By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 2 -- In a UN which won't give straight answers, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Darfur to South Sudan, while increasingly on the margins of issues like Iraq and Ukraine, it's now a time for bread and circuses.
Or rather for softball soccer between UN-based officials and those who are ostensibly supposed to hold them accountable.
On July 2, moments after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric had refused to explain his inaccurate or misleading answer to a Press question about the UN flying a sanctioned FDLR militia leader around the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 27 (Inner City Pressvideo here), he was invited to play soccer or football with a group of some reporters. UN Video here, Minute 16:22.
This group, the old UN Correspondents Association, in 2012 demanded the censorship of Inner City Press reporting on its screening in the UN of Sri Lanka's goverment film denying war crimes, which noted that UNCA's President had previously had a financial relationship with Sri Lanka's Ambassador.
And there at the game, which the UN's own Twitter account promoted along with its handpicked scribes, the former UNCA president was in his UNCA jersey. To whom is he renting now?
UNCA itself promoted without irony or comment the participation of "Egypt Ambassador Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil" -- which push came to shove, or push-over, there was no mention of #FreeAJstaff. Here was Ban with Egypt's Permanent Representative, here.
After trying to get removed from the Internet factual coverage of the UNCA president's diplomatic rental income, the UNCA Executive Committee not only tried includingthrough Dujarric to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN -- they also refused to implement any reforms or best practices in its relationships those it is ostensibly covering. Financial relationships? No problem, apparently.
Nor has UNCA adopted any rule that it will not seek to censor or get journalists thrown out of the UN - it continues as the UN's Censorship Alliance.
So Inner City Press quit UNCA, to whose Executive Committee it had been elected, and it co-founded the new Free UN Coalition for Access, which is for example pushing for, wonder of wonders, accurate answers in the UN Press Briefing Room by the UN Spokesperson.
Typically, when on April 15 outgoing French AmbassadorGerard Araud right in the Briefing Room told a Lebanese reporter, who had paid dues to UNCA, that "you are not a journalist, you are an agent," UNCA dragged its feet.
The Free UN Coalition for Access formally asked Dujarric to convey to Araud and the French mission the stated position, that accredited journalists should be treated with respect. But Dujarric declined.
This is the context of the (softball) soccer game that UNCA President Pamela Falk promoted, including with photographs of a jersey branded “UNCA” just as she (and Dujarric) try to brand each UN press conference with the name “UNCA.”
And the UN's main Twitter account promoted UNCA, just as Ban's UN gives a large room which sits empty and dark most days, even as the UN evicted the News Agency of Nigeria claiming it needed space. Other journalists working at the UN have no workspace. But UNCA's big wigs need space to practice - to flop?
They said a ceremonial kick-off wout be performed by Ban Ki-moon, who hasn't held a press conference in New York in months, instead faux "press encounters" and now an interview, on LinkedIN. And it was, after Ban Ki-moon left an event on the death penalty, which on his first day he said is a matter for each member state. They whispered that Ban's senior adviser Kim Won-soo would play on the “Ambassadors” team - and he did.
Some ambassadors were told this confab is of all journalists covering the UN -- it is not. Several Permanent Representatives asked Inner City Press if it or FUNCA would participate -- the answer is no -- and some more questioned the appropriateness of the marketing, including by the UN, and of UNCA's direction generally. So it goes - for now: softballs with censors. Watch this site.
