On Cameroon, UN Refused Qs, Biya On Extremists, Is Guterres' Red Alert a Green Light for Repression?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video, en francais, 1st Person

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 – After UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accepted a golden statue from Cameroon's 35-year president Paul Biya in Biya's palace in Yaounde, Guterres again shook hands with Biya in Paris at the One Planet event, photo here; UN told Inner City Press no meeting was scheduled. On December 29, Inner City Press asked Guterres' lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric and then his delegated spokesman Mathias Gillmann about, among other things, "the continued detention of now hospitalized opposition leader Mancho Bibixi" - with no answer at all. 

The year-end speech by Paul Biya said, "in the North-West and South-West Regions, socio-professional grievances, which the Government nonetheless strove to address adequately, were exploited by extremists seeking to impose their secessionist plans through violence" - nearly exactly what the UN's Francois Lounceny Fall, who ran from the Security Council without answer Press questions, says. Guterres says he's issuing a "red alter to our world" for 2018, but in 2017 he helped give a green light to Biya's and others' crackdowns. On December 26, Patrice Nganang was taken from jail in Yaounde to flown out of the country and back to the US, his Cameroonian passport confiscated. The UN did nothing for him; at the UN last week when Inner City Press asked Cameroon's Ambassador about the release after more than two years of Ahmed Abba he smiled, in his way, and bragged that his government held him in jail more than two years. This is Biya's Cameroon. And this is Antonio Guterres' UN: on December 21, after Guterres' spokesman bragged about his record on human rights, Inner City Press asked him a follow up questions on Cameroon. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I think the Secretary-General has been very vocal in his defence of human rights.  I would refer you to his speech he delivered in London a few weeks ago on the need to ensure the full protection of human rights in the fight against terrorism.  He has spoken out in different fora, in different places, to different audiences, about the importance of human rights, the importance of free speech, the importance of an active and vibrant civil society.  I will leave it at that.  I don't… you know, obviously, you and your colleagues are free to analyse and dissect the relationships, but that's where we stand on it. Inner City Press  One last just very specific on that.  In the sense that you're saying very… very, you know, active on human rights, can you say a number… how many people… whether it's the Secretariat or, to your knowledge, the… the… the High Commissioner, how many people do they think have been actually… civilians have been killed in the Anglophone areas of Cameroon? The last number I heard out of the UN was ten, and media put the number… much higher than that. Spokesman:  I don't have… I don't have… I don't have… I don't have an updated number." Of course not. Guterres is on vacation until January 3. As of December 19 it seems clear Guterres has not lifted a finger on the case of journalist Patrice Nganang, jailed by Biya for ten days and counting. Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman at the December 15 UN noon briefing, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: wanted to ask you again about… about the journalist clocked up in Cameroon for ten days now, Patrice Nganang, who was, you know… basically had investigated the Anglophone areas and was picked up from the airport in Douala, is in jail, charged with insulting or threatening the president.  Has the UN done anything on that? Spokesman:  I don't have an update on the case in Cameroon." Later on December 15, Guterres was slated to be sold for $1200 a table at a Wall Street fundraiser; we'll have more on this. When Guterres' envoy Francois Lounceny Fall briefed the UN Security Council on December 13, he lumped Boko Haram and "the Anglophone separatist movement" in the same sentence. On UN Radio, Fall has equated secessionists with extremists. On December 13 he said "clashes have continued between radicals and government forces resulting in the death of security officers in the North-West and South-West regions likely to further inflame tensions." Wait, security officers were the only ones, even as implied here the first ones, to be killed? Inner City Press at noon on December 13, after Fall ran past it at the stakeout saying he had another meeting, asked UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq about it, UN transcript here and below. On December 14, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Haq again about Fall, who is failing on the Lord's Resistance Army (and Gabon) as well, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I'd asked you yesterday about whether Mr. [Francois Lounceny] Fall would answer questions, and many… given… after his briefing yesterday, many people, in looking at the paragraph on Cameroon, in particular, have many questions about it.  He referred to clashes between radicals.  And so people want to know, in the same way that he called secessionists extremists, what he meant by radicals.  I guess I'm just wondering, is he still in New York?  I know he was here Monday through Wednesday.  And is there some way to get him to clarify why… for example, the refugee flows into Nigeria are not mentioned in his report and sort of what he's actually doing on this issue? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, it's certainly his call whether he wants to come to the press.  He chose not to do that yesterday, but he did have an open briefing, and we provided the contents of he said.  Hold on.  Hold on. [Cutting Press off. Later:] Inner City Press: I'd wanted… also, one of the sections of Mr. Fall's briefing was about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and after his briefing, so it's not addressed in it, the US has announced new sanctions against two members of the LRA, particularly in connection with the Central African Republic.  This is a major part of his mandate, but it's confined to one paragraph of his briefing.  That's, I guess, why I'm, again, asking you.  Is there some way for him to respond to the issues unaddressed or that arose after yesterday's presentation? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, like I said, we'll reach out and see whether he wants to or intends to speak to the press.  Ultimately, that's his decision." And a bad one. A fish rots from the head. From the December 13 transcript: Inner City Press:  I wanted to ask you about Cameroon. Can we get Mr. François Fall to have a stakeout or some kind of media availability?  He came out of the Council just now and ran by.  He didn't answer a question on Patrice Nganang, nor did he answer about… basically, his briefing seems to conclude with the death of security officers, which has taken place, but absolutely nothing on the death of civilians.  So, I wanted to know, can you give a little bit more flavor beyond the paragraph in his open briefing?  And will he make himself available at a stakeout or in some other way while he's in New York?  And, finally, I did… there's a photo of António Guterres with Paul Biya, I guess, on the steps of the Élysée Palace.  Do you have any readouts of any of his meetings at that One Planet Summit? Deputy Spokesman:  No, he did not have a meeting with President Biya, nor was one scheduled.  I believe he met with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, to discuss climate change issues.  We don't have any extensive readouts because there wasn't a large number of meetings with Heads of State or Government.  And, regarding Mr. Fall, of course, it's his determination whether he wants to do a press availability, but we've raised that before. Inner City Press: Can you then ask him whether he raised, in the… in the consultations anything to do with press freedom in Cameroon?  Because one of the participants in the… in the… in the… in the consultations said basically that he didn't.  It's not in his briefing.  And, obviously, there are not only… not just the one I've asked about, journalists detained, still restrictions on the Internet, and it's nowhere in his briefing.  So, is there something outside of the Security Council process that he's doing, or… or is he doing nothing on that? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, he's in touch with the Member States bilaterally, as well as through the Council, but regarding the public record, we've provided the actual remarks that he delivered in the Security Council." We'll have more on this - Fall did not mention press freedom, detentions like that of Patrice Nganang or the cut off and slowing down of the Internet and social networks.  On December 12, when Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Farhan Haq for the fourth time about Biya's imprisonment of Stonybrook profession Patrice Nganang, Haq had a prepared statement ready, calling for due process and offering the UN's "good offices" for dialogue, in the person of Francois Fall.  Fall will brief the Security Council on December 13 and a source who has seen his remarks in advance tells Inner City Press the word "Anglophone" is in there.  But Fall has equated secessionists with extremists, and has said that even Federalism is off the table. These are bad offices. There were threats of prosecution against people who refuse to celebrate Biya's 35 years in power. Photo of letter here. So is this was Guterres celebrates, under the Guterres Doctrine? What is the relation to the illegal lumber exports signed off on by Guterres' Deputy, Amina J. Mohammed in the #RosewoodRacket? There were threats to Inner City Press' accreditation at the UN, here. And in Cameroon, worse - and tellingly, the UN's partners even find a way to report on Biya's censorship without naming the UN as complicit. But the UN is complicit. After Paul Biya detained Stonybrook professor Patrice Nganang for his reporting from the Anglophone zones, Inner City Press twice asked the UN about it, with only evasions, video here. 

