At UN, Censorship Alliance Demands 1st Question, As With Bolivia's Evo Morales, FUNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- With the "World Urban Campaign" the subject of a briefing at the UN on March 4, UN HABITAT's spokesperson called on Inner City Press to ask the first question.

   But another attendee cut in and demanded to be given the first question, citing the United Nations Correspondents Association. It is an organization, Evelyn Leopold formerly of Reuters said, and you are not.UN Vdeo here from Minute 20:10, YouTube here, embedded below.

   Her reference was to the new Free UN Coalition for Access. Not that it should matter, but @FUNCA_info has 797 followers, all over the world including for example actual defense of journalists in Somaliland, versus UNCA which has less than 125 followers and has tried to get journalists thrown out of the UN. 

  Leopold and UNCA have done this before, for example with Bolivia's president Evo Morales in February 2013, click here and here for that (on which we will have more).

  While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it has twice been postponed. Now it is more than six weeks late, scheduled for today at 4 pm -- at the same time as the World Urban Campaign event at the Ford Foundation that was the subject of the briefing at which Leopold demanded the first question. 

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held this month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access asked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the farewell as week from now will be in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following abogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA:click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Required Reporting Meeting Six Weeks Late Overlaps With UNSC on Ukraine, UNCA 15 Didn't Ask

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 28 -- While the UN Secretariat has essentially broken the Staff Union by refusing to recognize the slate that got the most votes in the election held in December, citing procedural violations, today another more obvious procedural breech is scheduled by the UN Secretariat's partner, the United Nations Correspondents Association.

   That group, which in 2012 tried openly and by stealth to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN and became the UN's Censorship Alliance, is required by its own online "Constitution" to hold its general meeting and financial report in the first half of January. 

    Under 2013-14 president Pamela Falk it never happened; it has twice been postponed. Now it is six weeks late, scheduled for today at 3 pm, simultaneously with a UN Security Council meeting about Ukraine.

   But the UN Secretariat and Spokesperson's Office, unlike the approach to breaking the Staff Union which actually at times challenges them, says nothing. 

   In fact, a question and answer session was held this month by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 members of UNCA's Executive Committee the transcript or tape of which was never given to other journalists, even UNCA members not among the fifteen.

  Inner City Press on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access asked Ban's outgoing spokesperson Martin Nesirky for a transcript and was told "get over it," video here.

   Nesirky confirmed that the UNCA executive committee members did not even bring up Ukraine and the disrepute the UN was brought into by the leak that former US official Jeffrey Feltman "got" Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine to, in the now-famous phrase, "F*** the EU."

  After not asking that critical UN question, now UNCA as representated by Falk repeats or retweets news about Ukraine, cc-ing UN_Spokesperson. Despite all this, and the fact that when deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey left, his farewell was (appropriately) in the Spokesperson's large office, the farewell as week from now will be in the big room the UN gives UNCA, with its own kitchenette: the UN's Censorship Alliance.

  The censorship goes beyond trying to get the investigative Press -- and others -- thrown out. Inner City Press was ordered to remove from the Internet a story about Sri Lanka and seeming conflict of interest within UNCA's leadership, and was browbeaten about an article about UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.

  While neither article was removed, one of the "for the record" complaints to the UN Accreditation official now slated to become Ban Ki-moon's new spokesperson on March 10 has been banned from Google's search following a bogus Digital Millennium Copyright Act filing, click here to view: outright censorship.

  (Ironically on February 28 when Inner City Press asked about the banning of a website by the Sri Lankan government, Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said Ban is committed to free access to the Internet. What about this?)

 To the same UN official, an explicitly internal UNCA document was provided, with the notation "you didn't get this from me," three minutes after the pass-through committed that the document would remain within UNCA:click here for that.

  Under Falk, has UNCA even attempted reforms such as a commitment against censorship, not to spy for the UN or seek to get other journalists thrown out of the UN, or ban things from the Internet? No.

