On Western Sahara, DPI Didn't Archive Polisario Under Gallach, Unlike 2012

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 3, World Press Freedom Day -- When the UN Security Council voted on a draft resolutionon Western Sahara on April 29, there were two no votes - Venezuela and Uruguay - and three abstentions: Angola, Russia and New Zealand.

  Criticized outside the Council was France's (and Spain's) role, seeking to delay even reporting on MINURSO for 90 days -- so as to impact the selection of Next Secretary General, some say.

  Even while Uruguay spoke in the Security Council, UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric started up “his” noon briefing (which ended with a profanity directed at Inner City Press, sound later edited out or censored on UNTV). After that, finding Morocco's Omar Hilale at the stakeout, Inner City Press asked him to whom his King referred, in criticizing UN officers: only Christopher Ross? Or USg Jeff Feltman too? Hilale said he would not criticize by name.

   At 3 pm there was another UNTV stakeout. Inner City Press asked if Polisario could speak. When the representative of Polisario took to the microphone to read a statement (Tweeted photo of statement here) a UN Security guard came over, and the feed and sound went dark. More correspondents came, and the sound went up again. Inner City Press for the Free UN Coalition for Access asked, You have a right to speak here, right? Yes, was the answer.

 (On May 2, a UN Security guard told Inner City Press in front of the ECOSOC Chamber where Ban Ki-moon spoke, You have no right to be here; Inner City Press was then told it could not ask questions of diplomats. This is today's UN.)
 
 But the resulting video was never put on the UN's website. So on May 2 Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric, video here, UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: for a time the sound and picture went out but then it came back up, which seemed to be appropriate.  But I'm noticing now in terms of the archive version, it's not up.  What is the UN's position, you say he has every right to be in the building, if he is, in fact, invited and accompanied by the Permanent Representative of a Member State, why is the video of his stakeout not on the UN archives?  Can you find out?

Spokesman Dujarric:  We can check with DPI (Department of Public Information).

  But by 8 am on May 3, nothing. Meanwhile DPI chief Cristina Gallach, Spain's highest UN official and responsible for UNTV, has ousted and evicted Inner City Press, and now mulls handing its long time office to French or Morocco media.

 As is happens, when Polisario spoke on UNTV in 2012, before Gallach's tenure, it DID go into UN archives, here. This is censorship and the decay and of the UN. We'll have more on this.

  After Morocco threatened and threw out the civilian component of the UN's MINURSO mission, Inner City Press obtained the UN's Western Sahara report as it had been approved by Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson on April 18, and exclusively in full text published it on Scribd here. This came days after the UN of Ban Ki-moon and Cristina Gallach, Spain's highest UN official, threw its journalistic files out onto First Avenue. Video here andhere (Periscope).

   Inner City Press obtained from diplomatic sources an updated "Group of Friends" draft resolution, below, and reported that those expressing opposition include Angola, Uruguay and Venezuela, and to some degree, it seems, New Zealand.

On the evening of April 28, the still-moving Western Sahara draft was put on the UN Security Council's schedule for a 10 am vote. Inner City Press called this a negotiating tactic, and it was - on the morning of April 29, the vote was pushed back to 11 am.

  Inner City Press arrived at the Security Council and, under the lesser UN pass to which Spain's Gallach reduced it, was unable to access the Council stakeout, even though diplomats were seen entering.

   Inner City Press spoke with diplomats and sources in the hall by the escalators -- thank you, Cristina Gallach and Ban -- and has learned both of a back-channel offer to return a portion of those expelled from MINURSO, and of a reason for the French - Moroccan insistence on a delay of 90 days for the Security Council to hear if Morocco is still blocking.

   Consider the timing of the selection of the next Secretary General, and of the ability of Security Council members particularly veto-wielding France to demand of candidates their position, or concessions, on this Western Sahara colonialism issue. We'll have more on this.