At the UN, of Syrian CDs and Hasty Re-Translations, Mysterious Maps of Concentration Camps

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 17 -- Syria's communications in and to the United Nations have generated two simultaneous controversies. A reply statement in the General Assembly's First Committee, on disarmament, in which Syria's representative referred to Israel's bombings, was translated in the English language summary as conceding that what Israel recently bombed was a nuclear facility. Speaking to Inner City Press on Wednesday afternoon, Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said that "Some unknown staff falsified the statement of my diplomat in the First Committee.... Guys like you, professional journalists, should be able to track it down."

            In UN press release GA/DIS/3345, "the representative of Syria said... Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria."

            If this were an accurate translation, it would be an explosive admission. One clue, that most now say should have been picked up by an editor, is that the "attack in Syria" took place in September, not in July. Now, the word is that the interpreter form Arabic to English made the error, which the English-language note taker continued. It is pointed out that, along among UN-based big-six language interpreters, those in Arabic are paid (and apparently selected) through a different stream.

            Amb. Ja'afari said he thinks the mis-translation was "intentional" and that he has requested a "full investigation," the results of which he will release. Most of the professional journalists at the UN are not holding their breath for the release of such an investigation, since even the audits by the Office of Internal Oversight Services are not released, and Wednesday the UN reversed a position of the previous day, and said that its $250 million no-bid contract with Lockheed Martin for infrastructure for the UN-African Union hybrid force for Darfur will not be released, only summarized.

Syria's Amb. Ja'afari, Guernica in background

   Separately, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked Tuesday evening

About the CD [compact disk] that you received from the Syrian government depicting the attack that that the Israelis [made] on the 3rd of September - you received the CD in early October; you have seen it, I suppose, but what did you learn from it, and why didn't you pass it to the Security Council?

SG:  First of all, about this situation, we have not received any concrete evidence and concrete information.  We need to get more clear information.

Q:  But you have seen the CD that you have been given.

SG:  My answer is, I will stop there.

            Amb. Ja'afari emphasized to Inner City Press, "that was a good question, we gave Ban the CD, he has the material, more than two weeks ago." Some have noted in the CD a time stamp that is 2006, and the presence in incongruous types of trees and vegetation. But the passing on a CDs should not be a problem.

            On the translation, by Wednesday afternoon the UN circulated a new version, omitting any use of the word "nuclear." The new section that the UN highlights reads that Israel "is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign states and carries out military aggression against the, like what happened on the 6th of September against my country."

            In the section as provided by UN DPI, the Arabic original including the year number 2007, while the English translation does not, leading one Sunny correspondent to joke that the only part of the Arabic he could read is erroneously not included in the English.

            A side story that surprisingly has not yet been covered, including by the at least two recipient journalists, was the mysterious recent delivery of a mid-World War II map of Europe, with notations and names of all concentration camps, into the mailboxes of Jewish correspondents at the UN. One targeted correspondent wondered what the message was -- "never forget" or "don't forget"? It seems to some to be a story which, among others, the New York Post or Daily News would jump on. But perhaps they don't want to cover the targeting of a competitor publication, and if the competitor for its reasons chooses not to report, there things lie. Developing...  

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Clck here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army.  Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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