By Matthew Russell Lee, Photos, Periscope
UN GATE, Dec 18 – South Africa is leaving the UN Security Council this month, after not holding a single meeting on the slaughter in Cameroon, after helping ethno-state Burundi evade scrutiny, all with the assistance not only of SABC but now Foreign Policy, taking ad money from South Africa. Photo here.
On December 18 Inner City Press which covers Cameroon and the UN's failure on it sought to ask South Africa's Ambassador / censor Jerry Matjila for his side of the story. But FP, which has remained silent more than two years on a journalist being roughed up in the UN and banned since, curated a Q&A of questions about gumbo diplomacy, sh*thole countries and faux Afro-Centrism, Inner City Press stream here.
The Brand South Africa ad promised pro South Africa questions from "Sherwin Bryce-Pease UN BUREAU CHIEF: SABC NEWS, SOUTH AFRICA.... Colum Lynch... Michelle Nichols, THOMSON REUTERS and Amanda Price," Al Jazeera...
Today's is totally corrupt, with supposed watchdogs taking ad money from those they purport to interview, and censors from Reuters and Al Jazeera reading scripted questions by Zoom. We'll have more on this.
It's not just December 2020 - this is from 2019:
With the UN Security Council presidency for October 2019 being taken over by South Africa's Jerry Matjila, he bragged in his 1 October 2019 press conference that there would be 40 meetings in the month.
None, though, on the slaughter in Cameroon. And Inner City Press which most asks about that UN failure remains banned from the UN by Antonio Guterres. Matjila's predecessor Mutaboba raised it; Matjila has not. It was whispered to him to hand the third question to his own state media, after the first question was by the head of UNCA just back from a junket in China, asking about Chinese power. This is today's UN.
Matjila mock referred questions to Marthinus van Schalkwyk; there is no mechanism to get news of transparency from this Mission.
Inner City Press' application for re-accreditation to enter and cover the UNSC stakeout, submitted on 15 April 2019, was denied without explanation on April 17. ("Greetings Matthew LEE from ICP INNER CITY PRESS, Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M66561081, has been declined.") This was repeated for the UNGA week, with nothing from South Africa.
Alamy photos here.
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