UN GATE, Aug 20 – Ivonne A-Baki's
interactive dialogue before the General Assembly ran the
full three hours, unlike Olara Ottunu's the day before,
and produced two moments worth flagging on their
own. Asked by Uruguay, on behalf of the Group of 77
and China, how she'd rebuild trust in the UN system,
A-Baki said: "This idea of closing doors and only agreeing
to meet with the big fat cats. Well, I'm not going to do
that." But Antonio Guterres does, and has for nine-plus
years.
The European Union's delegate asked how she
would address the fact that "only 1% of the UN system
spending is dedicated to human rights mandates." No
one asked, and A-Baki did not address, a question Inner
City Press considers relevant regardless: outgoing
Secretary-General Guterres arranged a fresh four-year term
for High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk shortly
before leaving office, a mandate that will run well into
the next Secretary-General's tenure regardless of who wins
this race or what they promise on human rights funding or
reform. Whatever a new Secretary-General says about
strengthening the human rights pillar, the person actually
running it was locked in by a lame-duck predecessor, on
Inner City Press's read a dubious use of Guterres's final
months in office - will he continue to ban the Press right
to the end? And, what would A-Baki, and each other
candidate, do?
The dialogue also included extended
personal material: A-Baki repeated her account of
sheltering in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war,
described her nine-year-old grandson telling her to
"invite Putin and Zelensky for dinner" to end the Ukraine
war, and recounted negotiating alone with an armed group
leader who came to her door during that war, later
educating his siblings. There was an elephant in the room
- not Mike Waltz, missing in action as noted, as least on
UN censorship.
Below, Inner City Press's coverage
of the earlier candidates' debate. Watch this site for
A-Baki's Press-less stakeout after Denmark's bland 3:15
summary, and then tomorrow the straw poll: still banned.
Six candidates for the top job
at the United Nations stood on a stage in the General
Assembly Hall on July 23, in a "town hall" moderated not
by the UN press corps (corpse) but by Bloomberg
television, presented as the exclusive media partner of
General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock. Can you say,
corporate capture?
Inner City Press, banned from UN
premises since 2018 for its reporting on the UN's own
budget corruption, was therefore not among those permitted
to ask a question. Nor, notably, was any question asked by
anyone about UN press access, transparency, or
accountability — ninety minutes on peace, reform, AI, and
trade, and not once did the moderators or the hand-picked
audience members ask a single candidate how they would
treat journalists the UN itself has shut out, or for
example Haitians killed by the cholera the UN brought
there, or UN victims from DRC to Colombia.
What was asked, and answered, is
instructive in what it reveals and what it evades.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA Director-General whose
organization Inner City Press has separately reported
is linkned to an anonymous social media account praising
his own candidacy, @GrossiForNextUN,that now blocks Inner
City Press, insisted that "impartiality is one of the most
difficult traits of the job of the Secretary-General,
which is not indifference." Pressed on autonomous weapons
and AI, Grossi offered, "A verification system of the type
that you have for nuclear weapons... would be an illusion"
— so would UN accountability. Grossi has not answered the
questionnaire
of the Free UN Coalition for Access (FUNCA) and Inner City
Press, nor explained the sock puppet X accounts that
support him.
Michelle Bachelet, twice President
of Chile and twice a senior UN official, who heard Inner
City Press' critique at the stakeout under the stairway by
the Vienna cafe and did nothing about it, selling out
Uighurs and others,
built her opening entirely on her own resume, rattling off
First... second... third. It is said she would be vetoed.
That was not directly asked, much less answered. Nor has
she answered the Inner City Press questionnaire. Now
Google's Gemini says she say withdrawn...
Rebecca Grynspan, formerly UNCTAD chief,
reached out for the term "polylateralism" and cited her
own brokering of the Black Sea Initiative grain deal as
her template for the Strait of Hormuz. She did not mention
misusing
a Lear Jet in Afghanistan travel, much less the
ongoing Press ban.
MarÃa Fernanda Espinosa, herself a former
President of the General Assembly who refused
to answer when the Press was banned, said that
"today, 72 member states have not yet paid their dues,"
then quoted Elie Wiesel, with moderators repeatedly saying
only "please wrap it up." She has not answered Inner City
Press' questionnaire, nor its at-tweets. She did a YouTube
"interview" that took no questions; nor has says answered
Press questions @-ed at her on X.
Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's
ambassador who as UNSC President refused not only Inner
City Press' written
questions but also its request to know why it was
banned, asked what she'd want the world to say after any
first term, says "that we would have seen that a woman as
Secretary-General can deliver."
Macky Sall, Senegal's former president who
had a hidden wasteful budget, bragged of his own trip to
meet Vladimir Putin at the height of the Ukraine war's
grain blockade, "because I represented a continent of 1.5
billion people" affected by it. Fittingly, he compared the
UN to a pipe organ and himself to "an organist" who could
"play music beautifully on behalf of member states."
Organist indeed. Otunnu had not joined in, or arrived in
New York, yet.
What none of the six was asked, by
Bloomberg's moderators or by the single NGO
representative, single selected staff member, nor handful
of vetted ambassadors given the floor, was anything about
the Organization's own transparency: not about press
credentialing, not about the eight years Inner City Press
has spent seeking reinstatement after reporting on Budget
Committee corruption, not about bringing cholera to Haiti
and paying nothing, repatriating raping peacekeepers with
no punishment, not about unfair promotion of cronies, lack
of whistleblower protections, pure waste.
Grynspan put the imit of the
whole exercise, its contempt for We the People's,
plainly: "It is for the Security Council and Member States
to decide who is the best person to lead this task."
Ninety minutes of television, moderated by a corporate
media partner, changes nothing about who actually picks
the tenth Secretary-General of the United Nations. That
decision, as ever, will be made somewhere Inner City Press
is not permitted to be. But we will continue reporting -
including under whoever "wins." More candidates are
needed, and at end to UN censorship. Watch this site.
