AFP's Tim Witcher Complained to UN of How Inner City Press Questioned French Ladsous Outside Syria Meeting

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- How does the UN work? Today we re-examine how media like Agence France-Presse, doing the bidding of "their" country and the officials they foist on the UN, try to get other journalists thrown out of the UN by filing complaints they seek to keep secret.

   Based on a US Freedom of Information Act request, the fact that AFP sought to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN has been exposed, in a document published online here. But there's more to it.

  On March 8, 2013 Tim Witcher of AFP wrote to the UN Department of Safety and Security complaining how Inner City Press asked a question of Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping. Witcher wrote to UN DSS:

"At the UN Security Council media stakeout area on Friday, March 8, 2013, I was stood [sic] with other news agency, television and newspaper journalists waiting, as per normal practice, for officials to arrive for a meeting on Syria. Mr Lee started shouting at and abusing under secretary general Ladsous as he came down the stairs for the meeting. Mr Ladsous did not respond... Mr. Lee has a longstanding campaign of harassment against AFP, Reuters and other UN media in his written blog."

   It is noteworthy not only that AFP's Witcher thought to complain to UN Security about a written blog, but also that it was Witcher, and not Ladsous, who filed this complaint. 

  In fact, all Inner City Press did was ask Ladsous a question about a UN cover-up, and repeated it when Ladsous refused to offer any answer, as even his predecessors Alain Le Roy and Jean-Marie Guehenno would routinely do.

(Inner City Press asked Guehenno about the kidnapping of peacekeepers from Nepal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guehenno replied with what the kidnapper, still free, was asking for. Le Roy answered on the obvious question of whether UN Peacekeeping, ceded to France for more than a decade, was being used to advance French colonial foreign policy in Cote d'Ivoire.)

  The meeting that day was about Syria. Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping, as first exposed by Inner City Press, had pulled the plug on the UN mission there, as while the head of the mission there Robert Mood did not know about it. Ladsous never explained his role; AFP's Witcher on this and other topics never published but sought to keep the investigative Press away from Ladsous, to the point of trying to get it thrown out of the UN.

AFP's Tim Witcher at UN; his March 8, 2013 complaint not then shown

  Even though or because AFP's Witcher didn't publish obvious but critical stories -- for recent example Witcher allowed the UN's envoy on cholera in Haiti to say that legal wrangling should be dispensed with in order to focus on the cholera that UN Peacekeeping brought to to island, without asking why the UN refused legal papers and if the case it is dodging has cost it any more -- he joined a small group of similar reporters in seeking to get private, spoon-fed (or lapdog) briefings.

  As luck would have it, one of these was captured on video, regarding Ladsous. After Ladsous, in a sense encouraged and "empowered" by coverage like that of AFP's Witcher, openly refused to answer Press questions about over 100 rapes in Minova in the the DRC by Congolese Army units UN Peacekeeping support, Ladsous summoned Witcher into the hallway, behind a glass door, for an "all French" briefing which included at least two other non-French reporters. 

  The other reporters are Margaret Besheer of Voice of America and Lou Charbonneau of Reuters; click here to view the video which Charbonneau has yet to get Google to block from its search mis-using while citing Reuters the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (This too is how the UN works.)

  The letter Witcher gave to the UN Department of Safety and Security cited another Reuters reporter who works under Charbonneau. 

  On March 8, 2013, after both ran stories based on a UN Peacekeeping spoonfed briefing spinning the very Minova rapes that Ladsous had repeatedly refused to answer public Press questions about -- click here for compilation video,here for UK coverage -- this Reuters reporter is the one who said to Inner City Press, after Ladsous again refused to answer, that some correspondents work behind the scenes and have sources. The response was and is: lapdog. This is how the UN works.

  If AFP's Witcher writing, even this manipulatively, to the UN was a one-off event it would be one thing. But in fact Witcher tried to use bureaucracy to defend Ladsous and the French Mission to the UN from Ladsous' first day. 

