UNITED NATIONS, April 23 -- Mahmood Ahmadinejad has asked the 137-member Non-Aligned Movement to condemn UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for criticizing him, as President of Iran, for his statements at the Durban Review Conference Monday in Geneva. Thursday it emerged, perhaps not surprisingly, that the President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is diplomatically in support of Ahmadinejad. Inner City Press asked d'Escoto Brockmann's spokesperson, Enrique Yeves, for the President of the General Assembly's views on Ban v. Ahmadinejad. Video here, cleaned up statement below:
Subj: Durban Review Conference
From: yeves@un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 4/23/2009 1:18:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Hi Matthew, below is what I said today at the briefing. Best regards, Enrique
Noon Briefing
The President of the GA, of course, believes that the United Nations must provide a forum where all views of Members States can be expressed, even those views that are considered controversial.
That said, he is disappointed that the controversy has become a distraction from the bigger goal of finding justice and sovereignty for the Palestinian People.
It is unfortunate that the attention has focused on the President of Iran rather than on this difficult process of bringing peace and justice to peoples of the region.
(The recent incident unfolded like a theatrical production and, he does not think this is the best use of the world stage.)
After Yeves read out this statement, Inner City Press followed up, asking who d'Escoto was criticizing for focusing on Ahmadinejad: the press or Ban Ki-moon? It was that Yeves made the parenthetical statement about it being a "theatrical production."
In fact, Monday in UN headquarters it was more like a screening of a home movie. Ban's Spokesperson's Office cancelled the normal Q&A noon briefing, and instead used the briefing room to show a broadcast, at first without sound and throughout without any possibility to ask questions from UN Headquarters, of Ban and Navi Pillay speaking in Geneva, denounced Ahmadinejad. Ban went further and called for "discipline" on NGOs. Since then, several have been thrown out from the Review Conference.
Footnote: D'Escoto's good buddy Evo Morales of Bolivia was at the UN on Wednesday for the new Madre Tierra / Mother Earth Day. One reporter protested that there was already one (or two) UN accepted Earth Days. Another called the nomenclature sexist, and said that Germany in the General Assembly spoke of Father Earth.
Morales, for his part, used his hour-long press conference to answer only four questions. Throughout he was sweating and later, while being interviewed, he got sick and was taken away in a wheelchair. He cancelled his appearance in a church in Harlem, where a long line of people arriving to hear him speak were told at 5:30 that he would not be appearing. He cancelled his trip to the indigenous conference in Alaska that d'Escoto is attending, and headed back to Bolivia. The UN says the country is being taken over by the Mexican drug cartels. But that's only part of the UN....And see, www.innercitypress.com/unpga1durban042309.html
