By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 11 -- While the UN continues to preach democracy and even lack of censorship around the world, in two elections held in December inside the UN, disputes and decay were the rule, and have grown worse since.
On February 11, having moved to essentially break the UN staff union by citing alleged irregularities in voting, the UN Secretariat held a closed door meeting with Permanent Representative on Ban Ki-moon's "mobility" proposal, which the union opposed. The meeting was not in the day's UN Journal, and was not on UNTV.
Then Ban Ki-moon lunched with what's become the UN's Censorship Alliance, despite its leadership openly violating the group's own constitution, which they just put back online, by not having the required financial meeting in the first half of January, as promised in an email disclosing a donated Samsung television subsequently denied by UNCA 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS.
How can the UN cite rules against one group, the union, while ignoring them on another? The answer is that the union fights or pushes to hold Ban accountable, while the UNCA leadership does not. So one is broken, the other lunched with.
But what did Ban SAY to these scribes at lunch? In the past, Ban's spokesperson has released, later, quotes on some but not all topics, without releasing a tape or transcript. And now?
A photograph tweeted from the lunch shows an array of microphones in front of Ban Ki-moon, linked to here. What to make of these quotes, at a minimum under a head-start?
The UN's "Appointments of the Secretary-General" listed for example an 11:40 am meeting with the head of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund -- remember, Ban is not recognizing any Staff Union -- but did not list this "luncheon." Transparency?
Most telling are direct censorship efforts by the UN bureau chief of Reuters, with its Permanent seat on UNCA's board. He got Google to ban from its Search a complaint he filed with the UN trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, (mis) using the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act as diagnosed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That's straight up censorship, and it's enough, well, to lose your lunch. But not today, apparently.
More contrast: in the UN Staff Union election, in which an incumbent sought to stay on despite term limits, there werecharges of illegal polling, and an attempt to stop paying the Elections Services Company.
Now, the ticket that came out on top in the election has written to UN Department of Management chief Yukio Takasu for a statement if he and the UN recognize this union leadership.
Takasu last week presided over a Department of Management town hall meeting at which impacts on staff members were discussed -- but without a recognized union?
Inner City Press is informed that in the UN facility in Valencia, for example, contract workers will re obtained through the UN Office for Project Services. Union-busting and outsourcing, at the UN.
On December 17 Inner City Press published the results,putting the document online here:
Winner with 430 votes: Ticket 1 [They have thanked voters]
President Stephen Kisambira (DESA/PD)
First Vice-President Emad Hassanin (DGACM/MPD/PS)
Second Vice-President Leonid Dolgopolov (DSS/DSSS/SSS)
2d place with 231 votes: Ticket 2
President Nadir A. Dirar Bashir (DGACM/MPD/PS/DTPU)...
We will continue to cover that showdown, which is at least competitive. Even more decayed is the United Nations Correspondents Association or UN's Censorship Alliance.
To compare: while the UN uses a dispute about the legality of the December election to refuse to recognize those who came out on top in the union election, the fact the UNCA has again violated its own Constitution, only today put back online, by not holding a meeting about its finance in the first half of January is ignored by the UN. Because UNCA serves this UN.
It's simple: the UNCA Constitution Article 7, 1, states "The Association shall convene an annual Membership Meeting during the first half of the month of January."
This didn't happen; instead, 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS distributed November 25 minutes, which also directly referred to a donated Samsung television which UNCA later denied, stating as to the Constitution that
"It was noted that the meeting was a General Meeting, not the Annual General Meeting. The UNCA constitution requires an Annual General meeting that should be held in the first half of January; the date was set for January 14th. There was discussion and a vote for a meeting on December 5, but because the budget will not be completed until year's end, the meeting will be held, as the Constitution requires in January."
Despite this acknowledgment of the requirements of the UNCA Constitution, the meeting was not held in the first half of January, or even in January at all.
A Constitutionally-invalid meeting has been scheduled for February 13 -- at the same time as a Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. Reporting on the Security Council is undermine by UNCA's laxity: there are fewer and fewer UNTV stakeouts, as potential speakers are diverted to private chats in the so-called Turkish Lounge. This happened on February 10, while the "new" UNCA fed quotes from French president Hollande's state dinner in Washington.
Ban's UN hands the first question and more to UNCA, which does not challenge Ban. In 2012 its leaders tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, pointing at a factual article Inner City Press published about Sri Lanka, the UN and conflicts of interest.