  While UNCA's "leadership" parties, some long time journalists have been thrown out of the UN; others are losing work space and working conditions at the stakeout have declined. The new Free UN Coalition for Access is taking this on. 

  Tellingly, when a petition for at least a journalists' work table at the Security Council stakeout was submitted, the response was to browbeat those who'd signed and ask them why they'd signed. This is the UN. Watch this site.

  

Media Critique: Watching or Whitewashing UN's FIB or Force Intervention Brigade, of DR Congo Bombs & Reuters Spying for UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 -- Who will watch the UN's FIB, its Force Intervention Brigade in Eastern Congo?

  When the FIB's component from Tanzania practiced raiding a medical tent clearly marked with a red cross, Al Jazeera was there to film it. When it went on-air, Inner City Press at the UN in New York (before Al Jazeera America became UNviewable there since August 20) saw it and wrote a story, dubbing this practice for violating the Geneva Conventions, here.

  In fairness we note that the reporter on the piece told Inner City Press on August 25 that he "saw it as rehearsal attack against an empty tent. Not on a medical camp."

  While some humanitarians who have contacted Inner City Press disagree, it seems a fair point, when coupled with recognition that the UN's FIB needs a hard look.

  But who will give that hard look? We have shown, just last week at the UN in New York, that wire service Reuters was willing to channel an unnamed UN official's spin that the M23 rebels had entered the no-weapons security zone, even as the acting chief of UN Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet told Inner City Press and a different, less UN-useful wire service thatthere had been no violation of the security zone.

  Compared to the re-type shop (and worse) its UN bureau has become, Reuters has relatively better reporters in Kinshasa and Cote d'Ivoire. The latter, Joe Bavier we've met and liked and so held off saying this. But to unself-consciously say that MONUSCO of course must respond to protect civilians -- "they have a clear obligation to respond" -- without mentioning that MONUSCO and UN Peacekeeping are still assisting the Congolese Army units which raped 135 women and girls in Minova, seems to require noting.

  As then does calling the "UN far and away the most credible source" or observer -- after the UN covered up and stonewalled on not only the Minova rapes, but its own role in bringing cholera to Haiti. (Al Jazeera's recent 30 minute documentary on the topic was not viewable in the UN, as protested by the new Free UN Coalition for Access,@FUNCA_info)

  Deeming the UN, from the outset, the most credible source may be a less than journalistic approach -- for purposes of this piece, in the Congo, but in Syria and elsewhere as well.

    For now on DRC this still remains outstanding: at Friday's noon briefing, video here from Minute 10:15, Inner City Press asked the UN's outgoing deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about the answer, when Inner City Press and another journalist asked UN Peacekeeping acting chief Edmond Mulet Thursday if the M23 rebels had entered the security zone established around Goma.

  "No," Mulet said. "Just mortars." He went on to refer to the separate "red line" established when M23 agreed in Kampala to pull out of Goma. (The portion of that agreement that gave M23 one third of the security force at the Goma airport remains unimplemented.)

  But later on Thursday, the wire service Reuters reported "a senior U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said that on Thursday the rebels entered a security zone surrounding Goma" -- which Mulet, the acting chief of DPKO, had just denied. Inner City Press and the other journalist waited to ask Mulet again, and got the same answer.

  So who is this "senior UN official who asked not to be named"? In UN Peacekeeping, only Herve Ladsous is senior to and could over-rule Mulet.

  Ladsous has in the past spoon-fed answers of dubious veracity to this same Reuters UN bureau bragging for example about the Congolese Army imposing accountability for the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

   But with only a few arrests for the 135 rapes, Ladsous' DPKO continues supporting the 391st Battalion, even as it is now implicated in corpse desecration.

That the UN would try to use Reuters, willingly, resonates with a documented instance in June 2012 when Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave to UN official Stephane Dujarric an internal UNCA anti-Press document,three minutes after saying he would not do so. Story here,audio here, document here, in which Charbonneau tells Dujarric, "You didn't get this from me."

  So is Reuters' "senior UN official who asked not to be named" someone junior to Mulet, or as another journalist suggested, no one at all? 

