Kenya's
Foreign Minister
Mis-Identifies Her Burundi
Counterpart, Of Speed Dating
& Sid
By Matthew
Russell Lee, photos
India,
Pakistan
UNITED NATIONS,
September 25 – The UN General
Assembly high level week is
often called diplomatic speed
dating, and sometimes that
means not knowing who it is
you're dating. Take for
example the foreign minister
of Kenya's now angry Kenyatta
government, Amina Chawahir
Mohamed, who on September 24
tweeted a photograph of
herself with Burundi foreign
minister Alain Aimee Nyamitwe
- but called him the name of
presidential adviser and
sometimes spokesman Willy
Nyamitwe. Mistakes happen -
but shouldn't they be
corrected? Inner City Press raised
it online, noting that UN
Country Team head Siddharth
Chatterjee, the son in law of
former Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon (who promoted him
without recusal), might have
provided photos of the two
Nyamitwes, or at least the one
who is foreign minister,
before the trip and bilat.
We'll have more on this. After
India's foreign minister
Sushma Swaraj in her UN
General Assembly speech said
while her country exports IT,
Pakistan exports terrorists,
Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha
Lodhi asked for the right of
reply at the end of Saturday's
UNGA session. [Update: text here.]
She morphed India as the
biggest democracy into the
biggest hypocrisy - and raised
up a photograph showing the
impact of the use of pellet
guns. But it appears the photo
used was not from Kashmir, but
from Gaza. What next? The day
before on Friday, Inner City
Press had asked the
Commissioner General for the
United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East,
Pierre Krähenbühl, about
UNRWA's policies on social
media. Inner City Press asked
about another UN agency,
UNHCR, being less than
transparent after a staffer
called for “harder repression”
of Anglophones in Cameroon;
another example was UNRWA
illustrating the situation in
Palestine with a photo from...
Syria. So these things happen,
but UNRWA is under different
pressures to issue
corrections, including by
funders. What will Pakistan
do? Will we find out by the Daily
Dawn? We aim to have
more on this - and on UN
Spokespeople being less
responsive than government's
Ambassadors, because the UN or
at least its Spokesman is
apparently under no pressure
or metric to be responsive.
After UN Secretary General met
with Yousef Al Othaimeen, the
Secretary General of the
Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation, the UN issues a
read-out that "they discussed
a number of issues of mutual
concern, including
counterterrorism, Syria, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and
Afghanistan, as well as
resolving the plight of the
Rohingya minority in Myanmar."
Inner City Press tweeted photohere.
Then the UN "re-issued" the
read-out, dropping Somalia and
the plight of the Rohinga, and
adding the Middle East peace
process: "The
Secretaries-General discussed
a number of issues in OIC’s
area of responsibility,
including counterterrorism,
Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, the
Middle East Process and
Myanmar. The
Secretaries-General agreed to
strengthen cooperation between
the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation and the United
Nations." So who complained?
Myanmar about the "plight of
the Rohingya"? The OIC about
no MEPP? Who said, drop
Somalia? We aim to have more
on this. On September 22,
Guteres met with Cameroon's
30-plus year President Paul
Biya, he met Saturday morning
with DR Congo holdover Joseph
Kabila, now with white in his
beard, and the prime minister
of Togo, where protesters
against the father and son in
power for 50 years are being
shot and killed. Inner City
Press covered the meetings, or
photo ops, here.
There was also Sri Lanka
(Sirisena without
accountability) and Libya's
Serraj. While no read-outs
have issued yet, the Cameroon
read-out refers only to the
political situation in the
country - that would be, the
killing and jailing of
Anglophones. This is today's
UN.
***
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