| Inner
City Press Asked UN's Phumzile
Mlambo About Her Comments on
Zuma, Then Asked UN
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Video,
en
francais, 1st
Person
UNITED NATIONS,
February 15 – UN officials are
supposedly international civil
servants, no longer involved
in and commenting on politics
in “their” country. Hours
before Jacob Zuma resigned in
South Africa, Inner City Press
asked the head of UN Women
Phumzile Mlambo about an
interview she gave the day
before, specifically on Zuma
and Thabo Mbeki. Do you take
your international civil
servant hat off? How does it
work? When the UN Department
of Public Information put up
the video of the press
conference, the audio of
Phumzile Mlambo's answer was
cut. UN video without audio here,
at 24:46. After the cut, she
said, “there's no play book
for that.” After the cut, on
February 15 Inner City Press
asked UN Spokesman Stephane
Dujarric, UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: with South
Africa, but only
indirectly. I just
wanted to ask you, yesterday,
there was a press conference
by the head of UN-Women.
And among other questions, I
asked her about an interview
that she'd given in which she
kind of… she described her
past working under Thabo
Mbeki, talked about the
ANC. So, I just… kind of
as a soft… I don't want to say
it's a softball, but I asked,
what are the… you know, what
are the rules out applicable
to an international civil
servant speaking about the
politics in their
country? Some of the
audio was lost in the thing,
but she definitely said
there's no playbook for
this. And I wonder,
isn't there a playbook?
Isn't there… what would you
say in terms of… what was the…
what's the Secretary-General's
view on how his officials
should comment on the politics
in their country?
Spokesman: Listen, I
didn't hear exactly what she
said. I think, if she
was commenting on her past and
the Executive Director has a
very prominent past in the
politics and in her country
and the struggle that the
country went through, I see no
reason why she shouldn't be
able to talk about it. I
think a lot of senior
officials bring with
themselves, bring historical…
have a background, a
historical background, and
they should… whether they talk
about it or not is their own
choice. Obviously, I
think UN officials should… you
know, unless part of their
mandate, need to be careful, I
think, commenting on active
political situations.
But, obviously, as part of
their mandate, they often have
a responsibility to do
so. I say this as a
matter of principle. I
didn't hear exactly what she
said. Inner City Press:
Sure. You can easily
find the interview. It
wasn't said here. It was
in the midst of political
turbulence in South Africa and
definitely… so I guess I'm
just wish… I'm wondering,
like, how’s she…?
Spokesman: I'm sure I
will. Okay. I think I
tried to answer, and if
there's an issue, I'm sure the
Secretary-General will take it
up directly with them." What,
as he's flying around the
world first class? There is,
at the UN, a play book for
censorship, of the most
ham-handed kind. Inner City
Press, which has similarly
questioned UN Peacekeeping
chief Herve Ladsous serving
France, and Deputy Secretary
General Amina J. Mohammed
referring to Buhari as “my
president,” on these topics -a
and still finds itself
restricted to minders, its
long time work space
purportdly given to a no-show,
no-question Egyptian state
media Akhbar al Youm. But
cutting audio? We'll have more
on this.
***
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