On Cameroon, UN Refused Qs, Biya On Extremists, Is Guterres' Red Alert a Green Light for Repression?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video, en francais, 1st Person

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 – After UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accepted a golden statue from Cameroon's 35-year president Paul Biya in Biya's palace in Yaounde, Guterres again shook hands with Biya in Paris at the One Planet event, photo here; UN told Inner City Press no meeting was scheduled. On December 29, Inner City Press asked Guterres' lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric and then his delegated spokesman Mathias Gillmann about, among other things, "the continued detention of now hospitalized opposition leader Mancho Bibixi" - with no answer at all. 

The year-end speech by Paul Biya said, "in the North-West and South-West Regions, socio-professional grievances, which the Government nonetheless strove to address adequately, were exploited by extremists seeking to impose their secessionist plans through violence" - nearly exactly what the UN's Francois Lounceny Fall, who ran from the Security Council without answer Press questions, says. Guterres says he's issuing a "red alter to our world" for 2018, but in 2017 he helped give a green light to Biya's and others' crackdowns. On December 26, Patrice Nganang was taken from jail in Yaounde to flown out of the country and back to the US, his Cameroonian passport confiscated. The UN did nothing for him; at the UN last week when Inner City Press asked Cameroon's Ambassador about the release after more than two years of Ahmed Abba he smiled, in his way, and bragged that his government held him in jail more than two years. This is Biya's Cameroon. And this is Antonio Guterres' UN: on December 21, after Guterres' spokesman bragged about his record on human rights, Inner City Press asked him a follow up questions on Cameroon. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I think the Secretary-General has been very vocal in his defence of human rights.  I would refer you to his speech he delivered in London a few weeks ago on the need to ensure the full protection of human rights in the fight against terrorism.  He has spoken out in different fora, in different places, to different audiences, about the importance of human rights, the importance of free speech, the importance of an active and vibrant civil society.  I will leave it at that.  I don't… you know, obviously, you and your colleagues are free to analyse and dissect the relationships, but that's where we stand on it. Inner City Press  One last just very specific on that.  In the sense that you're saying very… very, you know, active on human rights, can you say a number… how many people… whether it's the Secretariat or, to your knowledge, the… the… the High Commissioner, how many people do they think have been actually… civilians have been killed in the Anglophone areas of Cameroon? The last number I heard out of the UN was ten, and media put the number… much higher than that. Spokesman:  I don't have… I don't have… I don't have… I don't have an updated number." Of course not. Guterres is on vacation until January 3. As of December 19 it seems clear Guterres has not lifted a finger on the case of journalist Patrice Nganang, jailed by Biya for ten days and counting. Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman at the December 15 UN noon briefing, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: wanted to ask you again about… about the journalist clocked up in Cameroon for ten days now, Patrice Nganang, who was, you know… basically had investigated the Anglophone areas and was picked up from the airport in Douala, is in jail, charged with insulting or threatening the president.  Has the UN done anything on that? Spokesman:  I don't have an update on the case in Cameroon." Later on December 15, Guterres was slated to be sold for $1200 a table at a Wall Street fundraiser; we'll have more on this. When Guterres' envoy Francois Lounceny Fall briefed the UN Security Council on December 13, he lumped Boko Haram and "the Anglophone separatist movement" in the same sentence. On UN Radio, Fall has equated secessionists with extremists. On December 13 he said "clashes have continued between radicals and government forces resulting in the death of security officers in the North-West and South-West regions likely to further inflame tensions." Wait, security officers were the only ones, even as implied here the first ones, to be killed? Inner City Press at noon on December 13, after Fall ran past it at the stakeout saying he had another meeting, asked UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq about it, UN transcript here and below. On December 14, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Haq again about Fall, who is failing on the Lord's Resistance Army (and Gabon) as well, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I'd asked you yesterday about whether Mr. [Francois Lounceny] Fall would answer questions, and many… given… after his briefing yesterday, many people, in looking at the paragraph on Cameroon, in particular, have many questions about it.  He referred to clashes between radicals.  And so people want to know, in the same way that he called secessionists extremists, what he meant by radicals.  I guess I'm just wondering, is he still in New York?  I know he was here Monday through Wednesday.  