Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
UNITED NATIONS, April 16 -- For Gordon Brown at the UN on Wednesday, it was a morning of snubs. His meeting with South Africa's Thabo Mbeki was cancelled. He in turn cancelled his previously-announced press conference for all UN correspondents. Rather, he blew by the stakeout with an entourage of two dozen, on his way to a room in the basement to speak only with the British traveling press.
"How can they do this?" Inner City Press asked the UN staffer controlling access to Brown's briefing.
They booked the room, was the subsequent answer.
When?
Initially it was just to leave their bags in. Then, an hour and a half ago, they said they wanted to use it for this.
"Booking rooms by the hour, like a hot sheet motel," another correspondent grumbled afterwards.
When Gordon Brown came out, Inner City Press asked him if he had met with Mbeki. He nodded and smiled. Inner City Press asked, "No snub?"
"No snub," one in his entourage replied. And then they were gone, down to lunch with Michael Bloomberg and to meet with Wall Street bankers.
A source who was in the Brown presser reports the emphasis inside was on a two hour meeting earlier in the week, as the rebuttal of the snub. Outside, a five minute "brush-by" was described. Ah, diplomacy....
The substance kept secret, it's said, was a call for international observers of any second round of voting in Zimbabwe. We'll have more on this -- when we can.
Update 1 -- The UK's Lord Malloch Brown, stopping in the hallway to speak with reporters, phrased it this way, "Don't build cheat on cheat." If the first round was irregular, a second round is not the solution. He said that sending UN elections observers would not require a Security Council vote, but would require the invitation or consent of Zimbabwe's government.
He declined to comment on allegations in the British legislature that one or more of the Zimbabwe resident representatives of the UN Development Program, which he used to head, have accepted favors and even land from Robert Mugabe. One doesn't comment on the personnel practices of an agency one no longer works for, he said. He referred to a denial on UNDP's web site -- so, he remains at minimum an observer. So how about the exponential growth of "cost sharing," which he promoted, leading now to a situation where UNDP expends more in Latin America than in African, with over 90% of UNDP's expenditures in Latin America consisting of little more than doing the bookkeeping (and rule evasion) for a government's programs in its own country? More on this to follow.
Update 2, of April 17, 2:20 p.m. -- the UK Mission to the UN contested, not to Inner City Press but to the well-meanin UN staffer put in the position of keeping the press out, that as a member state the UK could use the room for free, without paying. The article above has been modified to characterize it as a "booking" and not a "renting" of the room. The issue of the exclusion of the press by the UK private press conference, however, remains. The distinction was not "UN correspondents out, travelling press in," as select UN correspondent were, in fact, allowed in, uncontested by the UK mission. It is another selection process, for which the UK Mission has become known.
One final footnote: from within the UK Foreign Office, and not its Mission to the UN, comes a different theory of snubs, under which the George Bush administration had Gordon Brown come at the same time as the Pope, in order to make the U.S. press less interested in Brown. (As noted, only a single photographer waited for Brown outside the Waldorf Towers on Wednesday.) This purportedly goes back to Brown characterizing his first meeting with Bush as "frank," diplo-speak for angry, creating the impression that unlike Tony Blair, Gordo stood up to W. W's revenge? Gordo's eclipse by the Pope. A sea of snubs, indeed....
And see, www.innercitypress.com/uk1gbrown041608.html
