By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 6 -- For days, senior UN officials have been telling Inner City Press about aggressive lobbying by Morocco about the specifics of the forthcoming UN report on Western Sahara, a leaked copy of which Morocco was given from within the UN Secretariat.
Inner City Press on April 4 wrote about the topic -- having also obtained a copy from diplomatic sources -- and on April 6 repeatedly told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky that it wanted to ask a Western Sahara question at that day's noon briefing.
“I have a question on Western Sahara,” Inner City Press said, ceding first to another journalist on Haiti. But Nesirky then declared without explanation he would take only one more question, on another topic. Inner City Press repeated, “I have a question on Western Sahara.” But Nesikry stood up, declaring his briefing over. Nor does he respond to or even acknowledge the majority of e-mailed Press questions.
Diplomatic sources tell Inner City Press that Ban's final, post-lobbying report is due out. And so, Inner City Press now published a scanned version of the draft to obtained, both with Paragraph 119 as urged by Morocco and a proposal by the Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which proposes a human rights mechanism for the UN's MINURSO mission.
Even those close to Ban say that the level of pressure -- which Ban has apparently given into -- was extreme. At the same time, Ban is closely linked with France in military action in Cote d'Ivoire.
A day after French foreign minister Alain Juppe said that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon agrees that Laurent Gbagbo must sign a letter ceding power to Alassane Ouattara, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky if that is, in fact, Ban's position.
“I don't speak for the French Foreign Minister,” Nesirky said.
“But you do speak for the Secretary General,” Inner City Press asked. Is it Ban's position or not?
Nesirky would not answer, saying he would not characterize the Secretary General's communications with Juppe. Then he refused repeated requests that he answer a question about Western Sahara.
Thus does the UN thumbs its nose at transparency and lose credibility, by being used by France and Morocco, not only in Cote d'Ivoire but Western Sahara too. Watch this site.