And is there some way to get him to clarify why… for example, the refugee flows into Nigeria are not mentioned in his report and sort of what he's actually doing on this issue? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, it's certainly his call whether he wants to come to the press.  He chose not to do that yesterday, but he did have an open briefing, and we provided the contents of he said.  Hold on.  Hold on. [Cutting Press off. Later:] Inner City Press: I'd wanted… also, one of the sections of Mr. Fall's briefing was about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and after his briefing, so it's not addressed in it, the US has announced new sanctions against two members of the LRA, particularly in connection with the Central African Republic.  This is a major part of his mandate, but it's confined to one paragraph of his briefing.  That's, I guess, why I'm, again, asking you.  Is there some way for him to respond to the issues unaddressed or that arose after yesterday's presentation? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, like I said, we'll reach out and see whether he wants to or intends to speak to the press.  Ultimately, that's his decision." And a bad one. A fish rots from the head. From the December 13 transcript: Inner City Press:  I wanted to ask you about Cameroon. Can we get Mr. François Fall to have a stakeout or some kind of media availability?  He came out of the Council just now and ran by.  He didn't answer a question on Patrice Nganang, nor did he answer about… basically, his briefing seems to conclude with the death of security officers, which has taken place, but absolutely nothing on the death of civilians.  So, I wanted to know, can you give a little bit more flavor beyond the paragraph in his open briefing?  And will he make himself available at a stakeout or in some other way while he's in New York?  And, finally, I did… there's a photo of António Guterres with Paul Biya, I guess, on the steps of the Élysée Palace.  Do you have any readouts of any of his meetings at that One Planet Summit? Deputy Spokesman:  No, he did not have a meeting with President Biya, nor was one scheduled.  I believe he met with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, to discuss climate change issues.  We don't have any extensive readouts because there wasn't a large number of meetings with Heads of State or Government.  And, regarding Mr. Fall, of course, it's his determination whether he wants to do a press availability, but we've raised that before. Inner City Press: Can you then ask him whether he raised, in the… in the consultations anything to do with press freedom in Cameroon?  Because one of the participants in the… in the… in the… in the consultations said basically that he didn't.  It's not in his briefing.  And, obviously, there are not only… not just the one I've asked about, journalists detained, still restrictions on the Internet, and it's nowhere in his briefing.  So, is there something outside of the Security Council process that he's doing, or… or is he doing nothing on that? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, he's in touch with the Member States bilaterally, as well as through the Council, but regarding the public record, we've provided the actual remarks that he delivered in the Security Council." We'll have more on this - Fall did not mention press freedom, detentions like that of Patrice Nganang or the cut off and slowing down of the Internet and social networks.  On December 12, when Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Farhan Haq for the fourth time about Biya's imprisonment of Stonybrook profession Patrice Nganang, Haq had a prepared statement ready, calling for due process and offering the UN's "good offices" for dialogue, in the person of Francois Fall.  Fall will brief the Security Council on December 13 and a source who has seen his remarks in advance tells Inner City Press the word "Anglophone" is in there.  But Fall has equated secessionists with extremists, and has said that even Federalism is off the table. These are bad offices. There were threats of prosecution against people who refuse to celebrate Biya's 35 years in power. Photo of letter here. So is this was Guterres celebrates, under the Guterres Doctrine? What is the relation to the illegal lumber exports signed off on by Guterres' Deputy, Amina J. Mohammed in the #RosewoodRacket? There were threats to Inner City Press' accreditation at the UN, here. And in Cameroon, worse - and tellingly, the UN's partners even find a way to report on Biya's censorship without naming the UN as complicit. But the UN is complicit. After Paul Biya detained Stonybrook professor Patrice Nganang for his reporting from the Anglophone zones, Inner City Press twice asked the UN about it, with only evasions, video here. 

On Cameroon, UN Refused Qs, Biya On Extremists, Is Guterres' Red Alert a Green Light for Repression?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video, en francais, 1st Person

UNITED NATIONS, December 31 – After UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres accepted a golden statue from Cameroon's 35-year president Paul Biya in Biya's palace in Yaounde, Guterres again shook hands with Biya in Paris at the One Planet event, photo here; UN told Inner City Press no meeting was scheduled. On December 29, Inner City Press asked Guterres' lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric and then his delegated spokesman Mathias Gillmann about, among other things, "the continued detention of now hospitalized opposition leader Mancho Bibixi" - with no answer at all. 

