By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, October 30 -- As the scandal triggered by the indictment of Macau businessman Ng Lap Seng, former UN President of the General Assembly John Ashe, Frank Lorenzo and Sheri Yan continues to expand, Inner City Press has dug deeper into a earlier scandal it reported earlier in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's tenure, in 2009.
On October 30, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric, video here, transcript here:
if I can, because it has to do with Mr. Ng Lap Seng who has been indicted. I wanted to ask you this. There was a concert held in 2009. It was for, about the end of slavery. Ostensibly, the sponsor was the World Harmony Foundation and Frank Liu, but it turned out it was something called the Culture Project that actually held it. The reason I am asking all this is I've become aware through the program of 2009 that Mr. Np Lap Seng was the chairman of the World Harmony Foundation and I’ve also heard the OLA said he couldn't directly sponsor it. They couldn't vet him and so the Culture Project was brought in as kind of a middleman. I wanted to ask you, did the UN, maybe you’ll have to check these things, but I think this is not within the scope of the audit because it was before the Sun Kian Ip Foundation even existed, if OLA found that an individual cannot be allowed to give UN money, how is it permissible that he does it in a roundabout way that was listed right on the program? Can you give me an answer to that?
Spokesman: I will look into what I know, I think what this episode has shown is that obviously there is a need for us to look at how we work with outside partners because we do, the work we do with civil society and the private sector is critical to the work of the United Nations.
Question: Is the audit, I guess what I'm saying is that this case seems to squarely bring up that the audit is not going to cover Mr…?
Spokesman: Let’s let that first phase end and then we can move on.
In October of that year there was a concert in the GA Hall called “Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum,” for the victims of slavery. At the time, Inner City Press discovered, and gained an on-camera admission, that another businessman Frank Liu had paid $110,000, through a theater company, to “sponsor” the event, in exchange for photographs with Ban Ki-moon. Click here for that. Inner City Press interviewed Liu, who complained that after the exposure, he was denied Ban and got only lesser UN photos.
But there's more.
Inner City Press has learned that the reason for the middleman was that the UN had (rightly) expressed qualms about accepting the money directly. But then Ban's UN allowed or even encouraged an evasion of its own prohibition: Liu or the World Harmony Foundation funneled the money through a middleman, as would become more prevalent later in Ban's time as Secretary General.
And now there's even more.
While it seemed until today that the corruption of the “Breaking the Silence” concert, and of UN Peacekeeping Day for which Liu was officially given photo ops and a tour by UN Peacekeeping of its Situation Center, were limited to Frank Liu, there was another more powerful force behind this World Harmony Foundation:
David Ng, a/k/a Ng Lap Seng (as noted in last month's FBI charge sheet), a/k/a Mr. Wu, to many delegations at the UN.
Inner City Press today is putting online, here, the program from the “Breaking the Silence” event, embedded below, which lists as sponsor the World Harmony Foundation, President Frank Liu and Chairman... David Ng. This brings at least two strands of UN scandals under Ban together (there will be more.)
Since in the same time frame the UN took Liu's money openly for UN Peacekeepers Day, it appears to some that the UN's qualms even in 2009 were with David Ng. This would have been understandable, given Ng's involvement in Clinton campaign contribution scandal and exposure for running, in essence, a brothel. But this makes the UN allowing Ng to funnel money in through the theater company even worse.
It also makes Ban's decision to try to limit the Office of Internal Oversight Services' audit to Sun Kian Ip Foundation, a much more recent Ng vehicle, laughable or worse. Ng has been buying events and photos in Ban's UN since at least 2009. This must be investigated. This too:
In 2011, Ng's South South News gave money to the UN Correspondents Association, which then not only gave South South News an UNCA “award” but gave Ng a photo op with Ban Ki-moon, at the UNCA “ball” in December 2011 at Cipriani 42nd Street. (Inner City Press filmed, published and questioned it and UNCA's then and current president, video here.) This year, UNCA moves its event further from the UN, perhaps tellingly to Cipriani Wall Street. Will this sleaze simply continue?