Ban's Secretariat now admits on Sri Lanka a "systemic failure" - his Deputy Jan Eliasson repeatedly says that -- but UNCA, which still has no rules against trying to throw journalists out of the UN, nor apparently any conflict of interest rules, makes no admission, no reforms.
It demands the first question at press conferences even if it has nothing to ask, or the answers will never be published.
Not surprisingly it is in decay. ng a 2009 trip to Sri Lanka with Ban Ki-moon and UK humanitarian chief Sir John Holmes not only didn't report Holmes on the record comment that he deleted all complaining emails from Tamils -- she said the Press reporting this "ruined" relations with Holmes for her and, for example, Reuters. Though over 2000 journalists are accredited at the UN, in December 2013 only 111 even tried to vote in the three days of polling -- and door to door demands to vote for -- the United Nations Correspondents Association. Seven of these ballots failed. The incumbent Pamela Falk of CBS, running unopposed, still managed to not get 26 of the 104 votes cast.
But as a result of UNCA's "Ball" with Ban, she got herfashion photo in the NYT Styles section and made sure to hype it up, online and in the briefing room before being handed, only to waste, the first of four questions on the South Sudan crisis on December 23.
Falk's vote total of 78 was lower than the 85 obtained in December 2011 by her predecessor, who was the one who first demanded that Inner City Press remove an article about Sri Lanka from the Internet, click here for that.
The article UNCA "leaders" tries to censor reported on the previous financial relationship of Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative with UNCA's then president, in the context of this president screening in the UN the Sri Lankan government's war crimes denial film, without asking or the consent of Inner City Press then on the Executive Committee of UNCA.
No reforms in UNCA were ever instituted after this.
Inner City Press after withstanding a kangaroo court UNCA proceeding quit the organization and co-founded the newFree UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info, to actually defend the right of free press and free inquiry in and about the UN system.
In 2012 UNCA "leaders" tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, as documented by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Voice of America asked the UN to "review" Inner City Press' accreditation; VOA said it had the support of Agence France Presse and Reuters, click here for that.
The Reuters first vice president of UNCA spied for the UN, giving them an internal anti Press UNCA document three minutes after promising not to (story here, document here,audio here).
While he has stepped off, the Reuters reporter he supervised (and who also tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN) campaigned to get on UNCA's board, demanded on camera in a UN noon briefing to all present, "Have you voted?" It's as if Reuters has a Permanent seat on UNCA's 15-member Executive Committee, like the P5 in the Security Council.
Here are the December 2013 results, compared to votes in December 2011 for the "candidate" or their predecessor
Dec '13 Dec '11
Prez: * 78 [85] Pamela Falk, CBS News TV and Radio
1st VP * 74 [79] Kahraman Haliscelik, TRT Turkish Radio & TV
2d VP * 48 71 Masood Haider, Dawn, Pakistan
* 48 [71] Sylviane Zehil, L’Orient Le Jour
3d VP * 55 [62] Erol Avdovic, Webpublicapress
38 Ali Barada, An-Nahar/France 24
Trez * 81 [71] Bouchra Benyoussef, Maghreb Arab Press
Sect * 79 [81] Seana Magee, Kyodo News
Members at Large:
* 57 1. Nabil Abi Saab , Alhurra TV
* 57 2. Talal Al-Haj ,Al-Arabiya News channel
22 3. George Baumgarten , Jewish Newspapers, Nation Media
* 50 4. Sherwin Bryce-Pease, South African Broadcasting (SABC)
* 51 5. Zhenqiu Gu, Xinhua News Agency
* 69 6. Melissa Kent, CBC/Radio Canada
* 56 7. Evelyn Leopold, Huffington Post Contributor
49 8. J. Tuyet Nguyen, German Press Agency DPA
* 67 9. Michelle Nichols, Reuters
41 10. Edwin Nwanchukwu, News Agency of Nigeria
27 11. Cia Pak, Scannews
*54 12. Valeria Robecco, ANSA
* 54 13. Sangwon Yoon , Bloomberg
Some of the elected are new and their positions on UNCA Executive Committee members trying to get other (investigative) media thrown out of the UN, and the need to preclude this and UNCA leaders' anonymous social media trolling, are not yet known. (Some not elected were among the better / more diverse candidates.)
When the UN Correspondents Association leaders tried stealthy to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, and have failed to institute any reform since, it became the UN's Censorship Alliance. Party on. Watch this site.
