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By Matthew Russell Lee

UN GATE, June 20 – When Antonio Guterres had already bought and occupied the UN Secretary General position, backed by China and fueled by money from the long time dictators of Angola and elsewhere, he quickly supported his resident coordinator in Cameroon Najat Rochdi blocking on Twitter Inner City Press which asked about his support of Paul Biya there. A fish rots from the head. See below.

  Now that Guterres has gone further into censorship, having Inner City Press roughed up and banned 718 days and counting for asking about his undisclosed financial links to UN briber CEFC China Energy, on June 20 his Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq, who without having a Twitter account blithely supported Rochdi in blocking perceived UN critics, announced:

"United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Najat Rochdi of Morocco as his Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon, in the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL) and Resident Coordinator.  Ms. Rochdi will also serve as Humanitarian Coordinator.     Ms. Rochdi succeeds Philippe Lazzarini of Switzerland, who completed his assignment on 31 March.  The Secretary-General is grateful for his accomplishments and wishes him continued success in his new appointment as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)." We'll have more on him, complicit in Guterres' censorship, and on all this. For now, this from the Inner City Press every growing archives of UN and Guterres crimes:

The UN of Antonio Guterres says it's fine that its Resident Coordinator from her official Twitter account blocks the Press which asks about it. Amid the ongoing abuse of Anglophones in Cameroon, the Internet being turned off  in their regions, Inner City Press on March 8 discovered that the UN's Resident Coordinator in Cameroon, Najat Rochdi of Morocco, blocks it on Twitter, see here. So Inner City Press asked Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq about it on March 9, UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: the answer you sent about Mr. [Francois] Louncény Fall saying that he would raise issues to the authorities.  Can you say whether the issue of the internet being off in two provinces for 52 days has been raised?  And, secondarily, I wanted to ask you this.  You announced from this podium that Najat Rochdi is going to Central African Republic as Resident Coordinator.  What's the process to appoint a new Resident Coordinator for the UN system in Cameroon?  And is it… is it… is it… can it be public in any way?  It seems many people have complained that, while she was there, she never raised the Anglophone issue.  And, in fact, I found that she blocks Inner City Press on Twitter, so I'm unable to ask her why this issue has not been raised.  But what's the process to replace… and you can smirk, but should a UN official in their official account…?

Spokesman:  That's an unrelated thing.  I mean, obviously, all people… all individuals, not even just all UN officials, are free to block whoever they want on Twitter.  That's within their rights.

Inner City Press:  Including missions?  So you think a peacekeeping mission should pick and choose which media can follow it?

Spokesman:  Organizations will respond… are supposed to respond to press requests.  Individuals can do whatever they like with their Twitter accounts.

Inner City Press:  What's the process of replacing the Resident Coordinator in Cameroon?

Spokesman:  It's the same as in any other place.  There's a process that goes… that you go through, and the Resident Coordinator's selection process is supervised by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

  This is at odds with the UN's claims to be transparent in its use of public money, and to be open to the press and impacted public, and will be pursued at Rochdi's next assignment at the UN in Central African Republic. But it raises the question: how are UN Resident Coordinators selected? Inner City Press reported on Ban Ki-moon's son in law Siddharth Chatterjee getting multiple promotion under Ban, including being named UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya by Ban himself. (Inner City Press was evicted by Ban's UN, and remained restricted and then roughed up and banned under Ban's even worse successor Guterres). But shouldn't Anglophone Cameroonians have some input into the UN's next Resident Coordinator in their country? This is a project for the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info. Watch these sites and feeds.

While UN Security Council members visiting Niger, 188th out of 188 on the UN Development Index, is certainly welcome, it is noteworthy has is not being addressed or even publicly mentioned on this trip.

  Beyond the omission, which some called shameful, of the plight of Anglophones in Cameroon -- the Internet has been turned off in their regions -- the common denominator of France's historical power relations with, say, Chad and Niger was omitted even from reporting from inside the Council's bubble.

  It was complained to the Free UN Coalition for Access that the UN didn't even inform the News Agency of Nigeria that it could go on the trip (but did inform, for example, Voice of America). Might NAN have been more critical of aspects of the trip? How will this omission be addressed?

  And while a Security Council member has responded to Inner City Press that the issue was raised in meetings, given that VOA, invited and on the trip, did not even mention it, one wonders when, where and with what seriousness it was raised. We hope to have more on that.

   Inner City Press in the past was informed of such trips, and went on some, for example to Chad where then French Ambassador Jean Maurice Ripert dissembled about President Deby's non-appearance, then confronted Inner City Press about its reporting, in the airport in Kigali, Rwanda. Now, following a retaliatory eviction and continuing restriction at the UN by Department of Public Information chief Cristina Gallach and spokesman Stephane Dujarric for seeking to cover the Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe UN bribery case in the UN Press Briefing Room on January 29, 2016, Inner City Press is no longer informed or invited. DPI under Gallach churns out assemblages of canned quotes and tweets as "stories," as from within the bubble. We'll have more on this.

  On a previous Security Council trip that included Sudan, Council members spoke to the Press about standing up to the Sudanese government about abuses. So what happened in Cameroon? Nothing - Guterres has tried to seal the fate of civilians there. It cannot stand.

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