 Inner City Press had reported that another Frenchman, Jerome Bonnafont, had been told he would replace Le Roy atop UN Peacekeeping; Inner City Press even exclusively published a congratulation card addressed to Bonnafont at the UN by French politician Jean-Marie Bockel. But due to Bonnafont's bragging, the UN told France to send another successor, and got Ladsous, previously twice rejected in favor of Guehenno then Le Roy.

  The morning that Ladsous was announced, Inner City Press learned through sources that French Mission spokesman Stephane Crouzat had told a number of French journalists that Bonnafont was the guy. Inner City Press included this in the story, as indicative of how last-minute the switch to Ladsous had been.

  Witcher claimed that he had been the source of the information -- he wasn't -- and invoked the bureaucracy of the United Nations Correspondents Association against Inner City Press. Inner City Press said, and says, this benefited and protected not only Ladsous but also the French Mission and Crouzat. 

  Notably, Crouzat threatened Inner City Press that its publication of leaked documents was a "hostile act," whilerefusing to provide any comment on the documents. This too is how the UN works, still. And it is why the new Free UN Coalition for Access has been founded: to defend the right of free press and independent investigative journalism in the UN system.

  The old UNCA, now under Pamela Falk of CBS, cannot be counted on to defend free press, quite the contrary. As simply one example, when a journalist was thrown out of the UN for a single error (bringing a rubber prop gun from an independent film in as equipment by mistake) not only did UNCA not defend the journalist -- Reuters' Charbonneau wrote a story mocking the journalist's media and the country it comes from.

  Witcher's next step is away not only from the UN but also from non-sports reporting: he will cover "le sport" for AFP in Paris. Will he become as defensive of French sports figures as he did of Ladsous and the French mission? Will he tell other journalists how to ask questions of these French figures? Watch this site.

   

AFP and Reuters File Complaint Against ICP's Free Speech, UN Has No Due Process Rules

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- The UN's ongoing lack of basis due process rules for journalists, and the pretextual attempts by big media like Reuters and Agence France Presse to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, came to the fore on Monday afternoon.

   A UN Security officer approached Inner City Press to say that AFP's Tim Witcher and Reuters had “filed a complaint,” and that Inner City Press should respond in writing.

   Inner City Press asked to see a copy of, or at least get a summary, of the two wire services' complaint. It seemed amazing that a verbal disagreement on Friday, not begun by Inner City Press, could be the basis of a complaint that the UN would accept. 

   Inner City Press asked, again, what are the rules?

  None of these questions were answered. We will await a copy of summary of the complaint. For now, here is the context, which UN Security should have checked, or still should check, before processing a frivolous and pretextual complaint from Tim Witcher or AFP.

  Back in September 2011, Witcher made a baseless complaint within the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee that AFP was the source of a portion of Inner City Press' exclusive report on how France dumped Ladsous on the UN as a last minute replacement for Jerome Bonnafont.

  Witcher was angry that Inner City Press reported, correctly, that even the morning of the announcement the French Mission was unaware of the switch that had been made in Paris, from Bonnafont to Ladsous - who, notably, had been rejected for the same job by former Secretary General Kofi Annan.

  Witcher wrote to another UNCA “leader,” Reuters' Louis Charbonneau of Reuters as well as the now gone UNCA president to request some kind of action by UNCA over a story published by Inner City Press about the new head of UN peacekeeping in which the correspondent seems to have relied on information overheard in a canteen conversation. The only French media that the spokesman had communicated with that morning was the AFP correspondent.

  It was not possible, arrogant even, for Witcher to claim to know for a certainty which French media then French Mission spokesman Stephane Crouzat had spoken with that morning.

  Worse was AFP's attempt to use UNCA, ostensibly a organization to defend and expand the rights of journalists to get information at the UN, to censor an entirely accurate story about an incompetent French official being dumped into a high UN position.

  Here now is some audio - as context.

  Witcher pursued his, Ladsous' or the French Mission's complaint for weeks in UNCA, using useless and scatological judgment on Inner City Press' accurate and exclusive story and asking UNCA to reprimand Inner City Press.

