Saturday, April 29, 2023

Amid Killings in Sudan Tony Helps His Cronies But Leaves National Staff in Lurch, Bans Press


by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, April 24 – As the military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shoot it out in Khartoum and its airport, the United Nations (which has taken and wasted billions from the public under Antonio Guterres, in Sudan as elsewhere) has been useless.
 
   The US has pulled out its diplomats.They said an American private citizen has been killed in the cross fire. Guterres is a weak and turncoat on this as on Ukraine, Iran - and when he did selfies with terrorists on one of his recent junkets.

Now on April 24, Guterres in a UN Security Council meeting chaired by Sergei Lavrov has bloviated, "I have authorized the temporary relocation both inside and outside Sudan of some United Nations personnel, and of families." As in Haiti, Afghanistan and elsewhere, local UN staff are left in the lurch. Today's UN is all about #TonysCronies.

   Inner City Press, which before Guterres' reign of censorship was in the UN, and accompanied and covered a UN Security Council mission to Khartoum and Juba, recently asked Guterres' spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming:

 "On Sudan, what are the comments and actions if any of SG Guterres on that Sudanese security forces in the capital have fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of people protesting against military rule. The demonstrators marched towards the presidential palace but were chased away by police. They dismissed a deal signed recently between the military and civilians, saying it was too vague." 

 No answer at all.

 In New York, spokesman-censor Dujarric read a statement in response to softball questions (video here), while refusing Inner City Press' written questions, which he'd promised to answer, here.

  Inner City Press has appealed its ban, to UN Security boss Gilles Michaud as PGA President Csaba Korosi's spokesperson Paulina Kubiak directed. Still, no answer.

So how can a US journalists with an NYC Press Press, invited to briefings from the IMF to the DOJ, remain barred from even entering the UN like a tourist? Since the UN won't answer, you'd have to asked USUN - or Bass or McPhee.

More on Substack here.


 

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