As Hillary Clinton's Book Cites Frank Wisner on Mubarak, Robert Ford Now Urges MANPADs for Free Syrian Army

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 10 -- Parallel to Hillary Clinton's book-signing in Union Square in Manhattan, the White House issued a read-out that “President Obama called Egyptian President Abdelfattah al-Sisi today to congratulate him on his inauguration and to convey his... continuing support for the political, economic, and social aspirations of the Egyptian people, and respect for their universal rights.”

  Whether this last was an oblique reference to the journalists locked up was not entirely clear. In Hillary Clinton's book “Hard Choice” she recounts when her envoy Frank Wisner said at the Munich Security Conference that Hosni Mubarak “must stay in office” to oversee a transition.

  She writes that Obama “called me to express his unhappiness about the ‘mixed messages’ we were sending. That’s a diplomatic way of saying he took me to the woodshed.”

  Now it's Robert Ford, chiding Obama for not yet giving surface to air missiles or MANPADS to the Syrian opposition -- when even the UN says the Free Syrian Army recruit child soldiers, and depicts the FSA displacing tens of thousands of civilians.

  At the June 10 US State Department briefing, this connector:

Question: Thirteen Syrian opposition members or members from the Syrian opposition imprisoned today in Egypt because they were demonstrating against President Assad. Do you have anything on this?

Ms. Psaki: I haven’t seen the specifics of that, Michel. Obviously, as you know, we have concerns about what’s happening with the judicial system in Egypt. We make those concerns known. I will note also that Ambassador David Thorne and Counselor Tom Shannon will be having meetings with senior Egyptian officials that start today and will resume tomorrow. This visit will bring – will build upon Ambassador Thorne and Counselor Shannon’s last visit to Cairo in April, as well as their earlier visits to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

  Some line up. Hillary is hitting road, in a bus that says don't text and drive. How far will this book take her? Watch this site.

Footnote: At the Barnes & Nobles in Union Square, the press was told it could only stay for the first 20 minutes of the two hour event; if journalists left to use the bathroom they could not return. Those buying the book were told, "Once you are cleared and enter the 4th floor, you are not permitted to exit until your book is signed." No second thoughts? Hard Choices..

   

When Illicit Money Is Thabo Mbeki's Topic at UN, Questions Are Steered to UN's Censorship Alliance, FUNCA Objects

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 6 -- Here is how the UN works, or doesn't: when former South African president Thabo Mbeki came to take questions about the High-level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, he said he had only 15 minutes and the first question was automatically awarded to the United Nations Correspondents Association, a group with an unreformed history of trying to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN.

   Not surprisingly, Mbeki was not asked what would have been obvious questions, for example concerning South African financial interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (leading, some say, to its role in the "UN" Force Intervention Brigade) and in the Central African Republic, explaining the pre-Seleka presence of South African forces there.

  How could these not be asked? The questions were primarily soft balls, other than one about the assets flows of Mubarak, Gaddafi and Ben Ali of Tunisia. In the case of Tunisia, some smell French involvement, and note France's reported laxity in fighting tax evasion. (The question of Areva in Niger, which Inner City Press tweeted, was not asked.)

  Less pointedly, Mbeki was not asked about the #OffshoreLeaks project of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a leaked database of just the type of illicit flows the press conference was ostensibly about.

From this the Free UN Coalition for Access, founded because of UNCA's attempts to get the investigative press thrown out of the UN, concludes that particularly when the time or number of questions are limited, there is no justification for automatically giving any organization the first question -- particularly not one with a history of censorship. 

 One UNCA big wig's complaint to the UN has been banned from Google's Search (mis) using the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- that is, the type of non-judicial censorship now coming into force in Turkey, to block investigative journalism. We will have more on this.

   

UNCA Suspends Its Constitution, Fetes Schwarzenegger, Gives Prizes for Pay

 By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, December 14 -- At the UN in 2012, alongside what's called the Arab Spring of democratization, the UN trend has been quite the opposite.

  The head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous has taken to openly not answering questions from Press whose critical coverage he doesn't like.

  The so-called UN Correspondents Association executive committee, far from opposing this content-based stonewalling, piled on and itself sought censorship and expulsion. 