Witcher of AFP, March 8, 2013, Ladsous not shown, thanks UN Multimedia

  Inner City Press asked to attach a dissent to the UNCA executive committee's resulting statement about not using conversations with journalists as source material -- absurd, really -- but was told no, that the UNCA Executive Committee or some members owned the group's e-mail list serv.

  By June 2012, according to documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Law, Witcher's AFP expressed support for a bid by Voice of America to get the UN to “review” the accreditation of Inner City Press -- entirely based on things written and said, freedom of speech and of the press be damned.

  At that time Inner City Press was an elected member of the Executive Committee, but due to the group's dissent into censorship it quit and on December 7, 2012 co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access.

  In 2013, UNCA now increasingly known as the UN's Censorship Alliance under “new” president Pamela Falk of CBS has tried to use the UN Department of Public Information to order Inner City Press to stop accurate reporting of on the record meetings. 

  The official pursuing that issue, Stephane Dujarric, is the same one who refused to state the UN's rules of due process, if any -- even to the New York Civil Liberties Union -- or to say when the Voice of America complaint, for which he thanked VOA, would have been shown to Inner City Press, if not published and exposed.

  Ironically, at the on the record meeting Dujarric complained of, Falk spoke to Inner City Press both more insultingly and louder than anything Inner City Press said to AFP's Witcher or the Reuters correspondent. DPI witnessed that, but did nothing. So what are the rules?

  Meanwhile UNCA “leaders” have used anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine the new Free UN Coalition for Access, have torn down -- again Witcher -- and scrawled insults on FUNCA flyers and most recently chirped about lies and distortion.

  Significantly, the "lies and distortion" that Witcher hissed about revolve again around Ladsous.

In this context, to convert a one word assessment -- “lapdog” -- into a complaint to UN Security is beyond frivolous. Where is a copy of Witcher's complaint? What are the rules? Watch this site.

AFP's Witcher Didn't Know or Ask How Many DRC Rapes or Deadline,Herve Ladsous' Lapdog

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 9 -- The UN does not improve because deadwood officials are dumped on it by powerful countries like France and media like Agence France Presse grant them anonymity, to declare war or cover up inaction on mass rapes, without asking any questions.

  On March 7 Tim Witcher on AFP published a story ostensibly about the 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, which UN Peacekeeping supports. Inner City Press had asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on December 19 then March 5 about the UN's inaction.

  AFP's March 7 story was based entirely on the statements of an anonymous UN official who claimed that he had given notice “to the DR Congo government in early February that it had to take action against the two battalions which had been in Minova. 'The deadline now is getting very near,' the official said... on condition of anonymity.”

   On March 8 at the stakeout in front of the Security Council, Inner City Press openly asked UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to occupy that post, to name the two battalions he has supposedly given a deadline to, and what the deadline was. Ladsous refused to answer.

  After another reporter asked why and Inner City Press explained, Tim Witcher who was present at the stakeout but had not been spoken to chirped that Inner City Press was engaged in “lies and distortion.”

   Really? Inner City Press had never noticed Witcher or read any of his stories until in September 2011 he claimed that AFP was the source of a portion of Inner City Press'exclusive report on how France dumped Ladsous on the UNas a last minute replacement for Jerome Bonnafont.

  Witcher was angry that Inner City Press reported, correctly, that even the morning of the announcement the French Mission was unaware of the switch that had been made in Paris, from Bonnafont to Ladsous - who, notably, had been rejected for the same job by former Secretary General Kofi Annan.

   Then and now Witcher is a “member at large” of the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association, an organization in a decline even faster than UN Peacekeeping under Ladsous.

   Witcher wrote to another UNCA “leader,” Louis Charbonneau of Reuters as well as the now gone UNCA president to request some kind of action by UNCA over a story published by Inner City Press about the new head of UN peacekeeping which seems to have relied on information overheard in  a canteen conversation. The only French media that the spokesman had communicated with that morning was the AFP correspondent.