The year-end speech by Paul Biya said, "in the North-West and South-West Regions, socio-professional grievances, which the Government nonetheless strove to address adequately, were exploited by extremists seeking to impose their secessionist plans through violence" - nearly exactly what the UN's Francois Lounceny Fall, who ran from the Security Council without answer Press questions, says. Guterres says he's issuing a "red alter to our world" for 2018, but in 2017 he helped give a green light to Biya's and others' crackdowns. On December 26, Patrice Nganang was taken from jail in Yaounde to flown out of the country and back to the US, his Cameroonian passport confiscated. The UN did nothing for him; at the UN last week when Inner City Press asked Cameroon's Ambassador about the release after more than two years of Ahmed Abba he smiled, in his way, and bragged that his government held him in jail more than two years. This is Biya's Cameroon. And this is Antonio Guterres' UN: on December 21, after Guterres' spokesman bragged about his record on human rights, Inner City Press asked him a follow up questions on Cameroon. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I think the Secretary-General has been very vocal in his defence of human rights.  I would refer you to his speech he delivered in London a few weeks ago on the need to ensure the full protection of human rights in the fight against terrorism.  He has spoken out in different fora, in different places, to different audiences, about the importance of human rights, the importance of free speech, the importance of an active and vibrant civil society.  I will leave it at that.  I don't… you know, obviously, you and your colleagues are free to analyse and dissect the relationships, but that's where we stand on it. Inner City Press  One last just very specific on that.  In the sense that you're saying very… very, you know, active on human rights, can you say a number… how many people… whether it's the Secretariat or, to your knowledge, the… the… the High Commissioner, how many people do they think have been actually… civilians have been killed in the Anglophone areas of Cameroon? The last number I heard out of the UN was ten, and media put the number… much higher than that. Spokesman:  I don't have… I don't have… I don't have… I don't have an updated number." Of course not. Guterres is on vacation until January 3. As of December 19 it seems clear Guterres has not lifted a finger on the case of journalist Patrice Nganang, jailed by Biya for ten days and counting. Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman at the December 15 UN noon briefing, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: wanted to ask you again about… about the journalist clocked up in Cameroon for ten days now, Patrice Nganang, who was, you know… basically had investigated the Anglophone areas and was picked up from the airport in Douala, is in jail, charged with insulting or threatening the president.  Has the UN done anything on that? Spokesman:  I don't have an update on the case in Cameroon." Later on December 15, Guterres was slated to be sold for $1200 a table at a Wall Street fundraiser; we'll have more on this. When Guterres' envoy Francois Lounceny Fall briefed the UN Security Council on December 13, he lumped Boko Haram and "the Anglophone separatist movement" in the same sentence. On UN Radio, Fall has equated secessionists with extremists. On December 13 he said "clashes have continued between radicals and government forces resulting in the death of security officers in the North-West and South-West regions likely to further inflame tensions." Wait, security officers were the only ones, even as implied here the first ones, to be killed? Inner City Press at noon on December 13, after Fall ran past it at the stakeout saying he had another meeting, asked UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq about it, UN transcript here and below. On December 14, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Haq again about Fall, who is failing on the Lord's Resistance Army (and Gabon) as well, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: I'd asked you yesterday about whether Mr. [Francois Lounceny] Fall would answer questions, and many… given… after his briefing yesterday, many people, in looking at the paragraph on Cameroon, in particular, have many questions about it.  He referred to clashes between radicals.  And so people want to know, in the same way that he called secessionists extremists, what he meant by radicals.  I guess I'm just wondering, is he still in New York?  I know he was here Monday through Wednesday.  And is there some way to get him to clarify why… for example, the refugee flows into Nigeria are not mentioned in his report and sort of what he's actually doing on this issue? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, it's certainly his call whether he wants to come to the press.  He chose not to do that yesterday, but he did have an open briefing, and we provided the contents of he said.  Hold on.  Hold on. [Cutting Press off. Later:] Inner City Press: I'd wanted… also, one of the sections of Mr. Fall's briefing was about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and after his briefing, so it's not addressed in it, the US has announced new sanctions against two members of the LRA, particularly in connection with the Central African Republic.  This is a major part of his mandate, but it's confined to one paragraph of his briefing.  That's, I guess, why I'm, again, asking you.  Is there some way for him to respond to the issues unaddressed or that arose after yesterday's presentation? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, like I said, we'll reach out and see whether he wants to or intends to speak to the press.  Ultimately, that's his decision." And a bad one. A fish rots from the head. From the December 13 transcript: Inner City Press:  I wanted to ask you about Cameroon. Can we get Mr. François Fall to have a stakeout or some kind of media availability?  He came out of the Council just now and ran by.  He didn't answer a question on Patrice Nganang, nor did he answer about… basically, his briefing seems to conclude with the death of security officers, which has taken place, but absolutely nothing on the death of civilians.  So, I wanted to know, can you give a little bit more flavor beyond the paragraph in his open briefing?  And will he make himself available at a stakeout or in some other way while he's in New York?  And, finally, I did… there's a photo of António Guterres with Paul Biya, I guess, on the steps of the Élysée Palace.  Do you have any readouts of any of his meetings at that One Planet Summit? Deputy Spokesman:  No, he did not have a meeting with President Biya, nor was one scheduled.  I believe he met with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, to discuss climate change issues.  We don't have any extensive readouts because there wasn't a large number of meetings with Heads of State or Government.  And, regarding Mr. Fall, of course, it's his determination whether he wants to do a press availability, but we've raised that before. Inner City Press: Can you then ask him whether he raised, in the… in the consultations anything to do with press freedom in Cameroon?  Because one of the participants in the… in the… in the… in the consultations said basically that he didn't.  It's not in his briefing.  And, obviously, there are not only… not just the one I've asked about, journalists detained, still restrictions on the Internet, and it's nowhere in his briefing.  So, is there something outside of the Security Council process that he's doing, or… or is he doing nothing on that? Deputy Spokesman:  Well, he's in touch with the Member States bilaterally, as well as through the Council, but regarding the public record, we've provided the actual remarks that he delivered in the Security Council." We'll have more on this - Fall did not mention press freedom, detentions like that of Patrice Nganang or the cut off and slowing down of the Internet and social networks.  On December 12, when Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Farhan Haq for the fourth time about Biya's imprisonment of Stonybrook profession Patrice Nganang, Haq had a prepared statement ready, calling for due process and offering the UN's "good offices" for dialogue, in the person of Francois Fall.  Fall will brief the Security Council on December 13 and a source who has seen his remarks in advance tells Inner City Press the word "Anglophone" is in there.  But Fall has equated secessionists with extremists, and has said that even Federalism is off the table. These are bad offices. There were threats of prosecution against people who refuse to celebrate Biya's 35 years in power. Photo of letter here. So is this was Guterres celebrates, under the Guterres Doctrine? What is the relation to the illegal lumber exports signed off on by Guterres' Deputy, Amina J. Mohammed in the #RosewoodRacket? There were threats to Inner City Press' accreditation at the UN, here. And in Cameroon, worse - and tellingly, the UN's partners even find a way to report on Biya's censorship without naming the UN as complicit. But the UN is complicit. After Paul Biya detained Stonybrook professor Patrice Nganang for his reporting from the Anglophone zones, Inner City Press twice asked the UN about it, with only evasions, video here. 

