By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag
SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 28 – The United Nations has hit a new low, with its supposed human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet whitewashing China's genocide against the Uighurs during a stage-managed trip to the country. Now, a passive-voice statement by Antony Blinken, below.
At the end of Bachelet's trip, in a press conference dominated by scripted questions from Chinese state media in response to which she read from prepared notes, she said she was unable to access what is happening in Xinjiang. Defund the UN.
Some say they are surprised by this outcome, which seems to include Antony Blinken. But a fish rots from the head. The head of the UN system is Antonio Guterres, and the reasons for his silence on China's abuses is more sinister.
Before being selected - by China, which like Russia could have vetoed him - Guterres took money from the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The China Energy Fund Committee, whose Patrick Ho was convicted of UN bribery involving UN President of the General Assembly, offered top dollar for Gulbenkian's oil company.
Guterres omitted the money he took from Gulbenkian from his financial disclosure form.
And after Inner City Press, which had aggressively reported on Guterres' predecessor Ban Ki-moon from inside the UN, asked about it, Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up and banned from the UN ever since. Very Xi.
In the run up to Bachelet's trip, Inner City Press put written questions repeatedly to Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who daily takes three of more questions in his noon briefing from Chinese state media. But to Inner City Press, no answer.
Likewise, when pro bono law firm Quinn Emanuel wrote to Guterres' head of media accreditation Melissa Fleming asking for Inner City Press to be allowed to re-enter the UN and ask its questions, she refused to response, as did the supposed UN Correspondents Association, on whose Executive Committee China has a permanent seat.
So how is it surprising the the UN covers up for China?
US Antony Blinken put out a passive voice statement ignoring that the head of the UN, Guterres, entirely deferred to and hid behind Bachelet, and saying "she should have been allowed" rather than "she should have." Bachelet and Guterres chose to cover up genocide -- Guterres, for money. Blinken: "Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State The United States remains concerned about the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her team’s visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and PRC efforts to restrict and manipulate her visit. While we continue to raise our concerns about China’s human rights abuses directly with Beijing and support others who do so, we are concerned the conditions Beijing authorities imposed on the visit did not enable a complete and independent assessment of the human rights environment in the PRC, including in Xinjiang, where genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing. We are further troubled by reports that residents of Xinjiang were warned not to complain or speak openly about conditions in the region, that no insight was provided into the whereabouts of hundreds of missing Uyghurs and conditions for over a million individuals in detention. The High Commissioner should have been allowed confidential meetings with family members of Uyghur and other ethnic minority diaspora communities in Xinjiang." Should have been allowed - but didn't complain.
So where if the US Administration and US Mission to the UN under Linda Thomas-Greenfield on this? They praise the UN and their work there, amid all the failures and censorship.
There is no accountability mechanism for today's UN. Defund and decamp. Watch this site - and this book by Inner City Press, "Belt and Roadkill." (Also, Genocide Games of Guterres)
