After
Reuters &
AFP Tried to
Expel Press, FUNCA
Fliers Defaced
for
Coronation
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 5 --
Four weeks ago
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
was launched,
calling for
more
accountability
from UN
officials to
answer
questions, for
multi-party
democracy and
for more
fairness in
the UN's
treatment of
the different
media which
cover it.
FUNCA
was formed
after a year
in which the UN
Correspondents
Association
first demanded
censorship, then
when that
failed tried
to expel the
Press, then
tried to get
it dis-accredited
from the UN.
During
this
time, UNCA did
nothing as
some
journalists
were pushed
out of
office space,
and others
were
disciplined
with no due
process.
Now,
FUNCA has
raised cases
of journalists
denied
accreditation
to the UN,
and disparate
treatment in
the allocation
of work space
even as the UN
proposes to
use dwindling
resources and
space on not
only an UNCA
"Club" but
also an UNCA
Office and
even an "UNCA
Pantry."
Even
as this
long-time,
some say
decaying
single party
pushed back, scoffing
when FUNCA
asked
questions and
tearing
down its
fliers,
the
high road was
taken.
When for
example in the
South
African
mission's
January 3
press
conference
FUNCA could
have been
called on
first, it
deferred to
the older
group, content
to go second.
But when it
did,
the initial
questioner hissed,
"Jesus Christ."
Then
on January 4
FUNCA's fliers
with its
statement of
principles
including
Freedom of the
Press, and UN
Freedom of
Information,
were
defaced and
left up with
"Looney Club"
scrawled on
them, and the
word "media"
crossed
out. Photo
here.
This then is
UNCA's
response.
And
so the
critique
becomes more
specific. In
the January
8-10 UNCA
election,
already
delayed
contrary to
the group's
supposed
constitution,
there is NO
COMPETITION
for the top
six spots.
Each
candidate is
running
unopposed, as
in North
Korea.
Four
of the six are
people who
held the same
position in
2012, when the
UNCA
Executive
Committee
went all out
to expel and
then sought
to
dis-accredit
the
investigative
Press.
So now
we'll name
some names.
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters, past
and
prospective
first vice
president of
UNCA, told
Voice of
America that
Reuters
supported the
VOA letter to
get Inner City
Press thrown
out of the UN,
click
here for
document
obtained under
the Freedom of
Information.
Reuters
discussed suing
Inner City
Press for what
it wrote --
"Looney Club"
indeed
-- and made
inquiries with
the US Mission
to the UN.
FOIA
documents were
twice sent for
comment to the
entire UNCA
Executive
Committee,
without
response. (Also
on FOIA, Inner
City Press is
a media amicus
in this
just filed
brief in McBurney
v. Young,
No. 12-17 of
the US Supreme
Court: Looney
Club?)
Agence
France-Presse'
Tim Witcher
told Voice of
America that AFP
supported
the VOA letter
to get Inner
City Press
thrown out of
the UN,
and
would send its
own letter.
Witcher, like
Charbonneau,
is "running"
again to stay
on the UNCA
Executive
Committee,
presumably to
try use
the post for
Agence FRANCE
Presse and
himself.
It
was Witcher
who back in
September 2011
asked
UNCA to take
action
against Inner
City Press following
its report
that Herve
Ladsous,
the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to be put
atop the UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
was a last
minute fill-in
for Jerome
Bonnafont.
Jump
cut to late
2012, when
Ladsous
emboldened by
UNCA's
anti-Press
moves refused
to answer any
questions
from Inner
City Press,
including
about the 126
rapes in
Minova by
DPKO's
partners in
the Congolese
Army.
Then Ladsous
took
Charbonneau,
Witcher and
Margaret
Besheer of
Voice of
America out
into the hall.
Is this
then the
"UNCA
Hallway"? Or
the real "UNCA
Pantry"? Video
here.
On
FUNCA's flier,
the reference
to Ladsous was
defaced,
implying
Ladsous
didn't answer
the rape
questions
because they
were not from
"media."
Who then were
the questions
from? And what
type of media
is it, that
rarely
even comes to
ask questions,
and then goes
into the
hallway with
Ladsous like
this?
As
noted in an earlier
article about
this "election,"
the
views on all
this of the
new
president-designate,
nominated by
the
four-year
president now
outgoing, from
censorship to
dis-accreditation
bids to (now)
the defacing
of FUNCA's
fliers, are not yet
known.
It's
increasingly
like another
succession
recently
discussed but
barely acted
on in the UN
Security
Council.
From
UNCA members
current and
past, it has
been noted
that in this
current
unopposed
slate the top
two UNCA posts
would both be
filled by
Americans.
It's been
noted that
nowhere in the
Executive
Committee is
there any
sub-Saharan
African or
African-American
journalist.
Is
this the UN?
FUNCA for its
part will stay
as far away as
possible from
this corrupt
coronation
which openly
violates the
UNCA
constitution.
FUNCA has told
the UN
Department of
Public
Information
that the
so-called
"UNCA Club"
should be
designated
more
neutrally as
the "UN Press
Club," same
with the
laughably
named "UNCA
Pantry;" the
separate "UNCA
Office"
should be
given to the
journalists
long waiting
for work space
in the
UN. Watch this
site.