Parfait Onanga-Anyanga of Gabon, out of a UN job since December when the UN's Mission in Burundi shut down -- and a nice guy, by the way -- has been made the UN's coordinator on Boko Haram, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press, with the UN having made no public announcement.
Inner City Press learned this two weeks ago, and waited at each day's noon briefing for the announcement to be made. On March 9, the announcement was of a new head of OCHA, Stephen O'Brien of the UK, analyzed here. With the Security Council now on its way to the Central African Republic, Addis Ababa and then Burundi, Inner City Press runs this story.
As noted, the Security Council's French-drafted “Terms of Reference” for the trip to Burundi -- which Inner City Press put online here -- didn't even mention the extrajudicial killings in Cibitoke.
This time it was said journalists had to directly contact the French Mission to the UN, and only that mission. There seemed to be no point. Now after that, it is said that Angola is a co-sponsor, with the US tri-sponsoring the Burundi leg. Inner City Press was asked, “Have you seen the US embassy in Bjumbura?” We'll have more on all this.
UNITED
NATIONS, March
12 -- For someone to remain a UN Under Secretary General, shouldn't the UN be able within 48 hours to explain what it is they do?
On March 10 Inner City Press asked new / old UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric about "Iqbal Riza, I still see listed as a high official. Can you describe what his current mandate, what he has been doing; what is he doing?"
Dujarric replied, "As for Mr. Riza, I will double-check. I think I know what his current post is but I don’t want to speculate."
Later all Dujarric did was insert into the transcript of the March 10 briefing this following: "[The Spokesman later said that Mr. Riza was a Special Adviser to the Secretary-General.]"
But that doesn't explain at all what Riza has been doing, is doing, to remain an Under Secretary General.
On on the morning of March 12, Inner City Press wrote to Dujarric asking for an answer before noon -- that is, before 48 hours elapsed since the simple question: "state not only the title (inserted into the transcript) but the current terms of reference, mandate of Mr. Iqbal Riza."
Dujarric replied, "we are working on the briefing and will not be in a position to answer before noon."
But he's still listed as a USG.
How long was he or has he been in Lahore, where he was listed for
another event in February 2014? Dujarric and his office should have
answered this, in fifty one hours and counting. There are other
questions pending.
When Augustine Mahiga was replaced last June as the UN's envoy in Somalia by Nicholas Kay of the UK, little was said of where Mahiga would go next.
Inner City Press on March 8 reported that Mahiga was given a little known Under Secretary General position, called "Under-Secretary-General, Mediator-in-Residence, DPA’s Mediator Debriefing and Lessons Learned Program."
Inner City Press asked several well-placed UN officials who had, until asked, no idea that Mahiga had stayed with the UN, much less at the USG level. "Incredible," said one source who requested anonymity to keep his own UN position.
On March 10 Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson Stephane Dujarric (who previously spoke for Kofi Annan) about this quiet job-giving, to Mahiga and also Margaret Vogt formerly the UN envoy to Central African Republic. Inner City Press also asked what former Annan official Iqbal Riza is doing, still on the payroll under Ban Ki-moon.
Later in the briefing Dujarric was handed a piece of paper ("Oil for Food," one long-time correspondent joked) and he read out on Mahiga and Vogt that the Department of Political Affairs sometimes keeps outgoing envoys on, for lessons learned.
Are they paid, as Mahiga is listed, at the Under Secretary General rate? And in the case of Mahiga, for nine months and counting? And what about Iqbal Riza?
Mahiga shakes with Ban: (well) before "secret" USG post, by UN Photo
But do departing UN envoys have a right to stay on in little known USG positions? As another source asked, Is Alan Doss still getting paid somewhere by the UN?
This comes in a UN under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which, even as it evades responsibility for cholera in Haiti, talks a lot of accountability and even transparency. How many other "secret" USGs are there? We'll have more on this.
When UN Secretary General performed the annual ritual signing of the Compacts with his Under Secretaries General on February 13 amid the snow, three USGs were not present either in person or on video: Angela Kane, Joan Clos of HABITAT, and Jeffrey Feltman.
Those present posed for a group photograph, tweeted hereby Inner City Press, and then came up one by one to sign their Compacts and shake hands with Ban and his deputy, Jan Eliasson. For the first signer, former Egyptian Permanent Representative and now Special Adviser on Africa Maged Abdelaziz, Ban didn't stand up, so the handshake was repeated at the end.
Ban, introduced by his chief of staff Susana Malcorra, made much of transparency, of making all this available through the press to the public. But a quick review of Ban's "financial disclosure" web site finds, for example, that Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous has refused to make any public financial disclosure, stating that "in accordance with General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/238, I have chosen to maintain the confidentiality of the information disclosed in my financial disclosure statement."
Ladsous also refuses to answer Press questions, most recently on what the UN position is on Ugandan troops remaining in South Sudan, and before that about the mass rapes in Minova by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army. Video compilation here; UK coverage here.