  This began after Press articles about Ladsous and the conflicted giving of space in the UN to General Shavenda Silva of the Sri Lankan Army, depicted in the UN's own report engaged in war crimes.

   Now on December 14, another new low: the UNCA Executive Committee has unilaterally waved its own stated Constitution, which says they must hold elections by December 15 and leave office by January 1.

   The term has been extended -- in the style of Ben Ali or Mubarak, some might say.

    Inner City Press asked for a response, including from the President of UNCA who was extending his own term:

 

"as you must know, this violates the UNCA Constitution: Article 3, Section 3 and would be impermissible. Even to try to override the Constitution would require General Membership action.  You might try to amend the Constitution -- but before December 31? This requires a response, as was not given to the below, for the record."

   But no response came, as before to a request for UNCA Executive Committee comment on documents showing the involvement of at least three of its members, from Voice of America, Reuters and AFP, in seeking to get the UN to "review" the accreditation of Inner City Press, due to articles it published.

   (These same three on November 27 left a Security Council stakeout where Ladsous refused to answer the Press about DPKO's action on rape in the Congo, in order to be privately "briefed" by Ladsous and his spokesman in the hallway, video here).

   And so at the December 14 noon briefing, after asking about the Congo, the failed telecommunications talks in Dubai, and elections in Egypt, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about the unilateral suspension of the constitution of UNCA. Video here from Minute 10:40.

  The basis of the question is that the UN openly "partners" with UNCA, for example on the UN Media Access Guidelines, violation of which can result in expulsion.

   Since the UN has in the past refused to answer if journalists have a right to be informed of complaints failed against them -- apparently not -- Inner City Press prefaced its question to Nesirky by summarizing some of the ways in which the UN grants special status to UNCA, as to a company union:

   The UN grants UNCA the first question at press conferences, consults with it and no one else about space of correspondent -- under UNCA's watch under the Capital Master Plan, reduced by 40% -- gives out passes to cover parts of the General Debate only through UNCA and even, which seemed to bother Nesirky, announced UNCA executive committee meetings over the UN's loudspeaker or "squawk" system.

   Nesirky retorted that the announcements are only for convenience, and said that he "indulges" and tries to answer Inner City Press' questions.

   As to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Inner City Press has three times asked what reforms it has implemented after it brought cholera into Haiti to make sure it doesn't happen again.

   Again on Friday, Nesirky said he had no answer -- while moments later a senior peacekeeping official, not Herve Ladsous, did give Inner City Press an answer. So there was an answer: why didn't DPKO give it? Inner City Press before 2 pm on Friday asked Nesirky four more questions.

    At Friday's noon briefing, Nesirky refused to answer about the suspension of the voting and leaving office provisions of the UNCA constitution. Video here from Minute 10:40.

   And so Inner City Press informed him that the beta Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA, has formally petitioned the Department of Public Information on the topics of undue favoritism for its company union, and the need to share first questions, pooling arrangements, and the like.

   (Earlier on Friday, German Ambassador Peter Wittig was thanked on behalf of FUNCA, then by the late-arriving, Constitution-suspending president of UNCA. Video here, from Minute 25.)

  Now DPI and the UN should have to opine on the suspension of the Constitution of its "partner."

   Nesirky said, if you were asking about the UN Charter, I might answer. Inner City Press pointed out the UN logo on UNCA's "Directory" and Constitution and Nesirky scoffed. But when a company union "goes rogue," the company must answer, no?

   But having refused to answer, look for Nesirky to nevertheless on December 19 give the first question directed to Ban Ki-moon to the aforesaid UNCA.

  Later that day, the company union which suspended its constitution after a year of attempted censorship will honor, who else, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at a $250 a plate dinner.

    It will give awards to members of its own executive committee, and to media organizations which have paid for full page advertisements. Conflicts of interest? What conflicts of interest? UNCA has no rules. Constitution? What Constitution? Watch this site.

As Egyptians Push for Change, UN's Ban Ki-moon Warns of “Political Instability”

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 30 -- As in Egypt protests calling for Hosni Mubarak to leave continue, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Addis Ababa was quoted that Egyptians “have the right to express their visions, in demonstrations, but all these should not lead to social instability and political instability.”

