors
Abdelghani Merabet,
and Zhang Yi, as
well as by the UN
Department of
Economic and Social
Affairs’s Director
of the Division for
Sustainable
Development, Zhu
Juwang." Now,
Thomson staffer or
embed Zhang Yi has
gone (back, or more
openly) to working
for the Chinese
government: "On
August 14 [2018],
Deputy
Director-General of
China International
Center for Economic
and Technical
Exchanges Zhang Yi
was invited to
attend the FOCAC -
Africa-China Poverty
Reduction and
Development
Conference, an
important sub-forum
under the FOCAC
hosted by the State
Council Leading
Group Office of
Poverty Alleviation
and Development and
co-organized by the
International
Poverty Reduction
Center in China and
the China Belt and
Road Institute for
Agricultural
Cooperation of China
Agriculture
University.
Attending were more
than 300
participants
including government
officials,
international
organizations’
representatives,
non-governmental
organizations’
officials, business
leaders, experts and
scholars from China,
United States,
Japan, Denmark and
40 African countries
like Angola,
Botswana and
Mauritius."
What did they see
during Thomson's
meeting with
now-known briber Ye
Jianming? Zhu
Juwang is
still with UN DESA;
Abdelghani
Merabet is
with the current
PGA. We'll have more
on this: the UN
should be answering
these questions,
now.
In 2017, the year in
which CEFC's Patrick
Ho was indicted and
arrested for UN
bribery, CEFC in the
UN engaged at least
twice with Lenni
Montiel, including
for example on 6
July 2017, and also
with DESA official
Pingfan Hong. Some
photos here.
Inner City Press
before Guterres had
it roughed up and
banned now 176 days
for its inquiries
into Guterres'
corruption has
politely questioned
both Montiel and
Hong - but Guterres
has made that
impossible and his
Spokesmen refused to
answer any written
questions, for more
than a week now.
There are more
connections.
Guterres got favors
from Peter Thomson
when Thomson was
President of the
General Assembly.
Rudimentary open
source research -
including on the
UN's own website
here - finds that
Thomson, like
implicated Sam
Kutesa and John Ashe
and Vuk Jeremic,
visited CEFC's Ye
Jianming in Hong
Kong. What was
discussed? Inner
City Press
previously covered,
critically but
civilly, Thomson.
Now corrupt Guterres
has had Inner City
Press roughed up and
banned 175 days,
with his Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric
refusing to answer
any questions
despite the promise
of Guterres' USG
Alison Smale.
After receiving
favors from Thomson
as PGA, Guterres
gave him a job in
his Secretariat,
Representative on
Oceans. Here
is Patrick Ho,
interviewed by
Guterres' DESA, on
Oceans. There should
have been an audit.
There still should
be. Another of
Guterres' special
advisers, Jeffrey
Sachs, after denying
Inner City Press'
documented report
Sachs was on a UN -
CEFC board, abruptly
closed his Twitter
account, story here.
Guterres goes on robo-tweeting
from parts unknown,
spending public
money undisclosed.
Guterres should
explain and / or
resign. We
will have more in
this series.
A now-removed
Gulbenkian
Foundation web page
says Guterres
continued as a board
member into 2018. Archived
here.In
fact it was on 9
February 2018 that
Gulbenian tweeted
that Guterres was no
longer on the board
- AFTER it was
reported that
Gulbenian was trying
to sell, or even had
already sold, Partex
to CEFC. This is
called guilty
knowledge.
***
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