The UN should be open, and questions as with Feltman about a former diplomat's connection with his or her country cannot be off limits or considered "insinuation."
Has the UN received and accepted process of the legal papers for bringing cholera to Haiti? This was asked at the February 13 noon briefing. It will be a litmus test for accountability, and for transparency. Watch this site.
UNITED NATIONS, March 12 -- New / old UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric refused to answer simple questions e-mailed to him on the morning of March 12, saying "we are working on the briefing and will not be in a position to answer before noon."
The noon briefing, which began late, was over before 12:18 pm. Dujarric said he had nothing on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's plan to meet Yatsenyuk, who he called "the Ukrainian delegation." (UNSC President Lucas said Yatsenyuk will address the Council on Thursday.)
Dujarric said UN official Ivan Simonovic was told "by the authorities" he cannot visit Crimea, but said Simonovic will continue to investigate. Dujarric did not metion the allegation in the leaked audio between the EU's Cathy Ashton and Estonia's Foreign Minister on who called the snipers' shots.
Saying he was "asked off-line," Dujarric gave the UN's summary of Ban's meeting with Turkey's Foreign Minister - but not Ban's 10:30 meeting with Estonia's Foreign Minister, much less about who called the snipers' shots.
In Dujarric's ten minute long opening statement, he did not answer the questions asked:
-On South Sudan, what is the UN's response to NGO Rally for Peace and Democracy critique of worsening conditions in UNMISS camps, specifically that "most of IDPs reported that their food security situation in the camps is deteriorating further and that their repeated complaints are falling on deaf ears... Domestic flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches infest the camp dwellings as the rainy season almost approaching. This has driven fear for reason of high morbidity and fatality caseloads of bacterial diseases – bloody and watery diarrhea (dysentery), malaria, typhoid, pneumonia and warm infestations."
-As requested in person at the March 10 noon briefing, please confirm or deny that Haiti cholera court papers were taped to the door of the Secretary General's residence on or around January 20; please state not only the title (inserted into the transcript) but the current terms of reference, mandate and pay scale of Mr. Iqbal Riza, and confirm that Augustine Mahiga has been paid as a USG since June 2013. What lessons has he conveyed to Nicholas Kay? Has Margaret Vogt conveyed lessons to Babacar Gaye?
Relatedly, please state the current terms of reference, mandate and pay scale of Mr. Joseph V. Reed, and state how many days Terje Roed Larsen has worked on his mandate, where (Bahrain?) and at what level of compensation.
- on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, asking why the Secretary General's photo op with NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, in his daily scheduled, has not been listed in the UN Media Alert.
-Please state why the Secretariat has declined to recognize (or give work-release to) those who garnered the most votes in the December election, and state who the Secretariat recognizes as the Staff Union at this time.
Please email answers as soon as they become available, as requested, before noon (several of these questions were asked on March 10). Thank you.
There was no explanation why the in-person March 10 request for the specifics of Iqbal Riza was not answered in the time since, nor of why Ban's scheduled meeting with New York City Mayor De Blasio was not in the UN's Media Alert, a request that the Free UN Coalition for Access made to Dujarric when he was the supervisor of UN Media Accreditation.
Instead, Dujarric said the meeting will happen at 2 pm - he did not mention the building collapse in East Harlem to which De Blasio had rushed. This is the UN.
Tellingly, some in the press briefing room applauded before Dujarric even said a word. He read a statement for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about "The Ukraine."
On the case against the UN for bringing cholera to Haiti, Inner City Press asked Dujarric to confirm that the court papers were taped to the door of Ban's residence on January. Dujarric declined to confirm - or deny - this.Video on Haiti (and Sri Lanka) here.
As it did days ago, Inner City Press asked for the status of selecting Dujarric's replacement as head of the News and Media Division, in charge of UN media accreditation. No answer has been given about this status. This is of concern.
A flier the Free UN Coalition for Access posted on this topic, on the "non-UNCA" bulletin board it advocated for, was torn down on March 7. At a second briefing, by the CTBTO, on March 10 Dujarric called first on UNCA, then on others.
When Inner City Press thanked CTBTO's Zerbo on behalf of FUNCA - the point is, there cannot be only one organization given UNCA's track record of attempted censorship and even more now with Dujarric's history with them -- Dujarric tried to move on (back to UNCA) before the related question on France's nuclear tests in the Pacific was answered.
It is a new era, requiring a new approach.
Two years ago Dujarric was re-introduced to UN journalist as the chief of the News & Media Division, in a reception in what the UN called "UNCA Square." And then the censorship attempts began.
A journalist for Iranian TV, found to have a rubber gun which was a prop in an independent film he was working on, had his UN accreditation revoked, permanently. Dujarric was in charge of Media Accreditation, and Inner City Press asked him for a justification of this "one strike and you're out policy." No answer was ever provided by Dujarric.