UNCA's Vice President, as we have noted, was among the UNDP listed attendees at Ng's August 2015 Macau "conference;" the UN continues to refuse Inner City Press' questions about who paid for the travel and hotel costs, and where the Sun Kian Ip / UNDP iPads went. We'll have more on this.
As detailed below, South South News made payments to the UN Correspondents Association, which then "delivered" Ban Ki-moon for photo ops with its businessmen. (Ironically, UNCA Executive Committee minutes after the delivery complained, disingenuously, that "some of the Asian guests were quite aggressive getting photos with the SG... congratulate Giampaolo for his hard work.")
Photo ops with Ban Ki-moon and his top officials have been similarly available throughout his tenure. Back in 2009 Inner City Press reported on businessman Frank Liu(here with General, ICP story, photo), who paid over $100,000 for a concert for UN Peacekeeping:
"Ban's pre-concert photo op, it emerged, had initially had three phases: artists, member states then sponsor. The last was officially cut out. But witnesses at the photo op, with the exception of the UN's organizer, tell Inner City Press that sponsor Frank Liu of the World Harmony Foundation and six of his associates still managed to get access. In the green room behind the General Assembly rostrum, Inner City Press spoke with Frank Liu. He complained about being excluded. They come and ask you for money, he said, and then this. Without apparent irony, he said that he perhaps shared Inner City Press' desire to 'reform the UN.'" See UN letter leaked to Inner City Press, here.
Likewise, Ban's first Deputy SG Migiro gave awards, like here; UN official Vijay Nambiar was produced for a similarly funded drumming event in the UN General Assembly Lobby, on which Inner City Press reported and dug into, here.
UNGA lobby, sponsors of African "Drums" event, (c) M. Lee
Throughout all this, the compromised position of the UN Correspondents Association has come to the fore.
While UNCA does not represent all journalists accredited to cover the UN -- Inner City Press for example quit the group in 2012 with another Executive Committee member and co-founded the new Free UN Coalition for Access -- the UN gives it a privileged position, a large clubhouse on the third floor of the UN and, automatically, the first question at press conferences.
But is that appropriate, given that UNCA received money from South South News, “NGO 1” in the filing against Ashe? Not only did UNCA receive money from South South News: it gave the group an “UNCA award” at a ceremony at the high-ceilinged Cipriani's restaurant on December 15, 2011.
Inner City Press, which did not quit UNCA in fully ripened disgust in 2012, was present on December 15, 2011 and witnessed, when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came into Cipriani's, him being shepherded into a side room for photographs with Asian men in business suits who Inner City Press did not then recognize.
Shepherding Ban for this (compensated) photo op with dubious businessmen was Giampaolo Pioli, then as now the president of UNCA. South South News interviewed Pioli that night, bragging of the UNCA award it got / paid for, screenshot from video here.
(For context it must be noted too that Pioli rented one of his Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona then granted Kohona's request as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to screen his government's war crimes denial film “Lies Agreed To” in the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium: this precipitated Inner City Press quitting UNCA, in full disclosure.)
How can UNCA be given first questions to ask about a scandal involving South South News, from which UNCA took more then to which it gave an award? And what are the other implications?
(In terms of Mr. Ng's desire for photo ops, Inner City Press is informed that he separately wanted a photo with US President Obama, and paid six figures to a middleman - who disappeared with the money. UNCA on the other hand, one wag noted, delivered Ban Ki-moon for photos at Cipriani's.)
UNCA, it should be noted, has been and is open to business interested beyond Mr. Ng and South South News. Another UNCA awards ceremony was sponsored by a company called “Acoona;” the Italian oil company ENI pays the group money.
But UNCA's South South News connection, given what has been disclosed and charged this week, should at a minimum and as a first step disqualify UNCA from first questions from the UN, and from the continuation of its role.
Wider, and going forward in this series, limiting UN investigation to OIOS - whose director of investigations Stefanovic has resigned, Inner City Press hereby exclusively reported on October 9 - looking at only two NGOs is laughable. The scandal is expanding: there is a pattern here, pattern and practice. Watch this site.
