After MH17 Veto, JIT Five Pick Reuters, CNN, Ukraine TV - Then FUNCA Jumps In With Legal Question

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 29 -- After threatening to call the vote on a proposed tribunal on the downing of flight MH17 in the UN Security Council on July 21 and then July 27, on July 29 the vote took place, onthis resolution.

  As expected, Russia vetoed, and three countries abstained: China, Angola and Venezuela.

 Afterward there was a stakeout by the five JIT countries. In advance, one of their spokespeople told the UNTV boom microphone operator to only allow questions to those he called on. But was he representing all five countries? Inner City Press asked, on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access.

 When the stakeout started, the spokesperson awarded the first question to Reuters; the next questions was about another flight, MH370, by CNN. Now the spokesperson asked his Ukrainian counterpart who to call on, and chose a Huffington Post contributor who invokes the name of the old UN Correspondents Association, which is complicit in the shrinking of free press at the UN.

  So Inner City Press simply asked a question in the lull: to compel cooperation of countries, is there any other option or precedent?

Australia's Julie Bishop replied that Chapter 7 and the UNSC would be best. Periscope video of whole stakeout, for now, here.

 Next was a question, how do you respond to the families? And finally a question from Ukrainian television. But that was not it - then Dutch minister Koenders did a Dutch-only stakeout, using the UN microphone. Inner City Press for FUNCA asked, is this a UN stakeout? And answer was, No.

 To this has the UN sunk.

 Before the vote, Koenders, a former UN official in Cote d'Ivoire then Mali, buzzed around the Security Council and stood for interviews. Australia's Julie Bishop posed on First Avenue with the UN behind her. Whether any questions about her government paying human traffickers would be allowed was UNclear.

 Bishop stopped on her way in, but declined to predict the vote count. Russia's Vitaly Churkin said, "Our position has not changed, listen to my speech."

   Ukraine's Pavlo Klimkin, last here talking up peacekeeping in Donbas, said that if the resolution didn't pass there would be more shoot-downs.

 Back on July 20 Inner City Press asked the UN Security Council president for July, New Zealand's Gerard von Bohemen if there will be a July 27 vote. It is not "set in stone," he replied. Before that, von Bohemen said:

"We had consultations as you know, this afternoon on the issue of MH17 and what should be done by way of follow up to Resolution 2166 and the proposal by Joint Investigation Team of countries who want an international tribunal.

"I think it was a very positive discussion. There was strong support in the room for the establishment of a tribunal. Russia, of course, has a different perspective on this and explained its resolution and there were a number of countries that urged the two key proponents to come together and try to find a united way forward.

"Attention was drawn to the fact that the Council achieved great unity this morning for the Iran resolution and that same spirit, I think we should try to capture in this exercise.

"Having said that, I noted, and so did the Russian Federation, that the issue of the tribunal is the key deciding point.  And that’s the one that we are going to grapple with."

  Back on July 21, 2014, after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to an independent international investigation of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine, Inner City Press asked Malaysia's then Permanent Representative to the UNHussein Haniff if there was, in fact, an agreement with the separatist rebels for Malaysia to get the black boxes. Video here.

Ambassador Hussein Haniff said yes, “there is this understanding that the black box will be handed over to Malaysia.” He said, “We have our people ready, we hope this agreement will be honored.”

Inner City Press asked when the hand-over is supposed to take place.

“Like around now,” Ambassador Hussein Haniff replied. It was just past 5 pm in New York on July 21.

Earlier on July 21 at the US State Department's press briefing in Washington, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf was asked if Malaysia was breaking ranks with other countries by making its own deal with the rebels, and if an agreement with Malaysia about the black boxes and flight recorders would give the separatist rebels leadership any legitimacy.

No, Harf insisted. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Amid Post MH370 Talk of Increased Travel Scrutiny, Misuse of No-Fly List UNaddressed by Interpol, UN, ICAO

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 25 -- Amid wall-to-wall media coverage of the missing Malaysia MH370 plane, the two passengers said to have been traveling on lost or stolen passports have become a focus.

Jumping on the bandwagon -- or arguably using it as a "teachable moment" -- the director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate Jean-Paul Laborde along with the ICAO chief Raymond Benjamin and INTERPOL's Ronald Noble held a press conference on April 25. Tweeted photo here.

Inner City Press asked about civil liberties, specifically about the recent lawsuit against the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for putting and keeping people on its No Fly List if they wouldn't agree to "spy against their communities."

This troubling case, directly in the ambit of the UN CTED and presumably of concern to INTERPOL, if only because doubts about security programs can undermine security, was not commented on by any of the three panelists, on their way to a meeting UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee. They deferred to INTERPOL's Noble, who said that since his organization's database is only of documents listed as lost or stolen, there is no civil liberties issue. Really?

Unaddressed so far is whether a government could falsely put a person's travel documents into the Interpol database to impose a de facto travel ban.

Both houses of the US Congress consider legislation to list and cut aid to countries which do not work with INTERPOL's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database. Senator Ron Kirk (R-IL) has proposed that the US State Department be required to list countries which do not work with the Interpol database.

Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC) has gone further and proposed a Safe Skies Act of 2014, H.R. 4448, which would cut off US aid to countries not working with the Interpol database. (A waiver could be given "in cases of disaster relief, humanitarian aid, or national security" - how ever defined.

The concept or phrase "national security" was invoked this week behind closed doors in the UN Host Country Committee, after the US denied a visa to Iran's Ambassador nominee for his role in the 1979 hostage taking, which he says was as a translator. Meanwhile the US allowed in, and made a court filing in support of immunity for, Sri Lankan military figure Shavendra Silva, that country's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN. Watch this site.

Footnote: Grabbing the first two questions, Pam Falk of CBS thanked the panel on behalf of the dubious UN Correspondents Association, whose Executive Board engaged in censorship; Noble perhaps misunderstanding thanked Falk for the "invitation." It's a press conference at the UN, not its Censorship Alliance. So the Free UN Coalition of Access offered counter-thanks for the ability to asked questions: about civil liberties. To be continued.