Full Year in Review: In 2017 UN's Guterres Failed in Myanmar, Yemen & Cameroon, Amid Corruption, Censors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 30 – Antonio Guterres' year as UN Secretary General beganby telling UN staff how much he respected them, but ended with Guterres on vacationwhile the UN budget was cut and staff ousted from their work-spaces, demoralized and disrespected. 

In between Guterres delayed for months in responding to the slaughter of the Rohingya in Myanmar, out of too much deference to Aung San Suu Kyi. Guterres continued in Yemenwith a Saudi-biased envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as ports were closed, children starved and cholera spread. Pressured to respond to the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, his response was a brief stop-over in Yaounde where he accepted a golden statue from 35-year president Paul Biya.

 In November alone, Guterres ignored evidence that his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed undermined environmental protection, at a minimum, in signing 4000 certificates for endangered rosewood exported from Nigeria and Cameroon to China, then ignored a UN bribery indictment in the courts of Lower Manhattan. Guterres' UN used $1 million from the China Energy Fund Committee of indictedPatrick Ho even after the Press asked his spokesman about the indictment - and still no audit. 

But little coverage either: Guterres eschewed press conference, holding none at the end of the year, but allowed himself to be sold for $1200 a pop at a fundraiser on Wall Street in mid-December. Inner City Press, which covered the event, is launching a series on Guterres' performance as UN Secretary General, even as he and his head of “Global Communications” Alison Smale keep Inner City Press more restricted than no-show no-question state media like Egypt's Akhbar al Yom, assigned the work-space it long shared along with the alternative Free UN Coalition for Access, pushing for a UN Freedom of Information Act. 

A spotlight must be shined on this UN. Here a review of 2017, month by month.

January - February: In Antonio Guterres' first two months as UN Secretary General, the longstanding Cyprus talks began to fall apart, and Guterres stood silent as Burundi, for example, banned access by UN officials. Guterres ignored a protest by whistleblowers against Francis Gurry of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization, and that UN agency's work on North Korea's cyanide patents. 

He did nothing about a UN waste dump exposed by Inner City Press in the Central African Republic, despite his predecessor Ban Ki-moon's record with waste in Haiti and elsewhere. While he announced that Kenyan troops would head back to South Sudan to join UN Peacekeeping, he appointed the fifthFrenchman in a row to head this DPKO, Jean-Pierre Lacroix. 

Meanwhile he was rebuffed in his attempt to appoint Fayyad to head the UN's Libya mission, perhaps explaining his refusal later in the year to take a single press question after reading out his canned statement on Jerusalem. In a harbinger of his approach to UN corruption and (non) reform, his UN was named as not providing requested documents in the first UN bribery case, of Ng Lap Seng. (In the second case, of Patrick Ho and Cheikh Gadio, Guterres has yet to even launch an audit). 

February 2017 ended with a seeming second wind, the belated arrival of Guterres deputy Amina J. Mohammed. Inner City Press was throughout constructive; it would later emerge that during the delay Mohammed signed 4000 certificates for endangered Nigerian and Cameroonian rosewood already exported to China, something Guterres has refused to investigate despite a petition with 92,000 requests.  Guterres' first interaction with UN staff was a Town Hall meeting on January 9. Even though it was on the UN's public website, when Inner City Press live-streamed it onPeriscope for the impacted public to see it received a threat that this violated unspecifiedUN's guidelines. 

This has been a pattern in Guterres' first year: threats to Press for unspecified violations, such as that of Maher Nasser on October 20, and a total failure to respond or reform by Nasser's boss, Alison Smale. Ultimately, Guterres is responsible.

March - April: The spring thaw in Antonio Guterres' first year as UN Secretary General, in March and April, began to reveal hypocrisy. A small but telling example was when, after Guterres called on people all over the world to turn off their lights for Earth Hour, Inner City Press found the lights on at the UN-owned mansion on Sutton Place where Guterres lives. 

At first the UN refused to answer Inner City Press where Guterres was - Lisbon - then accused it of “monitoring the residence.” It's called journalism: with the UN refusing to disclose even what country Guterres is in, checking the residence is the only way. The UN also refuses to disclose how much these Lisbon trips cost the global taxpayers, for example how many UN Security officials are taken, where they stay and for how much. 

Likewise Guterres' 2016 financial disclosurediffered significantly from what he filed as head of UNHCR in 2013. This has yet to be explained. In April Guterres was petitioned to replace the UN's pro-Saudi Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. But when Inner City Press asked, Guterres' spokespeople refused to even confirm receipt of the letter. 

