On Syria, UNSC Can't Agree On Press Statement, Just Summary, No Questions, UK Off-Camera; UN Bans Access

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 21 -- On Syria chemical weapons, the UN Security Council on Wednesday could not agree on a non-binding press statement or even "elements to the press." Instead at the end of the meeting August's Council president, Argentine Permanent Representative Maria Cristina Perceval read a summary of the meeting. (And UK Deputy PR Parham spoke, video here.)

   Inner City Press asked her about the rejected draft press statement (on which Inner City Press first reported, here.) Perceval smiled, but did not answer.

  Nor did UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson answered any questions after he made a statement. After these two UN-televised, no-question press encounters, UK Deputy Permanent Representative Phillip Parham spoke to reporters, not on UNTV. 

  He said some 35 countries have written to Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press asked Parham about the rejected draft press statement: how many votes did it have, which countries blocked it. Parham said he would not "get into the internal discussions in the Council." Video here, and embedded below.

  Afterward a Security Council member, on a not for attribution basis -- see below -- told Inner City Press that "two Permanent members" said they needed to check with their capitals on the draft press statement, "which would have taken 24 hours, so we just did the summary."

Process: We say "not for attribution" because the UN Department of Public Information made it more difficult than ever to cover the Security Council meeting. Without explanation, earlier this week they said journalists now could not stand in an area between the so-called Turkish Lounge and the entrance stairs.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access repeatedly asked for clarification, on August 20 and at the August 21 UN noon briefing, then via @FUNCA_info.

After that, DPI's Stephane Dujarric belatedly replied, only to say that the informal oral ruling WAS the answer:

But by then another DPI staffer had said the press could stand in the space, to see, but only for short periods of time. How long?

  FUNCA wrote to the Under Secretary General of DPI, copying another FUNCA member who represents a wire service, but has yet to receive any explanation or response to this:

This is a request for a written statement and explanation of where correspondents can work (stand and ask questions) from at the UNSC stakeout.

In a change of policy, I was told this week that correspondents now CANNOT be in the space south of the steps, before the Turkish Lounge.

I asked Stephane Dujarric about this, and got no answer. I asked at today's noon briefing -- that is, for an on the record answer. But there's been none. Another MALU staff this afternoon told me one can stand there momentarily and look, but not remain. For how long?

Now Stephane has belatedly responded that the MALU answer isthe answer. WHICH MALU answer? Earlier this week, or today? When was this policy changed? To whom was it explained? 

  Inner City Press stood, with other FUNCA members, in the space, bothering no one (and being able to access sources, see earlier story). But when Inner City Press was standing there alone, the Department of Public Information got UN Security to tell Inner City Press to unplug its computer and leave the space. 

  A former UNCA president agreed, saying that space is for "off the record" communications, and commenting on the Free UN Coalition for Access. Well, it's not for DPI much less UNCA to tell journalists where to have on the record communications. We'll have more on this.

   

At UN, Rule of Law Measurement Session Goes Into Overtime Despite Impunity on Cholera in Haiti, Whistleblowers Blindspots, Raid

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 8 -- At the UN Monday they debated how to measure the rule of law. What they couldn't measure was time.

  The session left less than ten minutes for questions before a closed meeting of the North Korea sanctions committee was to start in the same airless room.

  This allowed for only three questions or “interventions,” and even that caused protocol kerfuffles. A man with a statement from the Inter-Parliamentary Union was called on before an ambassador from Togo.

  The UK's Deputy Permanent Representative Philip Parham whispered that the Togolese Ambassador should be given the floor. He was, and asked three detailed question which the moderator said had to be answered in three minutes.Photo here.

  By then, Irene Khan had left, after Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson, as had an African Permanent Representative. No questions were allowed from the media. Inner City Press wonders, how can the UN measure anyone's rule of law when it so tersely dismissed legal claims for bringing cholera for Haiti?

  When it has no whistleblower protections for peacekeepers?

  When it raids, without notice or consent, the office of critical media, takes pictures which are then leaked to BuzzFeed.com as soon as they ask the UN about the raid? This is the rule of law?

  An outside speaker, a professor, told a story about a scientist trying to measure the weight of the soul, bodies before and just after death. There was laughter. Remember: who brought cholera to Haiti? Rule of law indeed. Watch this site.

On Syria, Duel for “Impartial” Report, UN Rarely Does Them, Houla, Sri Lanka, Eritrea

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNdisclosed Location, March 20 -- Does the UN have a track record of objective and impartial investigations and reports? The question was raised by at least four speakers Wednesday at the UN Security Council stakeout.

  Syria's Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari in the morning said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had been asked to send a specialized, independent and neutral technical mission to look into the use of chemical weapons, he said by the opposition.

  After a Security Council session on the Central African Republic, which few covered, March's Council president Vitaly Churkin of Russia came out and described France counter-asking in consultations for an investigation of “rumors” of chemical weapons use by the government.

  He said this might just be a way to slow things down, or to widen the scope as was done in Iraq where, he noted, nothing was found.

  France's Permanent Representative Gerard Araud had been waiting to the side of the stakeout. When he came to the microphone -- the same microphone that his countryman Herve Ladsous had seized to avoid Inner City Press'questions about the 126 rapes in Minova by his partners in the Congolese Army -- Araud said, “Now you will hear the side of truth.”

  Araud spoke in French, leaving UK Deputy Permanent Representative Philip Parham to deliver the message in English.

  But when are the UN's reports impartial? What ever happened to the report into the disputes massacre in Houla in Syria? 

  Why didn't Ban Ki-moon stand behind his own report on killings in Sri Lanka -- then went and accepted and praised a “whitewash” report handed to him by Japan's Permanent Representative Nishida, without making the report public?

   UN reports are changed, like a recent one on Eritrea; UN reports get redacted, like the Petrie Report on Sri Lanka. So what kind of report can be expected about chemical weapons in Syria? We can only imagine. Watch this site.