UNITED NATIONS, April 21 -- It was a tale of two UNs on Tuesday night: there was drumming and dancing in the General Assembly lobby as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues began, while in the roped off elite area of the cafeteria, Israel sponsored a high security reception. Inner City Press was asked, which one did Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attend? The latter, was the answer, sending not an Under but Assistant Secretary General to address the assembled indigenous.
In attendance amid the drumming, despite many registrants being absent due to flights canceled by the Iceland's volcano's ash, were a range of what's called civil society and that stratum of the UN staff which serve them. Nearly uniformly there was dissatisfaction with Ban Ki-moon's lack of engagement with non governmental organizations and "regular people," and about the increasingly lack of access to the UN by civil society.
"He's taken the place back thirty years," a UN staffer said. Another wondered, even with the General Assembly building to remain open for the next two years, how long groups like the indigenous would be allowed to use the lobby. The Ban administration, an involved staffer disclosed, has asked that the exhibition walls in the lobby be removed so he can host a high level luncheon during this year's General Debate. The walls would not be reinstalled, and thus public exhibitions would cease.
A coalition on NGOs recently wrote to Ban to complain about deceasing access and got back what they called a mere form letter.
The UN, including under Ban, pays lip service to the value of civil society. But for the past three years, representatives say, it has been implemented less and less. For how much longer, they wondered Tuesday night, will this UN allow the drums to beat? Watch this space.
Footnote: the head of the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Inner City Press learned on Tuesday night, will be leaving the post this summer. The new chairman of the Forum, for the first time, was chosen by a government rather than civil society within his country. Things are changing at the UN, including at the Forum. Nothing, it seems clear, is Permanent. Reforms can be turned back as much as thirty years.