  On August 23, Del Buey said he knew what Mulet had said, and has "seen other reports." He said he'd have to check. But August 23 was his last day at the UN (the Free UN Coalition for Access wished him well, video here at Minute 9:55).  So we'll see. Watch this site.

   

In Egypt Coup-Volution, UN Tells Inner City Press Feltman Met with Muslim Brotherhood, But Not When Trip Was Planned

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 -- So amid continued crackdown in Egypt, in what Inner City Press has dubbed that country's coup-volution, ex-US now-UN Feltman has left Cairo and headed to, where else, Doha.

On Friday August 23 at the UN, Inner City Press asked again about Feltman: did he even meet with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in his four days in the country? From the UN's August 23 transcript:

Inner City Press: Mr. Feltman, in his visit to Egypt, there is a quote from the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Darrag, saying that they weren’t reached out to and that they had no meeting with Mr. Feltman. Given that they are the party that was ousted in what many people call a coup, did Mr. Feltman seek to meet with them? It seems like a clear question.

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Well, Under-Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman today concluded his three-day visit to Cairo, meeting with a broad range of interlocutors. He listened to diverse view points and conveyed the United Nations’ full support for an Egyptian-led peaceful path to resolving the crisis.

Inner City Press: A final follow-up. Does that broad range include the Muslim Brotherhood that was removed from power?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: As mentioned, Mr. Feltman saw and spoke with a broad number of interlocutors from the Government, civil society, human rights and political parties, including from the Muslim Brotherhood.

  So Feltman and the Muslim Brotherhood was left to an "If-Pressed." And looking at the phrasing, it only says that Feltman "SAW" the Brotherhood. A cynic later on Friday asked Inner City Press: was this conversation with Muslim Brotherhood in a taxi? With the driver? Thomas Friedman style?

  After Inner City Press first reported with on-the-record audio that Feltman's trip would happen but was arranged before the killing of hundreds of protesters on August 14, theUN spoon-fed its confirmation of the trip to Reuters, whichdid not mention that the trip was planned before the killings, nor that Feltman used to represent the US State Department in the same region.

  This is the UN's and Reuters' alliance: spoon-fed scoops for shallow coverage that makes the UN look good (and forspying for the UN like here.)

  Then the UN battens down the hatches, refusing to answer basic questions (not only about the spying but also) about even WHEN Feltman's trip was arranged. On at the August 21 noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's now retired and DC-bound deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey:

Inner City Press: the spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry has given their readout on the meeting with Mr. Feltman. They have said that it shouldn’t be internationalized, it has no international implications, but they also said, this is a quote, that the trip by Mr. Feltman was arranged “a few weeks ago”. So, I wanted to know, either now or when you can check in your office, when was this trip arranged, because it is presented as sort of the Secretariat’s response to the killings of 14 August, but they are saying it was weeks ago. When was the trip arranged?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Matthew, when we have an answer to that we will let you know.

  And, surprise surprise, they still haven't. On August 21 the US State Department's Voice of America, on whose Broadcast Board of Governors John Kerry serves, reported positively on Feltman's trip to Egypt, with no mention of Feltman's previous position with the US State Department.

  It would be good to hear from Feltman, for him to take press questions for example about when his Egypt trip was arranged, with whom he met, and how whatever message he is taking from Ban Ki-moon (other than, of course, "just listening" to the coup-volution) is different from the US position. Watch this site.

Footnote: these are the type of routine press briefing by UN Under Secretaries General that the new Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info is demanding not only of Feltman (and the ever-resistant Herve Ladsous) but also the UN's incoming chief counsel, replacing Patricia O'Brien. More on that to come.

   

On DR Congo, Mary Robinson Calls for Calm, UN"s Kobler on the Race Card, Reuters in the Tank

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 24 -- The UN has become schizophrenic, with its Congo envoy Martin Kobler vowing to "punish" groups opposed to Congolese president Joseph Kabila while UN peace envoy Mary Robinson speaks of calm.

