UNITED NATIONS, April 1 -- Amid the self-congratulatory Haiti fest at the UN on Wednesday, there was bragging by the European Union, Canada and others, corporate plugs for Coca-Cola, and many Haitian excluded from the conference.
The EU's High Commissioner Catherine Ashton closed with the dramatic phrase about the scale of death "in 35 seconds." But earlier on Wednesday, when Inner City Press asked her about what's described as her powerplay to get EU development aid under an External Affairs Unit she is setting up, she dodged as in a quake. There's no controversy, she said. But that's not what development and poverty experts say.
Inner City Press asked Ashton about two EU members, Germany and France. The former's been called stingy by German Agro Aid. French development minister Alain Joyandet spent over 116,000 Euros taking a private jet to a meeting about poverty in Haiti. Ashton smiled as that question was asked, but did not answer it. The German question she left to her Eastern European co-panelist.
Upstairs at the stakeout in front of the Trusteeship Council Chamber, high profile participants praised the meeting and themselves. Canadian foreign Minister Cannon lauded his country's response. Inner City Press asked about the criticism by former Canadian (and UN) diplomat Robert Fowler, that the conservative Canadian government has turned more and more inwards, and taken sides in the Middle East.
Cannon said he would not respond to Fowler, only that he is -- and by implication Fowler should be -- grateful to the countries which helped get Fowler released from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, after he was scooped up in Niger working for the UN and perhaps Canadian mining interests.
Back downstairs the press spokesman of Japan's foreign minister Okada described his boss' trip to Washington, Ottawa and New York in seemingly great detail. But he omitted the discussions of the relocation of American forces on Okinawa. When asked by Inner City Press, he dutifully described the issue for the few representatives of Japanese media in the briefing room, as if they'd never heard of it. And then the briefing was over.
It all concluded with an unwieldy seven person press conference in the UN's basement. Only three questions were allowed, each apparently pre-selected. Ban's spokesman called on Spanish wire service EFE, which he had left off Ban's first trip to Haiti, whose president's spokesman called on a Haitian journalist from "Scoop." The U.S. State Department called on Reuters, which asked Hillary Clinton about Iran and the UN Security Council.
While Haitian President Rene Preval rolled his eyes and Ban urged that only Haiti questions be asked, Hillary Clinton, France's Bernard Kouchner and Brazil's foreign minister each answered the question. Brazil said as a non permanent member of the Council, it was not in the loop.
Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. viewed seeking Council sanctions as diplomacy, even negotiations. Kouchner said that "we did try to talk to the Iranians, we did." Why not allow a question or answer about his development minister's 116,000 Euro private jet trip about Haiti, then? And so it goes in the UN.
Footnotes: Some, including Haitians who had traveled to New York in good faith for the conference, could not get in. A misleading UN web site allowed people to register and even receive confirmation. They appeared prior to the conference but were told another step had been needed, and that the event was "for donors."
This contrasted to Bill Clinton's statement, following his high security hobnobbing with Coca-Cola which has tried to brand the earthquake, that the conference "heard from Haitian civilian society, and not just from me."
Inner City Press also questioned the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the stakeout, on the IMF's failure to yet forgive Haiti's debt, in contrast to the IADB. After reporting Strauss-Kahn's answer yesterday, Thursday morning Inner City Press asked for more detail at the IMF's bi-weekly briefing, on this it will report before the IMF's 10:30 a.m. embargo time. Watch this site. www.innercitypress.com/haiti1euca040110.html