Also in his Media Accreditation role, Dujarric chastised Inner City Press for daring to go stand outside and try to cover a meeting of Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, which included controversial Sri Lankan military figure Shavendra Silva. After the Sri Lankan government directed a complaint letter to the aforementioned UNCA, Inner City Press was told it could not cover the meetings.
Inner City Press, then on the board of UNCA, was not notified when the organization's then president agreed to screen a Sri Lankan government film denying war crimes. After it published an article noting that the UNCA president had in the past rented one of his apartments to Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, demands were made that Inner City Press remove the article from the Internet.
UNCA took to sending copies of correspondence to Dujarric, about articles Inner City Press had written about officials and diplomats of Dujarric's native France. Finally, UNCA first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters sent a complaint against Inner City Press to Dujarric, calling it "for the record."
More recently, Charbonneau has gotten one of his complaints to Dujarric banned from Google's Search, using a filing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- straight up censorship. What does Dujarric say?
In fact, Dujarric solicited complaints against Inner City Press from otherbig-mediaUNCAboard members, through a private, including through non-UN email address. Freedom of Information Act responses show thatUNCA board members met with "the UN" to request that Inner City Press be thrown out. Once Inner City Press published some of these, Dujarric on June 29, 2012 asked to meet Inner City Press.
Dujarric told Inner City Press not to refer to Ban Ki-moon as "Wan Ki-moon" and not to refer to Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row atop UN Peacekeeping, as The Drone despite Ladsous proposing the UN's first use of drones and refusing to answer Press questions about it.
Criticism of stories, coverage and even tweets is fine -- but when done by an official in charge of accreditation, and even tied to accreditation, we call it what it is: censorship.
Disgusted, Inner City Press and another long time correspondent from Brazil founded the Free UN Coalition for Access as an alternative to the insider UNCA, which did not for example offer any defense to the cameraman thrown out for the rubber gun. (Reuters' Charbonneau, in fact, wrote a story playing up the Iranian angle.)
When Dujarric's Accreditation Unit led a raid on Inner City Press' office, photos from which quickly appeared on BuzzFeed, Dujarric denied any role in giving out the photos. But the published photos are identical to the ones his unit took that day.
Since the letter with the false "off the record" claim, the raid and photos and attempt to censor tweets, there has been very little contact (though there was an attempt to essentially ban FUNCA, another limitation on freedom of association, speech and press). FUNCA has continued, working with UN-focused journalists not only in New York but as far afield as Somaliland and Colombia.
Now Stephane "The Censor" Dujarric is the spokesperson. Can he use this position to pursue the censorship he's sought for the past two years? FUNCA opposes it, and says these questions must be answered. Watch this site.
UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- While the UNcontinues to preach transparency, 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 ever worse since.
Now on March 11, when Staff Union members protested in the lobby and right outside the press briefing room, new UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric tried to put his own headline on the protest.
He said it was only about the Publishing Section -- which Inner City Press has covered since the UN used Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to eliminate jobs -- but the problems under Ban run much deeper.
Dujarric ignored that it was the Staff Union ticket who won the most votes in December but are still UNrecognized by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's administration which organized the protest, which Inner City Press wrote about earlier this morning before it happened.
Dujarric on March 10 called the continued pay at the Under Secretary General level for Augustine Mahiga a short stint, closely aligned with a board of correspondents who clapped for him, and for Ban Ki-moon. It's a new low, and one in which the Free UN Coalition for Access will not participate.Last video here.
On March 11, Dujarric dodged on a new Haiti cholera case filed in Federal Court in Brooklyn; he talked about "protection of minorities" being upfront. But on March 10 he said he hadn't watched the brutal footage of Tamils being killed by the Sri Lankan Army; there has still been no comment by the Secretariat.
Back on February 11, despite a Staff Union election have been conducted including in the UN Lobby in December, since Ban's Secretariat has not recognized the winners a call for new Polling Officers went out. This despite a meeting earlier that day at which the caller did not disclose this course of action. The next day, UN Security had to be called to try to put down the dispute.
Nor has the Ukraine-less Q&A at this lunch been disclosed to the wider press corps or public, despite a formal request from the Free UN Coalition for Access:
a tape or transcript of what the Secretary General said today this lunch: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BgOCAllCUAAwTxU.jpgSince the photo shows tape recorders, this is a request to be informed if any embargo was placed on what the Secretary General said. If not, this is a request including on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access for an explanation, why this was not provided to all correspondents, and for the tape (or transcript) forthwith.
What Nesirky's office did after that was to email out Ban's prepared remarks, with no question and answer, much less what is understood as his comments on crimes against humanity. (Since Ban was silent at the time on those in Sri Lanka, some ask, is it any wonder? Click here for UNCA's "leadership" on Sri Lanka.)
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.
Most telling are direct censorship efforts by Louis Charbonneau 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.
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.
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.
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 was finally held -- largely about, what else, another party, like the one held March 7 even as the Security Council meeting on children and armed conflict continued.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
