| Sri Lanka Kohona Used UNCA
Charbonneau of HRW Al Arabiya AFP VOA Once
Guterres Was Undermined
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- CJR -
PFT
UN GATE / SDNY
COURT, June 22 – The
increasing corruption of the
United Nations under Secretary
General Antonio Guterres, and
of the UN Correspondents
Association he works with to
intimidate and then rough up
and ban
the investigative Press, has
been made clear today in a
statement by former Ambassador
of Sri Lanka Palitha Kohona,
who has been accused of war
crimes in the White Flags
Killings.
In an
article he published
today in Asia Tribune, Kohona
writes / admits once Inner
City Press (he says, "the
blogger") "began undermining
Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres, we mounted a quiet
campaign against him within
the UN press corps itself...
information from our own
sources was made available to
many members of the UN press
corps with a view to impugning
the credibility of the man. It
took a while, but his bravado
unraveled when he fell afoul
of the President of the United
Nations Correspondents
Association (UNCA), Giampaolo
Pioli, who commenced
proceedings to take him to
court. Then he began to spar
with a number of respected
journalists who were beginning
to approach us... The UN
proceeded to evict him from
the room that he was occupying
and eventually from the UN
itself." See Guterres action,
continued by Melissa Fleming,
here.
Who is
Kohona referring to, as
helping him? Well, as a first
example - there are more -
here's an article Inner City
Press published at the time,
with people who are still at
the UN working with Guterres:
The letter,
signed by signed by Reuters' Louis
Charbonneau, Talal Al-Haj of
Al-Arabia, Margaret Besheer of Voice
of America and Timothy Witcher of
Agence France Presse, was to set up
a "Board of Examination" to
"investigate" Inner City Press with
an eye to expelling it.
But on June 3, a major
government aligned newspaper in
Sri Lanka, the Sunday Observer,
quoted with approval the UNCA
Executive Committee indictment of
Inner City Press.
The newspaper
concluded that that "if the
allegations against Lee are proven,
the UN headquarters will be made out
of bounds for him. If the harassment
charges are proven he could face a
jail term of up to six years."
It also reports, citing
"authoritative diplomatic sources,"
that
"The
United Nations Correspondents’
Association (UNCA) has initiated an
inquiry against Inner City Press
correspondent Matthew Russell Lee who
was operating from the UN Headquarters
on his unethical and unprofessional
behaviour, authoritative diplomatic
sources told the Sunday Observer
yesterday. The Executive Committee of
the UNCA met on May 29 to discuss his
conduct following many complaints
received by the Association and voted 13
to one in favour of setting up a
five-member board of examination.
Lee's
unethical coverage in the Inner City
Press dominated issues and sensitive
affairs concerning Sri Lanka as well.
The
meeting was attended by the President of
UNCA Giampiolo Pioli and the Vice
Presidents among others.
Who might those "authoritative
diplomatic sources" be? Who
is this UNCA Executive Committee
serving? The article is online at http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2012/06/03/new11.asp
After publication of the
article, Inner City Press wrote to
each member of the UNCA Executive
Committee with a copy of the
article, formally asking them to
disassociate themselves from and
bring about the immediate cessation
of this anti press freedom climate
that has led to this article.
None
responded to this request in
writing; only one gave so much as a
phone call. Meanwhile as should have
been or perhaps was foreseen by UNCA
Executive Committee members, the
anti Press flow is increasing.
Click here for
sample UNCA minutes released on
the night of June 1 from behind
Reuters' firewall. Beyond
making clear that censorship of
Inner City Press' Sri Lanka
reporting has been a major focus of
UNCA's leadership since at least
September 2011, these minutes have
material omissions, including that
the complaint of Tim Witcher of AFP
was about reporting on Ladsous, the
fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN
Peacekeeping.
Witcher, at the behest
of the French Mission to the UN,
began the push against Inner City
Press for its reporting that the
Mission didn't know that its capital
had switch to second choice Ladsous
from Jerome Bonnafont, whose
bragging he was getting the post was
also exposd by Inner City Press.
Ladsous then accepted
Sri Lankan general (and alleged war
criminal) Shavendra Silva as a
Senior Adviser.
So -
a war criminal used UNCA to
get Inner City Press thrown
out of its UN work space and
then the UN, for undermining
Guterres (who was also
questioned by Inner City Press
about Cameroon, and
undisclosed financial links
with UN briber CEFC China
Energy). These people are
(war) criminals. We'll have
more on this - for now, here's
more from Kohona (he does not
disclose that he paid UNCA's
Pioli money) --
"he published a
story headed, 'Fish balls (his
term for Sri Lankan fish
cutlets) and wine to tempt the
journalists'. ... He was also
known to exchange information
with diplomats at very
important missions, some of
whom had excellent sources
within Sri Lanka. He was also
a useful tool to some to
embarrass the former
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Subsequently, he began
undermining Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres.
But we mounted a
quiet campaign against him
within the UN press corps
itself with a view to exposing
him and even forcing him to
reveal his financiers. Information
from our own sources was made
available to many members of
the UN press corps with a view
to impugning the credibility
of the man. It took a while,
but his bravado unraveled when
he fell afoul of the President
of the United Nations
Correspondents Association
(UNCA), Giampaolo Pioli, who
commenced proceedings to take
him to court. Then he began to
spar with a number of
respected journalists who were
beginning to approach us for
information on the man.
Eventually, he
clashed with the Alison Smale,
UN Under-Secretary-General for
Global Communications, who
declared that Lee’s “conduct
has consistently breached” the
UN’s media guidelines and
“does not meet the established
professional standards
required of all correspondents
granted access to United
Nations premises.” As a
result, his accreditation to
cover the UN was withdrawn
consistent with the terms of
the US – UN Head Quarters
Agreement (Agreement Between
the United Nations and the
United States Regarding the
Headquarters of the United
Nations, Signed June 26, 1947,
and Approved by the General
Assembly October 31, 1947).
The UN proceeded to evict him
from the room that he was
occupying and eventually from
the UN itself."
What will CPJ,
David Kaye, RSF et al do?
Watch this site.
***
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