This happened on a petition by staff too, about retaliation by Francis Gurry the head of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization, whose assistance to North Korea's cyanide patents Guterres did not act on. 

In late April, Guterres did nothing as Tanzania expelled his resident coordinator, a far cry from his knee-jerk defense later in the year - continuing on December 27 - of the 4000 rosewood signatures by his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed. Sustainable development? Try hypocrisy, and censorship and restriction of the Press which covers it - and Cameroon, here. We'll have more on this.

May - June: As Antonio Guterres entered his fifth month as UN Secretary General in May 2017, there were still no reforms, and even his budget and reform speech was withheld when Inner City Press asked for a copy of it. 

Rather than propose anything but deck-chair moving changes in UN bureaucracy - new acronyms, new Departments - Guterres seemed to believe his private meetings and canned speeches could do the trick. He met with 11 Congressmembers in May - all Democrats, Inner City Press' inquiry found - and gave a speech in South Carolina. But to what effect? 

By year's end the UN budget would be cut by over $200 million with Guterres nowhere in sight, already on vacation in Lisbon, not even a comment for two days. In the real world, in South Sudan for example, leaked documents published by Inner City Press showed inaction as the SPLA moved toward a violent reclaiming of Pagak. 

Amid the ongoing crackdown in Burundi, the best Guterres could do was a Burkina Faso based envoy, Michel Kafando, who would be only part-time Inner City Press learned though Guterres didn't tell the Security Council members that. He never had a comment on Morocco's crackdown in the Rif, despite dozens of questions from Inner City Press, perhaps thinking that silence might help on Western Sahara (it didn't). 

On nuclear North Korea, Guterres did nothing as the UN Federal Credit Union did businesswith the mission and UN WIPO helped with cyanide patents. 

In continuing Cameroon failure, Guterres' Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed appeared at the ghoulish “National Day” in a townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side; the Ambassador told Inner City Press due to her position on Biafra in “her” Nigeria, she would never support the Anglophones in his. She has yet to answer questions, initially surprising but after the rosewood scandal was revealed, more problematic. Scandals were coming...

July - August: Antonio Guterres first summer as Secretary General had a 14 day black hole in it, in which not only did he disappear but his spokespeople refused at first to confirm to Inner City Press even were he was: the Dalmatian coast. 

He had failed on Cyprus, descending from the 38th floor for a mere three minute stakeout. He delegated the Cameroon conflict, unwisely, to his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed, who was said by Paul Biya's Ambassador to be in the bag, firmly against any secession. 

She had worked for Ban Ki-moon, whose era at the UN was indicted, and in essence convicted, along with Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng at the end of July. But Guterres doubled down in impunity, claiming that the UN was the victim of the scheme, even as its accomplices continued on the payroll. Guterres' UN was accused of racial discrimination in a Town Hall meeting he closed to the press - but what did he care? 

He dodged questions about the crackdowns in Togo and Gabon and left, even at year's end, the UN Special Adviser on Africa position empty. In Kenya he called electoral official Msango's murder an “untimely demise,” alternately deferring to Ban Ki-moon's pro-Kenyatta son in law and then to his opposite, Roslyn Akombe. Apparently, Africa didn't and doesn't interest him. 

In Europe, he supposed his group by ignoring Catalonia, even as he let sell-out Catalan Cristina “The Evicter” Gallach stay on too long as a representative to the UN's school. Her replacement Alison Smale was late in coming, and surrounded by the same staff like Guterres, would continue the same abuses and worse. The Fall was approaching...

September - October: Antonio Guterres' first UN General Assembly “high level” week as Secretary General featured a grip and grin with Egypt's Sisi witnessed only by Sisi's state media to whom Inner City Press' office is assigned under Guterres, a praise-fest with Cameroon's Paul Biya even as his forces killed Anglophone civilians and a total refusal to answer questions on UN corruption. 

During the week, Haiti called on Guterres to belatedly do something about the 10,000 people the UN killed with cholera; Guterres has raised very little money and his envoy on the topic has yet to take Press questions. 

Even when Guterres did, on September 13, he answered only on peacekeeper sexual abuse, entirely evading Inner City Press' questionabout the six UN bribery guilty verdicts in the case of Ng Lap Seng, for coverage of which Inner City Press was evicted and is stillrestricted under Guterres. Other corrupt events and bribery cases proceeded; Guterres' Secretariat took on a Junior Professional Officer from Kim Jong-Un's North Korea, while refusing to confirm the name. 

By October, with his head of Global Communications vowing to spin the trip, Guterres took off for Central African Republic, refusing to answer why one of the only three officials criticized in the UN report on sexual abuse there, Renner Onana, remained in place, with promotion. On the way back, most tellingly, Guterres stopped in Younde and took a golden statue from Paul “The Killer” Biya, smiling. This is the symbol of Guterre's Secretary Generalship....

November - December 2017: As 2017 drew to a close UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres closed in on himself, like a small star collapsing, speaking only to friendly or paid media, accepting money from an already-indicted NGO then fleeing to Portugal, where he ended the year as the UN budget was cut. Was this what he was elected or selected for? 

In early November Inner City Press had already just been threatened for covering his photo ops noticed after one a two-person lunch set-up on the 38th floor with the name plate, Gillian Tett. But Guterres' spokesman - and Ban K-moon's before that, who does that - refused to say what it was about. 

It was an interview, with Guterres criticizing even the food at the UN and showing up. It left many UN staff and contractors disgusted. But with the threat of retaliation and many guards, Guterres was unaware. 