    It was impossible, arrogant even, for Witcher to claim to know for a certainty which French media then French Mission spokesman Stephane Crouzat had spoken with that morning.

   Worse was AFP's attempt to use UNCA, ostensibly a organization to defend and expand the rights of journalists to get information at the UN, to censor an entirely accurate story about an incompetent French official being dumped into a high UN position.

   Witcher pursued his, Ladsous' or the French Mission's complaint for weeks in UNCA, using useless and scatological judgment on Inner City Press' accurate and exclusive story and asking UNCA to reprimand Inner City Press.

   Inner City Press asked to attach a dissent to the UNCA executive committee's resulting statement about not using conversations with journalists as source material -- absurd, really -- but was told no, that the UNCA Executive Committee or some members owned the group's e-mail list serv.

   At that time Inner City Press was an elected member of the Executive Committee, but due to the group's descent into censorship and worse, fronted by Voice of America but abetted by the UN bureaux of Agence France Presse and Reuters, it quit and on December 7, 2012 co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access.

   In 2013, UNCA now increasingly known as the UN's Censorship Alliance under “new” president Pamela Falk of CBS has tried to use the UN Department of Public Information official Stephane Dujarric to order Inner City Press to stop accurate reporting of on the record meetings.

   Meanwhile UNCA “leaders” have used anonymous social media accounts to try to undermine the new Free UN Coalition for Access, have scrawled insults on FUNCA flyers and as noted chirped about lies and distortion.

   Witcher continues his slavish stenography for the French Mission and for Ladsous, all the while claiming that accurate quotes about it are, yes, “lies and distortions.”

   After on March 7 typing up and publishing the statements of the anonymous UN official who claimed to have given notice “to the DR Congo government in early February” and that 'the deadline now is getting very near,'” Witcher after hissing about lies and distortions went to the March 8 noon briefing.

  There he asked questions he should have asked to the UN official to which he and AFP granted anonymity the day before. What is the deadline? How many rapes? Witcher mis-took the number of witness statements for the number of rapes. Video here, from Minute 8:54.

   If Witcher in the “off the record” session with the UN official asked to know the deadline and was not told, why omit that from the story, other than to make the official look good? And if he didn't ask, what kind of journalism is this? Oh, we forgot: lies and distortion. Watch this site.

Witchhunt among UN Correspondents, As Reuters Steals Scoop, Kafka on May 29?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Media critique

UNITED NATIONS, May 25 -- With Yemen on the agenda of the UN Security Council for Tuesday May 29, in a parallel universe the UN Correspondents Association's board has another issue in mind: barring Inner City Press, and perhaps all investigative bloggers, from its ranks.

   On May 23, after Reuters stole without credit Inner City Press' March 28 exclusive story that US official Jeffrey Feltman would replace Lynn Pascoe as the head of the UN Department of Political Affairs, the UNCA Executive Committee was asked for the third time to adopt a simple statement encouraging UNCA members "to seek to give credit when using a report that was exclusively reported by another media."

  The members were shown for example that Foreign Policy's The Cable ran a follow-up story giving credit to Inner City Press, unlike Reuters. Shouldn't "colleagues" in the UN press corps show each other as much respect as strangers?

   But the proposed statement was flatly rejected, including by Louis Charbonneau of Reuters who said he has a POLICY of not crediting Inner City Press exclusives.

   Since it was and is unclear if this is a Reuters or only Charbonneau policy, implemented throughout the wire service as to UN stories since he is their correspondent here, Inner City Press asked the other two reporters and editors listed on the pilfered story. But there has been no response.

   Instead, Inner City Press learned that Charbonneau sought to have Inner City Press ejected from the UN, by filing a complaint with the head of the UN's Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, and with her supervisor the former spokesman of Kofi Annan, claiming that Inner City Press' reporter is "making it very hard for me and others in the UN press to do our jobs." Reuters' Charbonneau's e-mail has in this context been put online here.

   At the May 25 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about due process rights of UN correspondents with respect to complaints filed against them by competitors. Nesirky replied that this should be "dealt with off camera."

  Inner City Press followed up asking if journalists at the UN have the right to see such complaints or files maintained about them by Ban's Media Accreditation and Liason Unit.

  Nesirky responded that there are "rules and procedures," but wouldn't say what these rules are. For the record, Nesirky proudly lists that he used to work for Reuters. He said he was "fully aware" of the situation and that "we'll deal with it separately." Four hours later, Inner City Press received an UNCA notice of a "board of examination," seemingly, a Franz Kafka-like kangaroo court, see below.

  Charbonneau sent copies of his e-mail to, among others,Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse. who is on the UNCA Executive Board but is not an officer. Why Witcher was cc-ed may be unclear. Witcher, at the behest of the French Mission to the UN, had earlier sought to have Inner City Press disciplined for revealing that the French Mission was so out of touch with Paris that it didn't know that then-President Nicolas Sarkozy would switch Herve "The Drone" Ladsous for Jerome Bonnafont as the French head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. 

   Charbonneau can be viewed as a proxy for Witcher and thus behind him for the French mission. It is an abuse of power, and one that Inner City Press does not accept it cannot report on. So:

On May 25 Inner City Press receive the following "notice" from UNCA President Giampaolo Pioli:

"I received a request from 5 members of UNCA executive committee to urgently appoint a to look into a list of complaints . The Unca Executive committee will meet Tuesday may 29 at 4pm or at 5pm in the Unca club."

   Inner City Press was not informed of the identities of the "five members of the UNCA executive committee" who view as so urgent the right to steal exclusives and to silence those who complain - but here's the online list of Executive Committee members.

   Back on April 10, a warning shot was issued when Charbonneau e-mailed some UNCA Executive Board members but not Inner City Press, seeking to hold a meeting to throw Inner City Press off the Board. He said they had six issues, mostly about the Missions to the UN of France and Sri Lanka. (The "right" to steal exclusives would come later.)

  Three times since last September the UNCA Executive Board has pushed Inner City Press to censor its articles. These articles involved as noted exposing the French mission as not even knowing which French official would get the top Peacekeeping job, and reporting that UNCA President Pioli, took money from the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka before agreeing, without consulting with other board members such as Inner City Press, to screen in the UN the Sri Lankan government's rebuttal to the genocide film Killing Fields, which was NOT screened in the UN. 

 (Pioli argues that the payment of rent was long in the past; we add that here in fairness.)

  After Inner City Press reported on that, Pioli screamed over the phone that he would have Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. And now the attempt is on, with expulsion from UNCA as the first step, according to another UNCA board member.

  Since Pioli's hands may be viewed as dirty -- quite literally in light of the second Killing Fields film -- or tired, the lead has been taken by his deputy, Reuters' Lou Charbonneau. While increasingly rarely seen at the Security Council stakeout since he is handed stories and drafts on a platter by the UK, French and sometimes US missions, Charbonneau has as one wag put it become the power behind the flaccid UNCA throne.

  But he seems to have lost any free press sensibility. At a recent UNCA meeting to which Inner City Press was summoned, when another member who like Pioli was sent a copy of Charbonneau's complaint to MALU admonished Inner City Press to "write more positive stories about the UN" or apparently face expulsion, Charbonneau said nothing.

  From this and Pioli's open giving of gifts not only to departing UN officials but also those entering, one might surmise that UNCA is actually working for Ban Ki-moon. 

  But most of its Executive Committee members' motive are more mundane: to ensure for their media organizations the larger and more private office spaces, and otherwise serve themselves. Now, to be able to steal exclusive then try to silence the robbed media which complains.

   Charbonneau, for example, recently sent a written complaint demanding more access for Reuters, AP and other wires, ostensibly in the name of UNCA but without even checking with Executive Committee members.

   Many in these wires sit in their offices monitoring other journalists' questions, then taking the answers as their own, even regarding stories on which the others have exclusives. 