  On Saturday without noting which country she was in, Robinson issued a statement which concluded:

"I strongly urge all authorities in the region to observe maximum restraint, to ensure that civilian populations are protected, and to minimize the risk of escalation of the situation. I am in close contact with all parties and continue to monitor the situation very closely. My Special Adviser is currently involved in consultations with relevant authorities in order to appeal for calm and restraint."

   The last line would to indicate that Robinson is not in the region, but rather probably in Dublin, just as the UN's envoy to the Sahel Romano Prodi purports to solve Mali's problems from Bologna, Italy.

  It seems the UN is becoming a club of former heads of state from Europe. In the Congo, Kobler was quoted decrying the M23 rebels playing the ethnic card -- apparently without irony or self-consciousness. 

   Reuters chimed in with a story asserting that the shelling of Goma came from M23. How do they know?  After the UN bragged that the M23 rebels have been pushed back so their artillery can't reach Goma, it's the same UN which continues to ascribe the shelling to... the M23.

   But even more symptomatic of the UN further losing its way is a comment by UN envoy Martin Kobler, perhaps through this spokesperson, that the shelling "will not go unpunished," that the UN and its Intervention Brigade should launch an "energetic" response... and punishment.

   When did the UN get into the business of military punishment? WHO got it into this business? Inner City Press has tracked this shift in UN Peacekeeping under its fourth French chief in a row, Herve Ladsous.

  Given that Ladsous as France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN during the Rwanda genocide argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo, his Department of "Peacekeeping" Operations' vow now of "punishment" is even more striking. We will have more on this.

    For now this remains outstanding: at Friday's noon briefing, video here from Minute 10:15, Inner City Press asked the UN's outgoing deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about the answer, when Inner City Press and another journalist asked UN Peacekeeping acting chief Edmond Mulet Thursday if the M23 rebels had entered the security zone established around Goma.

  "No," Mulet said. "Just mortars." He went on to refer to the separate "red line" established when M23 agreed in Kampala to pull out of Goma. (The portion of that agreement that gave M23 one third of the security force at the Goma airport remains unimplemented.)

  But later on Thursday, the wire service Reuters reported "a senior U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said that on Thursday the rebels entered a security zone surrounding Goma" -- which Mulet, the acting chief of DPKO, had just denied. Inner City Press and the other journalist waited to ask Mulet again, and got the same answer.

  So who is this "senior UN official who asked not to be named"? In UN Peacekeeping, only Herve Ladsous is senior to and could over-rule Mulet.

  Ladsous has in the past spoon-fed answers of dubious veracity to this same Reuters UN bureau bragging for example about the Congolese Army imposing accountability for the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

   But with only a few arrests for the 135 rapes, Ladsous' DPKO continues supporting the 391st Battalion, even as it is now implicated in corpse desecration.

That the UN would try to use Reuters, willingly, resonates with a documented instance in June 2012 when Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave to UN official Stephane Dujarric an internal UNCA anti-Press document,three minutes after saying he would not do so. Story here,audio here, document here, in which Charbonneau tells Dujarric, "You didn't get this from me."

  So is Reuters' "senior UN official who asked not to be named" someone junior to Mulet, or as another journalist suggested, no one at all? 

  On August 23, Del Buey said he knew what Mulet had said, and has "seen other reports." He said he'd have to check. But August 23 was his last day at the UN (the Free UN Coalition for Access wished him well, video here at Minute 9:55).  So we'll see. Watch this site.

   

In DR Congo, UN Vows Murky Shelling "Will Not Go Unpunished," Militarization of UN under Ladsous and General Ban Ki-moon?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 24 -- After the UN bragged that the M23 rebels have been pushed back so their artillery can't reach Goma, it continues to ascribe the shelling to... the M23.

   But even more symptomatic of the UN further losing its way is a comment by UN envoy Martin Kobler, perhaps through this spokesperson, that the shelling "will not go unpunished," that the UN and its Intervention Brigade should launch an "energetic" response... and punishment.

