By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 5 -- As UN big wigs gather tellingly in Europe, there are several elephants in the room. The hottest job in the UN system, envoy to Mali, is slated to go to another European, Staffan De Mistura. Click here forexclusive of April 3 from Inner City Press.
European are on a roll in Africa, at least through the UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He's given Europeans the top posts in the Sahel, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire -- Bert Koenders, chilling this week in New York well in advance of today's session of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.
Meanwhile, the UN Staff Union in New York has voted “no confidence” in Ban Ki-moon. Who on the Chief Executives Board will dare ask about it, without immediately dismissing it as somehow proving Ban's strong leadership?
What kind of a leader calls those who work for him as levels lower that the CEB “selfish”? Who will ask that?
Just as Ban's advisers are too timid or self-interested to ask him tough question, Ban does not ask his Under Secretaries General to answer critical questions from the Press.
Herve Ladsous has been allowed to openly refuse to answer Inner City Press questions, on UN Television, even having the UNTV microphone seized to try to avoid questions about rapes in the Congo. Video here. Zero tolerance indeed.
On March 18, Inner City Press' office inside the UN was raided, without notice or consent, by the Department of Public Information. Apres raid video here.
Either they or those they let in, from the UN Censorship Alliance known as UNCA, took photographs of Inner City Press' desk and bookshelf and gave them anonymously to BuzzFeed.com.
In fact, the photos were leaked, directly to the BuzzFeed reporter, immediately after Ban's Spokesperson's Office got a call about the raid from the reporter. How did that happen?
Has there been any accountability, for Ban's UN's descent into dictatorial anti-press tactics? Not yet. DPI won't even disclose who it let into the Press' office. Watch this site.