Even in front of the empty UN in New York, hundred chanted “Mubarak must go.” The call is to end 30 years of rule under an emergency law allowing censorship, even if that was deemed politically stable. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky, asked Friday by the press if Ban thought the emergency law should be eliminated, declined to answer the question directly.

Midday on January 30, Inner City Press queried Nesirky and his deputy Farhan Haq about the status of the UN system's programs in Egypt, including a program which NGOs have criticized “as ineffective, complaining that it has BANned credible human [rights] lawyers from giving lectures to the police because of their political opposition to the NDP, and instead invites MOI officials complicit in torture to give human rights presentations.”

But five hours later, there were no answers nor acknowledgment of the questions about the UN in Egypt.

Even Ban's quote against political instability hadn't been distributed, perhaps understandably, to the UN press list by his Public Information and Spokesperson's office, which in the interim had sent the Press anodyne “read outs” of Ban's meetings with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- with no mention of Egypt.

With Kagame, Ban discussed only sexually based violence, and not counter reports of genocide and war crimes in Eastern Congo.

With Sarkozy, Ban did not bring up Tunisia nor Egypt, but rather Lebanon, Haiti and Cote d'Ivoire. The interest of the UN under Ban in democracy seems to some to be limited to one country, and not extend to Tunisia, much less Egypt (or Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria -- or Myanmar). Watch this site.

As in NYC Police Guard UN Mission of Egypt, UNDP Banned Rights Advocates

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- As protests continue in Egypt, even in New York Egypt's Mission to the UN is guarded by police, some brought down from The Bronx. Inside an otherwise empty UN, Inner City Press fields messages from the Egyptian diaspora responding to its reporting earlier on Saturday, some pointing to UN system complicity in Mubarak's repression.

Take for example the UN Development Program's work with Egypt's police, called BENAA, founded by Murabak's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to a UNDP website yet to be taken down as some have been, “media and Civil Society Organizations have been targeted, including the crucial group of university students.”

But a Wikileaked US embassy cable in a non-highlighted portion admits that

“NGO contacts have privately criticized the UNDP project as ineffective, complaining that it has banned credible human [rights] lawyers from giving lectures to the police because of their political opposition to the NDP, and instead invites MOI officials complicit in torture to give human rights presentations.”

So the UN system in Egypt “BANned credible human lawyers from giving lectures to the police because of their political opposition to the NDP, and instead invites MOI officials complicit in torture.”

No wonder then that BAN Ki-moon is so silent on whether Mubarak's 30 year emergency law allowing censorship should be eliminated.

Egypt UN Mission Jan 29, 9 pm, cops from 50th Precinct, (c) MRLee

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, notably, was in Yemen earlier this month praising the government, as if the protests there and in Tunisia and elsewhere were not taking place.

There is more to be said about the UN's system's work including with BENAA, which lists as supporters the Ford Foundation, EU and members and others. Watch this site.

Amid Egyptian Protests, UN Dormant, Ban Ki-moon Silent on Emergency Law

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- Chants of “Mubarak must go” echoed Saturday against the white metal walls of the UN's temporary North Lawn building on 1st Avenue in Manhattan. But the UN was empty.

Both Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his Deputy, Asha Rose Migiro were out of town. And the UN system has had little to say or do about the calls for an end of censorship and repression in Egypt.

Friday in the UN's noon press briefing, Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky was asked if Ban thought that Egypt's 30 year old emergency law should go. Nesirky said that "one of the ground principles of democracy is to protect and ensure the freedom of speech of the people," but refused to directly comment on the emergency censorship law.

Earlier this month, Ban had little to say about Tunisia. He did not send an envoy to the country -- a decision taken, Inner City Press is informed by well placed UN sources, on the advice of Ban's chief of staff and Myanmar envoy Vijay Nambiar.

The UN Security Council did not meet on January 27 or 28, and has not scheduled any meeting for January 31, the last day of Bosnia's quiet presidency.

US President Barack Obama called Mubarak and talked to or at the press for four minutes on Friday, but did not mention the UN, just as he did not mention it and Darfur in his State of the Union speech earlier in the week. -- all men -- but not Susan Rice, his Ambassador to the UN.