   When did the UN get into the business of military punishment? WHO got it into this business? It is tempting to refer, ultimately, to Secretary GENERAL Ban Ki-moon, who seems ready to encourage, if only after the fact, some sort of punitive military strike on Syria.  

   But in DRC, the UN's decline has a more specific "genetic signature," to turn-about the troubling phrase the DRC foreign minister used in front of US Secretary of State John Kerry at July's UN Security Council debate on the Great Lakes.

   Inner City Press has tracked this shift in UN Peacekeeping under its fourth French chief in a row, Herve Ladsous.

  Given that Ladsous as France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN during the Rwanda genocide argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo, his Department of "Peacekeeping" Operations' vow now of "punishment" is even more striking. We will have more on this.

    For now this remains outstanding: at Friday's noon briefing, video here from Minute 10:15, Inner City Press asked the UN's outgoing deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about the answer, when Inner City Press and another journalist asked UN Peacekeeping acting chief Edmond Mulet Thursday if the M23 rebels had entered the security zone established around Goma.

  "No," Mulet said. "Just mortars." He went on to refer to the separate "red line" established when M23 agreed in Kampala to pull out of Goma. (The portion of that agreement that gave M23 one third of the security force at the Goma airport remains unimplemented.)

  But later on Thursday, the wire service Reuters reported "a senior U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said that on Thursday the rebels entered a security zone surrounding Goma" -- which Mulet, the acting chief of DPKO, had just denied. Inner City Press and the other journalist waited to ask Mulet again, and got the same answer.

  So who is this "senior UN official who asked not to be named"? In UN Peacekeeping, only Herve Ladsous is senior to and could over-rule Mulet.

  Ladsous has in the past spoon-fed answers of dubious veracity to this same Reuters UN bureau bragging for example about the Congolese Army imposing accountability for the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

   But with only a few arrests for the 135 rapes, Ladsous' DPKO continues supporting the 391st Battalion, even as it is now implicated in corpse desecration.

That the UN would try to use Reuters, willingly, resonates with a documented instance in June 2012 when Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave to UN official Stephane Dujarric an internal UNCA anti-Press document,three minutes after saying he would not do so. Story here,audio here, document here, in which Charbonneau tells Dujarric, "You didn't get this from me."

  So is Reuters' "senior UN official who asked not to be named" someone junior to Mulet, or as another journalist suggested, no one at all? 

  On August 23, Del Buey said he knew what Mulet had said, and has "seen other reports." He said he'd have to check. But August 23 was his last day at the UN (the Free UN Coalition for Access wished him well, video here at Minute 9:55).  So we'll see. Watch this site.

   

On Press to Demilitarize Jeju Island, UN's Ban Ki-moon Says It's Up to South Korean People & Government

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 23 -- Even before Secretary General Ban Ki-moon left the UN to head to South Korea, where he is now, Inner City Press twice asked asked Ban's Office of the Spokesperson, on August 4 and 15:

"does the Secretary General have any comment or position on the Gangjeong Peace Movement and August 3 Gangjeong Grand March for Life and Peace on Jeju Island?"

  Ban's office gave Inner City Press responses to other questions, but not this one. And so on August 23 at the day's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Press: with the Secretary-General’s trip to South Korea, I had asked this in writing, but I felt now that he is there, I need an answer whether he has any position at all on this struggle there that’s gotten other people from other countries involved, fighting militarization on Jeju Island, where there is a proposal for a major military base, and I just wonder, while he is there, not only because he is South Korean, but just as a because it is a big issue, does he have a position?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: we will have to find out. I don’t have that information.

  Of course, Inner City Press had asked the question 19 days before. But it seems asking it in person focused the mind. Because on Friday night past 7 pm this response came in:

Subject: Your question on Jeju Island
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 7:42 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Regarding your question on Jeju island in the Republic of Korea, we have the following to say:

It is up to the Government and the people of the Republic of Korea to decide.

  Wow. Watch this site.