By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unday5paytoplay102409.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- As the UN celebrated itself with a concert in the General Assembly Friday night, the sponsor it took $110,000 from lurked around trying to get pay-back.
On stage, UN peacekeepers were praised, even for their work in Rwanda. Across First Avenue, after an open photo op with the sponsors by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had become untenable, or at least unsavory, Under Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari arrived in at the UN Millennium Hotel to take photos with the Chinese businessmen who paid money for access to the UN.
Still, this wasn't enough. Ban's pre-concert photo op, it emerged, had initially had three phases: artists, member states then sponsor. The last was officially cut out. But witnesses at the photo op, with the exception of the UN's organizer, tell Inner City Press that sponsor Frank Liu of the World Harmony Foundation and six of his associates still managed to get access.
In the green room behind the General Assembly rostrum, Inner City Press spoke with Frank Liu. He complained about being excluded. They come and ask you for money, he said, and then this. Without apparent irony, he said that he perhaps shared Inner City Press' desire to "reform the UN."
Head UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy strode into the green room. He spoke with the director of the Culture Project, and with Mr. Frank Liu, to whom he had written in July offering a full tour of DPKO's 24 hour Situation Center, in exchange for sponsorship of the concert.
The UN, at the pre concert press conference, claimed that despite the wording of Le Roy's letter, there was no quid pro quo. The UN admitted that these same sponsors, the World Harmony Foundation, took photos with Ban Ki-moon after an event they paid for in March, but called the photos "ad hoc." These arguments wouldn't stand up in a New York City vice raid, or subsequent court appearance.
Rather than reflect on how bad the March pay to play incident in the General Assembly lobby made the UN look, the UN decided to try to take Frank Liu's money without openly being dominated. So, for example, it told Liu he couldn't bring onto the stage or even in the building the harmony bell he stores, during the year, in a garage in Queens.
Lui, who complained to Inner City Press about this, had the bell brought to the Isaiah Wall across the street, and rang it along with personalities from South Korea. Take that, thirty eighth floor, was the message. Then USG Gambari made his appearance, ostensibly in a personal capacity, on the 29th floor of the UN Millennium Hotel. In the group's program, Gambari was listed as Deputy Secretary General, but Gambari later told Inner City Press this was "their fault," and Liu ascribed it to translation.
So the UN tried to be able to say they had taken Frank Liu's money without taking anything from him. But he and his associates were given passes into the UN, used the Delegates Dining Room, got access to the Green Room and the top UN officials. The staged denial or withholding of certain accesses and acts took on the flavor of the client or "date" negotiations often broken up on shows such as Police Women of Broward County. But who will go undercover and expose some current UN officials? Watch this site.