 These are routinely stolen without credit, as for example Inner City Press' exclusive report that 14 kilograms of cocaine were found in the UN mail room and covered up.

 

  After writing the story, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about it at the next noon briefing. He had no answer, but later in the day organized a 6 pm stakeout by UN Security chief Gregory Starr to "rebut" the charges.

The UN correspondents of Reuters, Bloomberg (changing 14 kilos to "35 pounds"), AFP (changing to "35.5 pounds")Agence France Presse (whose Tim Witcher as noted above was previously used to harass Inner City Press by the French Mission to the UN, after Inner City Press published an expose on France's use of the UN in Cote d'Ivoire, and the last minute switch from Jerome Bonnafont to Herve "The Drone" Ladsous for DPKO), Mexican media and others showed up, many complaining, then wrote stories which other than the Mexican media gave no credit to Inner City Press' underlying exclusive.

  The defense has been that once a press availability is scheduled, even if clear in response to anther media's exclusive, no credit need be given. Is this journalism? Or a club of corporate insiders who will stoop so low as to try to get Ban Ki-moon's UN to eject a reporter who "makes it hard" for them to do their jobs?

   Charbonneau adopted another tactic, or pretext: Inner City Press' publication of a publicly available, online photograph of the French Mission's Permanent Representative Gerard Araud with another tuxedoed man somehow created a "hostile environment" for another UN correspondents and UNCA executive committee member.

  Inner City Press countered that this was censorship, but agreed to take down the photo. "Don't post any explanation why," Pioli said. And seeking to ensure no more hostility, Inner City Press dropped from its Tweets the ostensibly offended party -- only to later be told this was another offense.

  A week later, after the UN's own Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit cited UNCA in support of the proposition that the Press could not cover the meeting of Ban Ki-moon's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping to see if alleged war criminal Shavendra Silva remained in attendance after Ban Ki-moon was silent, Inner City Press included its rebuttal of this position, and UNCA, in an April 6 story.

    And so leading up to his complaint to MALU, on April Charbonneau sent e-mails to other UNCA executive board members, but not Inner City Press and another vibrant supportive -- but now resigned -- member, suggesting that Inner City Press should be ousted from the board. In the UNCA Constitution, there is only a provision for ouster from UNCA, after among other things a General Membership meeting.

The first step is a "board of examination," now set for May 29.

It was suggested to Inner City Press, at the meeting on the photo, again on April 13 and then by an intermediary, that it simply resign from the UNCA board. But why? The organization is supposed to fight for the rights of UN correspondents, for more rather than less access to the news, and for freedom of the press. And many on the current group are not engaged in their fight -- quite the opposite.

  The intermediary acknowledged that the complaint about the photo had come from the French Mission to the UN, which has been seeking to silence Inner City Press since at least a year ago, when along with its expose of France's misuse of UN Peacekeeping in Cote d'Ivoire Inner City Press also published an investigative piece about a French diplomat, Romain Serman, who was arrested for attempted purchase of cocaine and resisting arrest. Serman and the French Mission invoked diplomatic immunity and Serman was allowed to leave the country rather than face prosecution. But then he quietly re-entered the US, where is in the French consul in San Francisco.

   The French spokesman at the time, Stephane Crouzat, accompanied and since succeeded by Brieuc Pont, demanded that Inner City Press take down the story, much as UNCA has since demanded that Inner City Press take down the photograph, not write about French Mission briefings or about the UNCA president having taken money from the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka then agreed to show in the UN, without consulting other Executive Committee members at least not Inner City Press, the Sri Lankan government's rebuttal of a film accusing it of genocide. 

  When a supposed journalists association veers into censorship, the time has come to fight.

The basis of the fight is as follows: rather than defend or promote the ability to report on the UN, these individuals have sought to undermine it, often at the request of or even after the payment by particular countries' mission to the UN. Now some seek to use it as a club to steal stories. So it will be fought. Watch this site.