New
UN PGA Ecuador FM Tells Inner
City Press of Anti Tax Haven
Law, ICP Asks of FOIA
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Photo
UNITED NATIONS,
June 5 – In a contested
election to be the next UN
General Assembly President,
Ecuador's Foreign Minister
Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces
beat out Honduras' Permanent
Representative Mary Elizabeth
Flores Flake, 128 to 62.
Afterward at a media
encounter, Inner City Press
asked the winner, in light of
the involvement of two and now
apparently three
recent PGAs in UN bribery
cases, if she will support a
UN Freedom of Information Act
so that the public and press
can assess influences by
businesses and even purported
NGOs like China Energy Fund
Committee. She replied that in
Ecuador, she made financial
disclosures including under a
government prohibition against
using tax havens, and she will
commit to transparency as PGA.
Some of these things,
particularly a FOIA, should be
made madatory through
resolutions. But we will see.
Watch this site. Even before
the results were announced, UN
Protocol carried out of the GA
Hall the un-needed flag of
Honduras. Inner City Press
Periscope here.
Some said that Honduras' move
of embassy to Jerusalem was
not helpful to its candidate;
others pointed at the debate
or interactive dialogue. We'll
have more on this - back on
April 19 Inner City Press
asked Colombia's
foreign
minister María
Ángela Holguín
Cuéllar who
her countries
would
vote for in
the UN
President of
the General
Assembly race,
Honduras or
Ecuador
(Honduras was
the answer).
Video here.
Back in April 2017 Inner City
Press has asked Colombia's
Ambassador and High
Commissioner for Peace about
it, and on 19 April 2017 asked
the country's foreign minister
María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar
about the upcoming Council
visit which Inner City Press
timely requested to accompany
and cover. Video of María
Ángela Holguín Cuéllar Q&A
here,
in Spanish. Meanwhile after
Colombia's former President
Uribe met Donald Trump at
Mar-a-Lago, Florida Senator
Marco Rubio denied having
anything to do with it, while
noting that Uribe is a sitting
Senator. On April 24, even
ghoulishly accompanied and
watched by a UN Department of
Public Information minder,
Inner City Press was told
that the meeting happened
because Uribe was invited by a
Mar-a-Lago member. Access is
everything, as the UN tries to
use and abuse with regard to
the investigative Press. Back
on April 19, Holguin said she
had met with the Permanent
Five members and the others at
a lunch; another Ambassador
told Inner City Press of the
need to check if
paramilitaries are "filling
in" the spaced vacated by the
FARC. Then on April 20 from
the office of the UN's
holdover spokesman Stephane
Dujarric came this form
letter, "We regret to inform
you that due to logistical
constraints, we are not able
to accommodate your request to
travel with the Security
Council during their visit to
Colombia." This stands in
contrast to Inner City Press
covering Council trips to
Darfur and South Sudan, Kenya,
Djibouti and Cote d'Ivoire,
and a Ban Ki-moon (ghoulish)
trip to Sri Lanka. Since then,
though, Dujarric and the UN
Department of Public
Information have evicted Inner
City Press from its office for
covering UN corruption, and
still have it confined to
minders and without an office,
fourteen months later. This
must be reversed. We'll have
more on all this.
Colombia's
High Commissioner for Peace
Sergio Jaramillo
spoke with the Press in
New York on August 19, 2016, in
the run-up to the August 26 UN
Security Council meeting about
Colombia. In the sit-down
portion, Inner City Press asked
him about criticism of the
accountability provisions in the
government's deal with the FARC,
and of the status of talks with
the ELN.
Jaramillo said the
criticism is unrealistic; they
had to negotiated with the FARC,
and got them to agree to trials
for grave crimes like rape and
other war crimes. But others get
softer treatment. Jaramillo said
implementation will be the key.
Jaramillo said FARC
has agreed, no illicit activity
to fund their organization. The
UN mission would be storing
weapons in containers, as it did
for example in Nepal. But would
it have any drug or illicit
activity role?
On the ELN, Jaramillo
said as long as they hold
hostages, talks cannot proceed.
On January 6, 2017, Inner
City Press asked the UN's
holdover spokesman Staphan
Dujarric, vidoe here, UN
Transcript here:
Inner City Press: Wanted to ask
about the mission in
Colombia. Obviously, it's
been reported that the four
people have been taken.
Were they members of national
contingents, or were they UN
staff members? Often in
these cases we were told, like,
there's due process or
whatever. Is the video
evidence so compelling that…
Spokesman: They were
repatriated by their home
countries.
Inner City Press: What
countries do they come from?
Spokesman: I don't have
those.
Inner City Press: And was
a decision made by the UN or by
the troop-contributing country?
Spokesman: There was a
discussion between the UN
Mission and the countries… and
the countries concerned.
We can try to see if we can get
you the list of the countries
impacted.
Eight hours later,
nothing. And if it's wrong for
observers to dance with rebels,
why is it OK for "UN
Correspondents" to take selfies
with the new SG? We'll have more
on this.
On August 26, 2016, just
before the Colombia meeting of
the UN Security Council, UK
Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson
took questions about the
Council's role:
UK DPR Wilson: "This is a piece
of extremely good news. It is a
historic peace agreement. We are
no looking forward to hearing
from the SRSG about how the two
parties want the UN to help take
this peace agreement forward and
help take implementation
forward. We will then consider
very carefully as a Council our
next steps.
Q:
Have you read the report by the
Secretary-General? There’s a
part that’s particularly
interesting for us in Colombia,
which is that we don’t know
exactly who’s going to pay for
the whole mission – between the
mission, the guerrillas, and the
government.
UK DPR Wilson: Well, I think
that’s one of the issues that we
are very much encouraging the UN
to take forward with the
Colombian government. I think
overall the atmosphere in the
Council on this is extremely
happy to see this very good
piece of news, and I think these
are the kinds of details that we
will want to be settling in a
very cooperative matter.
Q: There’s also a possibility of
it being signed here at the UN,
because of the timings actually.
It’s going to be towards the end
of September. What do you think?
UK DPR Wilson: I think all of
those things; those are things
that we really want to take
forward with the Government of
Colombia in a way that satisfies
the parties. So, it is they that
we will be listening to most
closely.
Colombia's
President Santos will speak at
the UN General Assembly on
September 21; there may be an
event for bankers or investment
bankers. Watch this site.
On Colombia back on March 11, even with
the deadline for an agreement between
the government and the FARC being pushed
back, Germany's Special Envoy on
Colombia Tom Koenigs spoke with the
Press.
He had, he said, met with UN Under
Secretaries General Feltman, Mulet,
Ladsous and Khare, about the upcoming UN
mission to be headed by Frenchman Jean
Arnault. He noted the history of
cultural exchange between Germany and
Colombia," saying that "Germans read a
lot of Garcia Marquez."
And now another
German, Horst Kohler, stands
poised to take the envoy
position in one of the
Council's failures, Western
Sahara...
***
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