What did he care, when 98,000 environmentalists asked him to investigate his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed for signing CITES certificates for endangered rosewoodfrom Nigeria and Cameroon already in China? Rather than investigate, Guterres lashed out at a rare on the record Ambassador critic, from Kenya, calling him “unfair.” 

This as Guterres and his head of Communications Alison Smale kept the critical Press restricted, refusing even to offer any explanation, using three time loser Maher Nasser to issue new threats. Even when the budget was cut and Inner City Press alone covered it, with one of Smale's minders to 2 am on Christmas Eve, Guterres was gone, in Portugal, an absentee UN slowly collapsing in on itself like a small star, refusing even on the last work day of the year to answer any Press questions, here. To be continued...

Full Year in Review: In 2017 UN's Guterres Failed in Myanmar, Yemen & Cameroon, Amid Corruption, Censors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 30 – Antonio Guterres' year as UN Secretary General beganby telling UN staff how much he respected them, but ended with Guterres on vacationwhile the UN budget was cut and staff ousted from their work-spaces, demoralized and disrespected. 

In between Guterres delayed for months in responding to the slaughter of the Rohingya in Myanmar, out of too much deference to Aung San Suu Kyi. Guterres continued in Yemenwith a Saudi-biased envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as ports were closed, children starved and cholera spread. Pressured to respond to the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, his response was a brief stop-over in Yaounde where he accepted a golden statue from 35-year president Paul Biya.

 In November alone, Guterres ignored evidence that his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed undermined environmental protection, at a minimum, in signing 4000 certificates for endangered rosewood exported from Nigeria and Cameroon to China, then ignored a UN bribery indictment in the courts of Lower Manhattan. Guterres' UN used $1 million from the China Energy Fund Committee of indictedPatrick Ho even after the Press asked his spokesman about the indictment - and still no audit. 

But little coverage either: Guterres eschewed press conference, holding none at the end of the year, but allowed himself to be sold for $1200 a pop at a fundraiser on Wall Street in mid-December. Inner City Press, which covered the event, is launching a series on Guterres' performance as UN Secretary General, even as he and his head of “Global Communications” Alison Smale keep Inner City Press more restricted than no-show no-question state media like Egypt's Akhbar al Yom, assigned the work-space it long shared along with the alternative Free UN Coalition for Access, pushing for a UN Freedom of Information Act. 

A spotlight must be shined on this UN. Here a review of 2017, month by month.

January - February: In Antonio Guterres' first two months as UN Secretary General, the longstanding Cyprus talks began to fall apart, and Guterres stood silent as Burundi, for example, banned access by UN officials. Guterres ignored a protest by whistleblowers against Francis Gurry of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization, and that UN agency's work on North Korea's cyanide patents. 

He did nothing about a UN waste dump exposed by Inner City Press in the Central African Republic, despite his predecessor Ban Ki-moon's record with waste in Haiti and elsewhere. While he announced that Kenyan troops would head back to South Sudan to join UN Peacekeeping, he appointed the fifthFrenchman in a row to head this DPKO, Jean-Pierre Lacroix. 

Meanwhile he was rebuffed in his attempt to appoint Fayyad to head the UN's Libya mission, perhaps explaining his refusal later in the year to take a single press question after reading out his canned statement on Jerusalem. In a harbinger of his approach to UN corruption and (non) reform, his UN was named as not providing requested documents in the first UN bribery case, of Ng Lap Seng. (In the second case, of Patrick Ho and Cheikh Gadio, Guterres has yet to even launch an audit). 

February 2017 ended with a seeming second wind, the belated arrival of Guterres deputy Amina J. Mohammed. Inner City Press was throughout constructive; it would later emerge that during the delay Mohammed signed 4000 certificates for endangered Nigerian and Cameroonian rosewood already exported to China, something Guterres has refused to investigate despite a petition with 92,000 requests.  Guterres' first interaction with UN staff was a Town Hall meeting on January 9. Even though it was on the UN's public website, when Inner City Press live-streamed it onPeriscope for the impacted public to see it received a threat that this violated unspecifiedUN's guidelines. 

This has been a pattern in Guterres' first year: threats to Press for unspecified violations, such as that of Maher Nasser on October 20, and a total failure to respond or reform by Nasser's boss, Alison Smale. Ultimately, Guterres is responsible.

March - April: The spring thaw in Antonio Guterres' first year as UN Secretary General, in March and April, began to reveal hypocrisy. A small but telling example was when, after Guterres called on people all over the world to turn off their lights for Earth Hour, Inner City Press found the lights on at the UN-owned mansion on Sutton Place where Guterres lives. 

At first the UN refused to answer Inner City Press where Guterres was - Lisbon - then accused it of “monitoring the residence.” It's called journalism: with the UN refusing to disclose even what country Guterres is in, checking the residence is the only way. The UN also refuses to disclose how much these Lisbon trips cost the global taxpayers, for example how many UN Security officials are taken, where they stay and for how much. 

Likewise Guterres' 2016 financial disclosurediffered significantly from what he filed as head of UNHCR in 2013. This has yet to be explained. In April Guterres was petitioned to replace the UN's pro-Saudi Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. But when Inner City Press asked, Guterres' spokespeople refused to even confirm receipt of the letter. 

This happened on a petition by staff too, about retaliation by Francis Gurry the head of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization, whose assistance to North Korea's cyanide patents Guterres did not act on. 

In late April, Guterres did nothing as Tanzania expelled his resident coordinator, a far cry from his knee-jerk defense later in the year - continuing on December 27 - of the 4000 rosewood signatures by his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed. Sustainable development? Try hypocrisy, and censorship and restriction of the Press which covers it - and Cameroon, here. We'll have more on this.

