By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 23 -- Why did UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemn the 9/11 comments of UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, but today refuse to comment on Falk's comments on the Boston bombings?
Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey this question on April 23, and once Del Buey twice didn't answer it, the Press posited one explanation (to see if it might shake free some clarification.)
Is the difference to Ban the relative level of casualties? Or has Falk fatigue set in?
After that, Del Buey told Inner City Press it could ask only one more question. Since the UN, as it happened, paid 27,000 pounds for a 3 pound UK golf ball detector, to offer false protection to its peacekeepers in Lebanon, that question has to be asked even though, again, there was no answer.
But there was and is another UN Special Rapporteur question: Bahrain has delayed or Banned the rapporteuer on torture, Juan Mendez. Will Ban have a comment on that? We'll see.
Ban's reticence at least for now to comment on Falk's theory of the Boston bombings is at odds with his Department of Public Information's “urgent” request to Inner City Press on April 18 to clarify a single tweet that it sent, click here for that.
The tweet mentioning World War 2 and the new (German, male) police adviser to Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who has the job because of France's veto power in the Security Council, which was won along with... World War Two.
Inner City Press was told, by DPI official Stephane Dujarric, that this tweet was offensive to millions of people, and crossed “all bounds;” Inner City Press was told that it was being “given the chance” to explain it.
So the UN was threatening an independent media, over which is has no control at all other than accreditation -- which it at times seems to misuse to control content -- while Ban Ki-moon through his Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq says he is “not responsible” for Falk's views, and will not respond for or to them. Strange. Watch this site.
