UN SAYS AND SHOWS IT WON’T COVER STORIES COUNTRIES DON’T LIKE, CRITICS TARGETED

Inner City Press
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July 1, 2009

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

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 — The UN runs its own News Service, its
own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad
Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if "a country
regards it as not a good story."

"We don’t do it," Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly
comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up,
asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of
the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica.

Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of
its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added,
"Are we going to produce a video about it? I don’t know."

Inner City Press has previously interviewed Mr. Fawzi’s colleague
Susan Farkas, now the head of UN TV and Radio and present at the July
1 screening, who told the Press, "I find it astonishing that you think
there’s a story in the fact that we don’t investigate the UN… The
UN pays us. The UN pays us to produce a program which promotes the
issues that the UN cares about."

Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children
left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second
concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without
explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN
personnel left.

It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who
used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is
not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling
that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent
facts cannot be called independent.

Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns
out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon’s popularity
to the UN’s successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question
to be about the UN’s press release service, Fawzi said "we cover what
happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional,
it tells what goes on in the House."

But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency,
never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the
state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state,
it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on
Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly
taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated —
but ostensibly even more independent — UN humanitarian Relief Web
news service.

While in the previous interview Ms. Farkas went on to ask, "Do you
work for the Heritage Foundation," on July 1 Fawzi said, "there are
others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that
with a very open mind and an open heart."

It is not clear what "we" he was referring to. Consider a "Dear
Colleague" letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of
Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.

In UN-TV, Fawzi (at right) monitors Ban Ki-moon’s image

"Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption,
mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again
seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.

Meeting on May 8 about ‘reporting by the press,’ high level UN
officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press
agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News
about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN
scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency’s
temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about
that meeting, the Secretary General’s spokeswoman furiously retorted,
‘I don’t have to account to you for meetings I participate in.’
The UN’s Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to
obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to
maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into
open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth
and preventing oversight.

These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly
contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which
recognized that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression… and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Once again, the UN
is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded."

The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane
(Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information — the boss of both
Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O’Brien (Legal Affairs),
as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s speech writer Michael
Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo
from Ms. Kane to Ban.

Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban’s spokeswoman
Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of
whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only
with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to
the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN
would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication
removed from Google News, Ms. Kane’s memo shows different. What
was that again, that "there are others whose job it is to look at
us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open
heart"? Some do and some don’t.

Footnote: the "Dear Colleague" letter circulated on Capitol Hill states
that the UN is "seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain
office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open,
un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and
preventing oversight." Previously the Department of Public Information,
where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist
they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up
on the UN building.

Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less "whistlebelower
free" zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been
offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that "there are
others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that
with a very open mind and an open heart." Watch this site.

* * * UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for
Supachai at UNCTAD?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, June 24 — Weeks after the filing with the UN
investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by
staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai
Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for
another four years.

Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22,
asked Ban’s spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and
acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.

The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the
first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a
May 8, 2009 email by Supachai’s special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that
African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast’s former trade
minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set
a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General,
due to "his perceived Western backers."

Ban’s spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is
before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from
Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief
Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint
since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.

Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower
protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He
claimed he "never campaigned," despite what the emails show his special
adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only "responded to some
countries’ remarks." Video here, from Minute 56:18.

Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of
the emails at issue, here.

UN’s Ban and UNCTAD’s Supachai: a snub of latter hurts former?

In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, "NAM Note
Verbale," Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the
subsequent complainant: "Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note
Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new
development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors
that the picture has become clear — UNCTAD SG post has become an
innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle… The
goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and
undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with
the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers)."

This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City
Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in
overriding (after working to override and change) African Group
resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is
laid out in Supachai’s special adviser’s Mach 8 e-mail, referring
to telling Team Ban "things like ‘you are the real target’ or ‘you
are next.’" The emails point to several other improprieties, and
it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and
simply reappoint Supachai.

Following Chutikul’s"all hands on deck" e-mail, the press was on
to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai’s renomination to
the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing,
and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment
G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted
the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the
World Trade Organization — "because he’s white"? The e-mails are
replete with racial references.

Now what will happen? Watch this site.

Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN
Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press’ March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press’ Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka
:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press’ Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press’ review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press’ December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press’ December 12 debate on UN double
standards

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress