On Yemen, ICP Asks UK Burt How Claims Saudi Can Probe Its Killing of Civilians With UK Bombs

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video; Photos

UNITED NATIONS, September 21 – When UK minister Alistair Burt came in front of the UN Security Council to speak about accountability for Daesh in Iraq, Inner City Press deferred to a timely question about the referendum in Kurdistan. Then Inner City Press asked Burt about his quote, about accountability for the bombing of civilians in Yemen by the Saudi-led Coalition with UK bombs, that "“Our view is that it is for the Coalition itself, in the first instance, to conduct such investigations. They have the best insight into their own military procedures and will be able to conduct the most thorough and conclusive investigations.” 

Inner City Press asked how he can say this, given that the Saudis have investigated less than five percent of the killings. Burt's answer focused on the peace process - what peace process? Inner City Press filmed the UN's failed envoy Ismael Ould Cheikh Ahmed bopping out of the UN early on September 20, not having taken any questions. At least Burt answered - we'll have more on this. The day before on September 20 when the UN's new Libya envoy Ghassam Salame came to take questions, Inner City Press went to ask him directly about his quotes on ANSA supporting Italy's cooperation with the Libyan Navy and Coast Guard. After several sycophant questions, Inner City Press asked - and Salame pushed back, claiming he was misquoted by ANSA. Video here. But he went on to say that the deal[s] between Italy and Libyan forces are bilateral, UNese for We will not comment. In fact, sources tell Inner City Press the very apartment Salame occupies was paid for from the Gulf. We'll have more on that - and on Grandi's and Louise Arbour's high minded answers to Inner City Press earlier in the day, here. Who represents the UN system on this: Arbour (and to a lesser extent Grandi) - or go along to get along Salame? Guterres will one day have to decide.  Two days before on September 18 when Italy's Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano took media questions at the UN on September 18, they were all in Italian except for a final chosen question about Donald Trump. Inner City Press insisted and asked, in English, if Italy funds militia in Libya to detain migrants and refugees. Alfano's answer was in Italian, but a handler from the Italian Mission offered a translation: that Italy has denied it. So what due diligence does Italy do, over the funds it gives to the UN-propped up government in Libya? We'll have more on this. Alamy photos here. When US President Donald Trump gave his UN reform speech on September 18, he noted that UN staff have doubled since 2000, but we haven't seen the results. He could have said more: what HAS been seen includes inaction on mass killings in Sri Lanka and Yemen, Myanmar and Cameroon. Not mentioned in Secretary General Antonio Guterres' speech, nor in his answers the two times Inner City Press has asked him, is the UN bribery guilty verdicts in the case of Ng Lap Seng / John Ashe. The UN was shown, only this summer, to be for sale. And nothing has changed. As UN General Assembly week started up on Sunday, the US announced that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would meet with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at 9 pm, at Russia's Mission to the UN. Inner City Press after asking Cote d'Ivoire president Alassane Ouattara a question about Myanmar - without answer - biked up to that Mission on 67th Street. There in the half light were dozens of reporters and photographers, waiting for Tillerson to leave. In the street were US body guards with machine guns. Tillerson emerged and said nothing, driving away. Video here. Most of the Western wire service correspondents, one a photographer who'd been at the UN photo op with Ouattara but not the stakeout with Ivorian media, turned and left. Then the spokesman for Lavrov, and before him for now deceased Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, emerged and briefed in Russia. Inner City Press was informed second hard that she said the topics had been Syria, Ukraine and Minsk implementation, and “North Africa.” Later the US State Department said, “U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met this evening in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The two recommitted to deconflicting military operations in Syria, reducing the violence, and creating the conditions for the Geneva process to move forward, pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254.” So what about North Africa? Peacekeepers in Ukraine? Watch this site.

From Rwanda, FM Louise Mushikiwabo Replies to Inner City Press on FDLR, "Trust But Verify," France Ignores Questions, Banned Press from Its Genocide Joyride

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- After the UN Security Council's quick visit to Rwanda, after two days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Inner City Press asked Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo what did Security Council members say of links between the FDLR militia and the DRC Army (FARDC), even with the UN Peacekeeping mission MONUSCO?

Minister Mushikiwabo replied to Inner City Press that the UNSC had told Rwanda that the FDLR's security threat to Rwanda is a not small matter and that dismantling it is very much an immediate priority.

 When Inner City Press noted doubts due to UN's robot-like support for the DRC Army, after not only showing of links with FDLR but even 135 rapes in Minova, Minister Mushikiwabo replied "@InnerCityPress Trust but verify!"

  Her responsiveness stands in contrast not only to this from the French Mission to the UN, which rejected Inner City Press' timely request to accompany and cover the Council's Africa trip as it did in 2010 and 2008, but other Council Missions on the trip, some of whom only tweet out, but answer no questions at all. (We're hoping to see that change with time and training, Commonwealth to Commonwealth cooperation except on Sri Lanka, with Alistair Burt moving on - but that's another story for now.)

  The UK's Lyall Grant is an exception, responding on logistics and even on having raised the FARDC's 135 rapes at Minova. US Ambassador Power, as Inner City Press reported from other sources more than 24 hours beforeReuters copied the story, also raised the Minova rapes. But as we've noted, Ambassador Power did not tweet during this Great Lakes trip (unlike, for example, Ambassador Susan Rice during a previous Council Africa trip. More on this, more nuanced, another day.)

  UN Spokesperson Martin Nesirky, when Inner City Press last week asked questions about the trip, told Inner City Press to "ask Council members." 

  For those who don't tweet, and whose mission like the US have not responded to e-mail questions including about Minova, that is no substitute, and it is another reason that allowing France to decide alone which media could go on the UN plane was a colonial outrage, a new low.

  Those who France hand-picked to cover the trip, Reuters and Voice of America, have rewarded it with one-sided stories accusing Rwanda but not DRC of recruiting child soldiers, and promoting their connection with selfies with Western Ambassadors from Australia and France.

 Inner City Press has co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info to counter-act this climate, enshrined in the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association which first circulated the invitation for the Great Lakes trip to be decided on by France only to those who pay it money, and who have tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, even by spying FOR the UN (click here for that.)

 One UNCA board member, Tim Witcher of AFP, filed a complaint with UN Security leading with how Inner City Press asked a question to (French) UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous. Trust and verify?

On Monday, Inner City Press asked Nesirky some new questions generated by the Council's French-led trip on which it will be following up:

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you about the trip, there seems to have been a briefing by a MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) staffer, Dee Brillenburg Wurth, in which she is quoted as saying that the [Democratic Republic of the Congo], doesn’t recruit children, child soldiers any more. This is contrary to the Group of Experts report, which says in at least two paragraphs that they do. It was "said to reporters," is it possible to get a transcript or some audio file of what was said? And what would you say to a seeming total disparity between what MONUSCO told reporters, if not the Council, and what UN reports actually say about the recruitment of child soldiers by [the Democratic Republic of the Congo]?

Spokesperson: Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say anything at this point until I check into it myself, Matthew.

Question: Okay, if you don’t mind, one more on the trip. I wanted to get an answer from you from the Secretariat side. It seems, on one hand in Syria you are calling that [Bashar al-]Assad should meet with any and all opposition, that this is the way to have a meeting. And, meanwhile the Council, with the Secretariat and MONUSCO accompaniment, attend a national dialogue in Kinshasa which the legally-elected opposition chose to boycott, and therefore legitimated or gave its blessing to an extremely limited dialogue. And so, how would you square these two? How can the UN, on the one hand, be calling for a broad dialogue in Syria, and in the Congobe giving its blessing to an extremely narrow one boycotted by the opposition?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, as you will be aware, there is a framework for peace and reconciliation in the Great Lakes region, and specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that is a broad-based framework that includes the need for national reconciliation. And the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on this, Mary Robinson, has been working very closely to ensure that that framework in its entirety is properly implemented. And, I think it is in that context that the Security Council members were there. So, I think you’d have to ask the Council members themselves why they went to certain events. That is not for me to speak on their behalf, but simply to put the bigger picture there, that there is an overall framework, and that it was in that context that they were visiting the region. This will be last question, okay?

We'll have more on all this. Watch this site.

On Sri Lanka, ICP Asks UK Burt & Australia's JuliaBishop About CHOGM, They Claim Both It Wiill Spotlight Human Rights Issues

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 25 -- Last night, when Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and military figure Shavendra Silva met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, there was also a reception by the UK and Australia for the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo. But what was the place of accountability for the civilians killed in 2009?

  Inner City Press asked new Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop and UK minister Alistair Burt about human rights. Burt said that the position of the UK is that it is firstly about the Commonwealth -- but human rights in Sri Lanka are important.

  Burt cited the LLRC and "whether or not" the pathway to reconciliation is being met. He said CHOGM would allow review of "those areas were there are some concerns about what is happening there." Tweeted Burt & Bishop photo here.

  Bishop said it is a bipartisan position in Australia that "we continue to engage, rather than isolate... More can be achieved." 

 She said she visited Sri Lanka this year, "there is a way to go in reconciliation, in terms of restructuring of the country." She urged visits outside of Colombo, particularly to the north. She said now the "TNA has the challenge of delivering services in the North, scene of such bloody conflict."

  Yes, Shavendra Silva directly played a role in that, and Mahinda Rajapaksa ordered it. So where's the accountability?

  At Wednesday's UN noon briefing Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky if Shavendra Silva, after turning tail, returned and attended the meeting with Ban. Nesirky did not answer, saying it should be asked of the Mission. 

  Inner City Press tweeted the question at Mahinda Rajapaksa during his #AskMR session on Wednesday; so far no answer.

Inner City Press asked how the Arms Trade Treaty would apply to arming the Syria rebels. Australia's Julie Bishop, with Ambassador Gary Quinlan and his counterpart in Geneva standing to the side. 

  She said that signatories will have obligations, and we'll expect them to honor those obligations. Fine -- like France air dropping weapons into Libya's Nafusa Mountains? She said the US represents 80% of the world trade in arms - which seems high. Watch this site.

   

On Syria in Geneva, Pinheiro Report Has No Qatar or Del Ponte, Ladsous' Clouseau-Like Probe of Qatar Role in Golan Kidnappings?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 4 -- As the Syria report of the UN Commission of Inquiry was released and debated in Geneva Tuesday morning, the report was as noteworthy for what was not in it as for what was.

  When panelist Carla Del Ponte said publicly there were "serious suspicions" of chemical weapons use by the rebels, CoI chairperson Paulo Pinheiri quickly put out a press release undercutting it. 

  And lo and behold, his report says in Paragraph 138 that while "it is possible that anti-Government armed groups may access and use chemical weapons... there is no compelling evidence that these groups possess such weapons or their requisite delivery systems."

So there are "strong suspicions" (Del Ponte) but according to Pinheiro's final report, no "compelling evidence"? How to square these two?

On June 3 Inner City Press exclusively reported that despite a statement by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesperson that video said to indicate rebel use of chemical weapons at Khan Al-Asal was being processed by the UN's Angela Kane for submission to Ban's prober Ake Sellstrom, this has not taken place. Then again, Pinheiro wouldn't even consider the footage.

  Likewise, while the Pinheiro report recites the repeated kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in the Golan in Paragraph 72, it does not even mention the allegation of involvement from Doha, Qatar. During the debate, it was (mis?) stated that Ban's head of Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous is investigating Qatar's role.

  Ironically, Qatar in its speech denounced the abduction of people. Really?

  Pinheiro did speaks against the transfer of weapons in to Syria. At the UN in New York on June 3, the UK's Alistair Burt told Inner City Press his country wants the flexibility to do just that. 

While Botswana said talks could lead to an "amicable" resolution, it's hard to imagine any denouement that would be "amicable."

US Ambassador Eileen Donahoe praised the opposition's "awareness campaigns" -- apparently PSAs by the FSA, Public Service Announcements by the Free Syrian Army. But what about the Al Nusra Front? Watch this site.

As UK Presides Over Press Banning from UN Security Council, Going Social One Week, #UKPres

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 4 -- The UK at the UN are an idealistic lot, but in a conflicted way.

  As they revive the Security Council "horizon scanning" briefing for their Presidency in June, we too will scan their horizon, through the first week of their month.

  They say they want to be open: but only so far, and only in their way. They provide information, but often only those friendly to them, in a way that is controlling.

  We begin as we must by noting that Monday they presided over the first day in years in which a media worktable was not only not present, but was actively discouraged and seized, in front of the Council.

