UN Center in Turkmenistan Cancels Briefing, Ashgabat-Like Access Fights by FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 – In 2007 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his then head of Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe announced they'd open an office in reclusive Turkmenistan. Like the current leader of Turkmenistan it had a long name: the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, or UNRCCA.

The head of UNRCCA Miroslav Jenca comes to meet with the UN Security Council in New York every six months but rarely speaks with the press afterward. Inner City Press was contacted by whistleblowers about the office, and after that it was even harder to get any question in to or about UNRCCA.

When one goes to UNRCCA's web site, for example this morning, one find nothing from 2013. Clicking “Latest Developments,” the most recent is from 2010. 

After Monday's Security Council session Inner City Press asked July's Council president Rosemary DiCarlo of the US if there had been discussion of the Rogun dam project in Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan's opposition, and that UNRCCA's and Jenca's role was.

DiCarlo said that water resources issues were being looked at regionally, not just between two countries.

Back on July 10, an invitation from the Department of Public Information went out and was immediatley accepted for one of DPI “brown bag” briefings, which Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access, which pushes for more information from the UN, have praised in the past.

Jenca from 2 to 2:45 on Monday, after Jenca met the head of DPI: perhaps this way questions could be answered. But after 1 pm on Monday, Inner City Press and FUNCA were told that the briefing was canceled due to lack of interest. Only one other journalist, it seemed, had signed up.

Still, why cancel it? While praising DPI for this attempt, we also note that its UN Regional Information Center conducted a faux interview with UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

 UNRIC allowed Ladsous to brag about meeting ICC indictee Bashir without asking him if it was appropriate, while DPI and the wider UN have not changed Ladsous' stance of refusing Press questions on cholera in Haiti, rape by the Congolese Army units the UN works with, and now the application of the Geneva Conventions.

FUNCA has been asked to be patient, and is trying. But while this goes on, DPI has yet to rescind a threat in late June to suspend or withdraw accreditation for merely hanging a sign of the Free UN Coalition for Access, while DPI's partner UNCA has two signs and much more.

  @FUNCA_Questions seeks information about the UN's work, then makes it available on @FUNCA_info, as a virtual briefing room open to all, while DPI gives its partner a room that is kept locked, for briefings of which non money paying journalists are not informed.

Attempting to hold brown bag briefings is laudable – but what about access for the press and public to the new General Assembly hall, where a session on migration Monday was not even in the DPI Media Alert, and from which groups were excluded. What about increased access? FUNCA will keep pushing. Watch this site.

   

UN Peacekeeping's Ladsous Brags to UN In-House Media UNRIC That He Met Bashir, As Human Rights Watch Silent on That, Calls Nigeria Cowardly

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 – The UN shields itself from questions and in turn few question it, either because of its declining relevance or because those that could hold it accountable too desperately want access.

  Take for example UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous' meeting earlier this month with Sudan president Omar al Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and war crimes.

  That meeting with Bashir is controversial is witnessed by criticism today by Human Rights Watch and the Coalition for the ICC, along others, of Nigeria not arresting him during an HIV / AIDS conference there. This position has been reported by Agence France Presse – a good friend of Ladsous, on one of whose management board's Ladsous used to serve – BBC and others.

  But HRW said nothing when Ladsous met with Bashir. Previously, when Inner City Press asked merely for the topics HRW's Ken Roth raised to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Roth's spokesman Philippe Bolopion, who previously covered the UN for Le Monde and France24, told Inner City Press these had to remain secret to maintain access.

  Nor apparently did BBC or AFP (no surprise) ask HRW while quoting its finger wagging at Nigeria. (Ken Roth on Twitter called Nigeria – the whole country, apparently -- “cowardly” for not arresting Bashir, while not explaining why his own failure to even comment on Ladsous meeting Bashir was so heroic.)

Now Ladsous appears interviewed not even by friendly but ostensibly independent media but by the UN Regional Information Center for Western Europe, UNRIC, run by the UN Department of Public Information. 

  Ladsous is asked three softball question and says, “In Khartoum, I met with President Al-Bashir.” No question is asked about if this meeting was appropriate.

  Ladsous openly refuses critical Press questions, about the ICC, the Geneva Conventions, his role in covering up 135 rapes by his partners in the Congolese Army in Minova in November.

Sixteen days ago Inner City Press asked Ladsous' four spokespeople a simple question, if his MONUSCO mission supports the Congolese Army units named in the Group of Experts report the full text of which Inner City Press exclusively put online in June.

An answer was promised, and has three times been re-requested in the UN noon briefing run by Ban's spokespeople. But no answer at all as been provided. This is Ladsous, and Ban's, and DPI's, UN. Watch this site.