UN Guterres Met ICC-Indicted Bashir in 2018 UNscheduled And in 2012 Banned Inner City Press Learns

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR LetterPFT Q&A

UNITED NATIONS GATE, September 12 – Despite Sudan's Omar al Bashir being indicted for genocide, Antonio Guterres has met with him, as acknowledged to Inner City Press by Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq on 29 January 2018 (before Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up and banned from the UN for 71 days now) - and, we are now told by UNHCR sources, in 2012.

  This week, banned by Guterres from attending and asking questions at the UN noon briefing as I am done under Kofi Annan (Rest in Peace) and even Ban Ki-moon, on September 10 I submitted questions in writing to Haq, to lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric, to Guterres' e-mail address and that of his Deputy and Global Communicator Alison Smale, including this one: “September 10-1: Please confirm or deny that Antonio Guterres has met with Omar al Bashir. Separately, if he met Bashir in 2012, and if so why, and when the ICC was informed.” 

Not that day but the next, Dujarric replied adding his response in capital letters: “September 10-1: Please confirm or deny that Antonio Guterres has met with Omar al Bashir. Separately, if he met Bashir in 2012, and if so why, and when the ICC was informed. NO CONFIRMATION.” 

This seemed strange, given Haq's answer on 29 January 2018, so on September 12 Inner City Press asked, “September 10-1 / Sept 12-4: Please confirm or deny that Antonio Guterres has met with Omar al Bashir. Separately, if he met Bashir in 2012, and if so why, and when the ICC was informed. You wrote, “NO CONFIRMATION.” But here was Deputy Spokesman Haq's answer to me on 29 January 2018 (before I was banned from attending and asking questions at briefing 71 days now): Video here,  picked up here, among other places.

So how can you say “no confirmation”? Is your Office / SG Guterres retracting what was said at the 29 Jan 2018 briefing?”  

After conducting an empty briefing from which Inner City Press was banned by Guterres and Smale, and that again had no a single question on Africa (in fact, one Dujarric's and Haq's favored interlocuters used the Press-less briefing to say that the corruption of Ng Lap Seng and the UN Office of South South Cooperation was “fabricated”), Haq sent this: "Regarding the 29 January 2018 noon briefing, I made clear at that time, as the transcript itself shows, that there was no formal scheduled meeting; they were in the same (large) venue at the same time:

Question [Inner City Press]:  And did he meet [Omar al] Bashir? This reported… I heard your litany of countries and I couldn't quite keep up with them, and I didn't see a readout. But the Foreign Minister of Sudan has said that he met with Omar al-Bashir, who's indicted by the ICC (International Criminal Court), as you know, for genocide and war crimes. Did he meet with him? And what… what… is this a change of policy?

Spokesman:  It's not a change of policy. They were both at the same summit. In that context, they did meet with each other on the grounds of the sort of operational necessity that does allow the Secretary-General to meet from time to time with him. That doesn't obviate the need, of course, for respect of the International Criminal Court.

 [Inner City Press] Question:  But was Sudan in the list of countries that you read out just at the top of the briefing? And if not, why not?
Spokesman:  It was not, because it was not a formal scheduled meeting."

  So apparently Guterres and his enablers believe he can meet with alleged war criminals as long as he doesn't write it down on his schedule. We have more details on the 2012 meeting(s) but they will be in a longer profile currently planned for publication when Guterres returns from his 15th publicly funded junket to Lisbon. By banning Inner City Press they have tried to make its reporting more difficult. This is censorship - but the reporting is not impossible and will continue. Watch this site.

UN's Ladsous Meets ICC-Indicted Bashir As Bans War Crimes Questions, Keeps Body, Biometrics

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 5 -- UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has repeatedly refused to answer Press questions about war crimes, from the 135 rapes in Minova by hispartners in the Congolese Army last November to accepting as an adviser a Sri Lanka military figure depicting in the UN's own report as shelling hospitals.

Now Ladsous has met with Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide as well as war crimes. 

  While the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has previously offered free air flights to another ICC indictee Ahmed Harun, since then the UN has claimed to have strict rules about when to meet with indictees.

  Was this encounter necessary or desirable? DPKO has refused to answer basic Inner City Press questions of which they acknowledged receipt six days ago. Will the UN be posting photos of Ladsous' meeting with Bashir, after having issued whole galleries and videos of Ladsous in Mali, posing with French soldiers for example?

  While in Sudan, Ladsous said that after a skirmish in Darfur that injured three peacekeepers from Nigeria, his DPKO has “kept the body” of one of the attackers for analysis. Is that legal?

  In the Eastern DRC, the International Organization for Migration announces it is helping IDPs, with $3 million from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the US government, which as Security Council president is convening a debate on the DRC and Great Lakes later this month. 

 Late in the IOM press release there's reference to a “biometric” pilot. The Free UN Coalition for Access has asked for an explanation. Watch this site.

  

UN Says Al-Bashir Is $500 Million Behind in Darfur Payments, While Abuse of Election Is Cut from Kenya Statement

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1drdf020608.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 6 -- The UN's new Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, has asserted that the Government of Sudan has violated its commitments in the Darfur Peace Agreement, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. On February 4 at UN headquarters in New York, Inner City Press asked for UN confirmation or denial of what sources said about the "fund that was set up under the May 2006 agreement between some parties, Minni Minawi and others and the Government of Khartoum -- that no money has been paid."

Two days later, a response was provided from UNAMID, that the Darfur Peace Agreement "Implementation Team has confirmed that the DPA does indeed provide for the Government of Sudan to transfer from the National Revenue Fund into the Darfur Reconstruction and Development Fund an amount equivalent to $300 million for the year 2006, not less than $200 million in 2007 and not less than $200 million in 2008. The PDAIT has also confirmed that as of 05 February 2008, and apart from providing funds to cover the operational expenses of the DRDF, the GoS has not paid any money into the DRDF."

That is, the UN is saying that the al-Bashir government is more than $500 million behind in its payments. Why is the UN not saying this louder?

Meanwhile in the Security Council on Wednesday, a presidential statement on Kenya was adopted, but a key phrase stating that the Council regrets the abuses in the Presidential election was cut out from the statement. Diplomats from a Permanent Five member of the Council pointed the finger at fellow P-5er Russia for having opposed the statement on elections, on the theory that its own elections are disputed. Another Council representative said it's a "cultural thing," with the West wanting to talk about democracy, and others on the Council less willing. Inner City Press asked if there's been any movement on the British statement that it is agitating that the Council hear from the other side in Kenya, that is, from Raila Odinga's ODM. No movement, Inner City Press was told. No movement? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1drdf020608.html