  The Mission saw this coming, even talked with members of the press corps on both sides of the issue -- shocking that there is an "anti-access" side among the media, but that's another story, one that we will tell this week as well -- but still it happened.

  As the UK began its bilateral meetings with other Missions on June 3, for the first time in years there was no table. Various Missions, to the level of Permanent Representative, commented on it and said it should not stand. 

  But the UK seemed to think it was funny. Even after a small replacement table bought and brought by the new Free UN Coalition for Access was seized and taken away by the UN Department of Public Information, there was levity.

  Later on Monday Inner City Press was told not to engage in "personalization" in articles. But who to report without naming names? And with the UK so savvy now in social media, how not to name the handles? 

   So this is how we'll do it, setting the deadline of the week: we'll cover the UK in precisely the way they have decided to make themselves available: not with media workspace presence in front of the Council, but through social media. And it will, as it must, be personal. One new name per story.

  Mark Lyall Grant rather than the ritual 12:30 press conference has moved it, and is having one online from 2:30 to 3, complete with hashtag. We'll be there, via hashtag. Can you spell #UNfreePress?

  Even over the weekend, the UK went public with a press statement it proposed about Qusayr in Syria, then selectively blamed one Mission for blocking it. (Inner City Press spoke with that Mission on Monday and heard their side of things: in person, not online.)

  The UK told some resident correspondents perceived as friendly the minister Alistair Burt would go do a stakeout about the Arms Trade Treaty. The goal, it seems, was to not have to answer the obvious contradiction: it was the UK that sought the "flexibility" to arm the Syrian rebels, whiletrumpeting the ATT. 

  The ICRC calls it inconsistent, but who's counting? Control Arms apparently doesn't.

  Back in May, for Press Freedom Day, the UK put on its Tumblr page the statements of favored correspondents, presumably though it thought represent free press. 

  But as we'll show this week, at least two of them have openly been quite anti-press, trying to get others thrown out of the UN, trolling and accusing journalist which whom they don't agree of being funded by Assad or, pertinent to the UK, by the defunct Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. 

  The UK Mission knows or should have known about this: but friends are friends, useful pass-throughs are just that. Press Freedom Day indeed.

  The issue of the table is telling. It was there before the Council moved, and during the relocation. The UK has presided, literally, over its elimination. It's a week of moves and getting settled in, Inner City Press is told. A week? We'll see. Watch this site.

As Arms Trade Treaty Is Signed, Arms to Syria "Would Be Inconsistent," ICRC Tells Inner City Press, UK Wants Flexibility

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 3 -- Amid the hoopla on UN signings of the Arms Trade Treaty, Inner City Press asked the UK's Alistair Burt, Costa Rica's minister, the Red Cross and Control Arms how the ATT's "Golden Rule" would apply to arming the rebels in Syria.

Alistair Burt replied that while the expiration of the EU's arms embargo on Syria provides "flexibility" that the UK wanted, no decision has yet been made; the goal was to increase pressure on Bashar al Assad.

But Christine Beerli of the International Committee of the Red Cross answered Inner City Press directly, that providing arms into Syria at this time would be inconsistent with the spirit of the ATT.

Control Arms' Anna MacDonald pointed out that the UK and France are already covered by the European Union's common position, requiring risk assessment. But how did that apply to France air-dropping weapons into the Nafusa Mountains in Libya?

Costa Rica's minister, meanwhile, said the situation in Syria is the perfect example to show why an Arms Trade Treaty is necessary. At least he took questions at the temporary stakeout in front of the Trusteeship Council Chamber. Mostly signers simply held signs congratulating themselves for making history. Fair enough.

The UN's Angela Kane was also on the panel, and afterward Inner City Press asked her a question about Syria. But that's another story. Watch this site.

Footnote: At the ATT press conference, the first question was taken by UN Correspondents Association president for 2013, Pamela Falk of CBS, who asked for a headcount of how many states signed but won't get ratification. (Can you say, USA?) As if the make the point, her first vice president, Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, re-asked the explicitly American question.  

 But during the morning, when the Security Council re-opened without the media workspace that existed before and during the relocation, and a small work table set up by the new Free UN Coalition for Access was seized by a "lady from DPI," Falk, Charbonneau and UNCA did nothing. We'll have more on this.