May - June: As Antonio Guterres entered his fifth month as UN Secretary General in May 2017, there were still no reforms, and even his budget and reform speech was withheld when Inner City Press asked for a copy of it. 

Rather than propose anything but deck-chair moving changes in UN bureaucracy - new acronyms, new Departments - Guterres seemed to believe his private meetings and canned speeches could do the trick. He met with 11 Congressmembers in May - all Democrats, Inner City Press' inquiry found - and gave a speech in South Carolina. But to what effect? 

By year's end the UN budget would be cut by over $200 million with Guterres nowhere in sight, already on vacation in Lisbon, not even a comment for two days. In the real world, in South Sudan for example, leaked documents published by Inner City Press showed inaction as the SPLA moved toward a violent reclaiming of Pagak. 

Amid the ongoing crackdown in Burundi, the best Guterres could do was a Burkina Faso based envoy, Michel Kafando, who would be only part-time Inner City Press learned though Guterres didn't tell the Security Council members that. He never had a comment on Morocco's crackdown in the Rif, despite dozens of questions from Inner City Press, perhaps thinking that silence might help on Western Sahara (it didn't). 

On nuclear North Korea, Guterres did nothing as the UN Federal Credit Union did businesswith the mission and UN WIPO helped with cyanide patents. 

In continuing Cameroon failure, Guterres' Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed appeared at the ghoulish “National Day” in a townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side; the Ambassador told Inner City Press due to her position on Biafra in “her” Nigeria, she would never support the Anglophones in his. She has yet to answer questions, initially surprising but after the rosewood scandal was revealed, more problematic. Scandals were coming...

July - August: Antonio Guterres first summer as Secretary General had a 14 day black hole in it, in which not only did he disappear but his spokespeople refused at first to confirm to Inner City Press even were he was: the Dalmatian coast. 

He had failed on Cyprus, descending from the 38th floor for a mere three minute stakeout. He delegated the Cameroon conflict, unwisely, to his Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed, who was said by Paul Biya's Ambassador to be in the bag, firmly against any secession. 

She had worked for Ban Ki-moon, whose era at the UN was indicted, and in essence convicted, along with Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng at the end of July. But Guterres doubled down in impunity, claiming that the UN was the victim of the scheme, even as its accomplices continued on the payroll. Guterres' UN was accused of racial discrimination in a Town Hall meeting he closed to the press - but what did he care? 

He dodged questions about the crackdowns in Togo and Gabon and left, even at year's end, the UN Special Adviser on Africa position empty. In Kenya he called electoral official Msango's murder an “untimely demise,” alternately deferring to Ban Ki-moon's pro-Kenyatta son in law and then to his opposite, Roslyn Akombe. Apparently, Africa didn't and doesn't interest him. 

In Europe, he supposed his group by ignoring Catalonia, even as he let sell-out Catalan Cristina “The Evicter” Gallach stay on too long as a representative to the UN's school. Her replacement Alison Smale was late in coming, and surrounded by the same staff like Guterres, would continue the same abuses and worse. The Fall was approaching...

September - October: Antonio Guterres' first UN General Assembly “high level” week as Secretary General featured a grip and grin with Egypt's Sisi witnessed only by Sisi's state media to whom Inner City Press' office is assigned under Guterres, a praise-fest with Cameroon's Paul Biya even as his forces killed Anglophone civilians and a total refusal to answer questions on UN corruption. 

During the week, Haiti called on Guterres to belatedly do something about the 10,000 people the UN killed with cholera; Guterres has raised very little money and his envoy on the topic has yet to take Press questions. 

Even when Guterres did, on September 13, he answered only on peacekeeper sexual abuse, entirely evading Inner City Press' questionabout the six UN bribery guilty verdicts in the case of Ng Lap Seng, for coverage of which Inner City Press was evicted and is stillrestricted under Guterres. Other corrupt events and bribery cases proceeded; Guterres' Secretariat took on a Junior Professional Officer from Kim Jong-Un's North Korea, while refusing to confirm the name. 

By October, with his head of Global Communications vowing to spin the trip, Guterres took off for Central African Republic, refusing to answer why one of the only three officials criticized in the UN report on sexual abuse there, Renner Onana, remained in place, with promotion. On the way back, most tellingly, Guterres stopped in Younde and took a golden statue from Paul “The Killer” Biya, smiling. This is the symbol of Guterre's Secretary Generalship....

November - December 2017: As 2017 drew to a close UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres closed in on himself, like a small star collapsing, speaking only to friendly or paid media, accepting money from an already-indicted NGO then fleeing to Portugal, where he ended the year as the UN budget was cut. Was this what he was elected or selected for? 

In early November Inner City Press had already just been threatened for covering his photo ops noticed after one a two-person lunch set-up on the 38th floor with the name plate, Gillian Tett. But Guterres' spokesman - and Ban K-moon's before that, who does that - refused to say what it was about. 

It was an interview, with Guterres criticizing even the food at the UN and showing up. It left many UN staff and contractors disgusted. But with the threat of retaliation and many guards, Guterres was unaware. 

What did he care, when 98,000 environmentalists asked him to investigate his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed for signing CITES certificates for endangered rosewoodfrom Nigeria and Cameroon already in China? Rather than investigate, Guterres lashed out at a rare on the record Ambassador critic, from Kenya, calling him “unfair.” 

This as Guterres and his head of Communications Alison Smale kept the critical Press restricted, refusing even to offer any explanation, using three time loser Maher Nasser to issue new threats. Even when the budget was cut and Inner City Press alone covered it, with one of Smale's minders to 2 am on Christmas Eve, Guterres was gone, in Portugal, an absentee UN slowly collapsing in on itself like a small star, refusing even on the last work day of the year to answer any Press questions, here. To be continued...