By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 1 -- When UN staff members marched in protest in front of Headquarters on May Day, they carried signs like "No Albano Building," and "UNinhabitable according to Shaaban." Video here.
The Albano Building is on 46th Street and was rented by the UN to relocate workers including translators while the headquarters was renovated, for some $2 billion.
But now that the renovation of the Secretariat is finished, the workers aren't being allowed to return. Their space, they say, is being given to big wigs from ECLAC and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations' Police Adviser unit, which were never there before.
The translators are confined to a decrepit former factory called uninhabitable by DGACM chief Shaaban Shaaban in a 2010 memo to Angela Kane, who still a UN official.
Kane is now UN negotiator on chemical weapons in Syria. It occurred: how can Kane find sarin in Syria if she couldn't or wouldn't find the roaches and bed bugs in the Albano Building?
Inner City Press at the time exclusively wrote about the bed bugs, and the leaked memo subsequently quoted by staff, and today covers not only Kane but Shaaban's replacements. Many staff interviewed by Inner City Press on May Day blamed current Assistant Secretary General Franz Baumann, and wondered what the incoming new chief of DGACM will do.
"Where is Ban Ki-moon?" more than one staffer asked. Where indeed.
It being May Day, the idea of worker action beyond marching arose. But it was explained to Inner City Press that while the interpreters could "shut the UN down," translators are in a more precarious position, with the prospect of outsourcing ever-more present. The Group of 77 and China push for multilingualism. But if they didn't?
The march was from 1:30 to 2:30 pm and garnered quite a bit of UN Security. Inner City Press is informed it was almost "outlawed." At Wednesday's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about the planned march, on which it had already published a story. Ban's spokesperson said peaceful protest would be allowed. And so it was, with UN Security even working to protect the march from limousines speeding out of the garage.
Some UN communications "professionals" walked right on by, for example DPKO's Herve Ladsous' spokesperson Kieran Dwyer, last seen blocking questions from Inner City Press about the 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, Ladsous' partners. Click here for April 25 video.
But several Security Council diplomats Inner City Press spoke with later on Wednesday were unaware of the protest, because of the timing. (One Permanent Representative of a Permanent Five member was a refreshing exception.)
"They should go it during GA week," another suggested, then specified they shouldn't be quoted advising UN workers how to get management's attention.
It is member states who "own" the UN Secretariat, and who alone could hold it accountable. Appealing for the UN Secretariat to practice what it preaches, on freedom of the press or workers' rights, does not seem to work. For now. Watch this site.