On Saturday Obama held a meeting on Egypt with "his national security team" which included eleven people

In an interview for CNN's show GPS with Fareed Zakaria, the prime minister of the Permanent Security Council member United Kingdom David Cameron called Mubarak a “friend of Britain... We’ve worked together over many issues, not least the need to combat Islamic extremism.”

A week ago and on Saturday morning, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Nesirky when Ban will act on the request by the UK, Mexico and others that he replace Nambiar with a full time envoy to Myanmar.

Nesirky by press time did not answer that, nor a request for UN comment on Myanmar affirming the disbanding of the political party of Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Sat Jan 29 by empty UN, Ban comment on emergency law not shown (c) MRLee

And so as people take risks to oppose repression from Tunisia to Egypt and elsewhere such as Yemen, the UN is increasingly silent, un-transparent, marginalized. Saturday's chants echoed off empty UN buildings. How long can this go on? Watch this site.

From the UN's January 28 transcript:

Correspondent: Egypt. Does the Secretary-General concur with Ms. Pillay that the 30-year-old emergency law should be lifted and then that investigations should be conducted into the use of excessive force and the reported deaths of five civilians participating in the protests?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, clearly, it is obvious that where there are reports of excessive use of force, that those reports should be investigated. I think that is fairly clear. Yes?

Question: My other question was concerning Ms. Pillay’s call for the end of the state of emergency that legalizes censorship and enhances police powers and so forth.

Spokesperson: Well, the Secretary-General said very clearly this morning that he believes that one of the ground principles of democracy is to protect and ensure the freedom of speech of the people. And he also spoke about the need for freedom of expression and association to be fully respected. Yes?

Question: Thank you. Is the Secretary-General worried of any kind of domino effect, because of what has happened in Tunisia and what is going on now in Egypt? Is he worried because the Arab world order is in danger now?

Spokesperson: He has made very clear… he has spoken today about Egypt, but not just about Egypt. He spoke about Tunisia and Egypt and indeed elsewhere. And the key point is that leaders in the region should understand that it is an opportunity to address legitimate concerns that the people in those countries have. And it is through dialogue with the people that the leaders can better understand what the people of those countries aspire to, what they wish for. And then they will be better able to address the challenges that they all face. But the key thing is that this should be done without violence and through dialogue.

Question: Has the Secretary-General taken note of the incarceration and house arrest of Mr ElBaradei? Does he have anything to say about that?

Spokesperson: I was asked a similar question just earlier, and the Secretary-General is aware of the reports — and there are differing reports out there. He is aware of the reports that there are, and if I have anything further on this topic then I’d let you know a bit later.

Watch this site.

At UN, Copts Protest Killings to Egyptian Mission, No Party Time in Giza

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 14 -- A crowd of Egyptic Christians gathered Tuesday in front of the UN, and the the Egyptian Mission on 44th Street, demanding an end to legal and violent targeting in that country.

Two representatives were allowed into the Egyptian Mission to deliver a “Letter of Demands to Maged Abdelaziz,” the country's Permanent Representative to the UN (who, UN sources say, has been seeking a job from and AT the UN).

When the UN Security Council issued a statement condemning attacks on Christians in Iraq, Inner City Press asked if the Council had discussed the related situation in Egypt. No, was the answer.

Tuesday in Dag Hammarskjold Park the demonstrators “outside PR” man, Robert Miller of New Jersey based Kessler Communications told Inner City Press that his clients absolutely would like the Council to consider their issues, which include the November 24, 2010 attack on a church in Giza and what he called “Nuremberg like laws” under which “it is a crime to build, repair or renovate a church without a special permit issuedc by the office of the President,” Hosni Mubarek.

An Egyptian expert at the UN told Inner City Press, “those Copts are screwed. No one will support them, because of Mubarak's relations with the West. Obama, for example -- he says nothing.”

Cops and Copts by Egption Mission, Dec 14, 2010 (c) MRLee

While around the UN's margin there has been talk of irregularities in the parliamentary election in Egypt, the UN has made no comment. Meanwhile on the evening of December 10, the Egyptian Mission hosted a much talked about holiday party. One wag on Tuesday suggested that “the Copts should have targeted that.”