By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 14 -- Many books were sold and fewer signed when Kofi Annan came back to the UN midday on Monday and took questions, selected by new Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson.
The question were either fawning or about Annan's brief time as Syria mediator. None of the questions take were about the UN Secretariat's failing under Annan or Eliasson's boss Ban Ki-moon.
While Annan repeatedly spoke about the Responsibility to Protect, for example, no mention was made of the UN standing by, pulling out and even covering up as 40,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka in 2009.
Eliasson is heading yet another back-room panel on the UN's actions and inactions, but he did not bring up Sri Lanka, or call on any questioner who would.
Rather, one of the questioner selected asked, "Will you sign my book?" And there was a long line of people who had bought Annan's memoir "Interventions." They would be disappointed and not get his autograph. But it does not seem that there were any refunds. (Nor, for those who remember or ever cared, was Oil for Food addressed.)
When India's Mission to the UN gave out Aakash 2 tablets recently, they said no commerce could take place in the North Lawn building and people went outside for the hand-over. How was this mass Kofi Annan book sale different? That question wasn't selected, or answered.
Inner City Press reviewed Annan's "Interventions" back on October, here. Watch this site.
Footnote: At the Kofi Annan book sale, a concerned Ambassador was greeted with this, "I am the new [officer] of UNCA -- not of FUNCA." Has even the press corps or its representation by UNCA decayed at the UN? That answer is yes. Watch THIS site: the Free UN Coalition for Access.
