As Kofi Annan Passes Away Contrast of His Joking About Bloggers With Guterres Having Inner City Press Banned

By Matthew Russell Lee, 30/7 CJR, 19/6 Video, Filing

UNITED NATIONS GATE, August 18 – Kofi Annan has died, after continuing with global diplomatic work after two terms as UN Secretary General, on Syria and more recently Myanmar. Since Inner City Press covered the tail end of Annan's years as SG, 2005 and 2006, an impressionistic obituary seems called for. But it is impossible not to contrast, on the day current Secretary General Antonio Guterres imposed a lifetime ban on Inner City Press covering or even entering the UN, the dramatic fall-off in UN respect for press freedom under Guterres. Annan, who spoke more to Inner City Press when it was a novice at the UN than Guterres did in the past 19 months, once joked when he saw his Darfur envoy Jan Pronk chatting with Inner City Press on the UN's glassed-in escalators, "Oh, the two bloggers." Annan certainly got testy with the press, for example with James Bone about his son's Mercedes. But Guterres simply refuses to answer where he is or how much is being spent, and then had Inner City Press roughed up by UN Security on June 22 and July 3. What is happening to the UN? How long before the phrase "must be turning in his grave" comes up? 

 On 16 June 2006, when Kofi Annan took Inner City Press' question about repression in Uzbekistan, Annan mentioned UNHCR and Guterres, now ironic given the contrast and Guterres silence about and even collusion with such long time, violent leaders as Cameroon's Paul Biya. On July 2006 Inner City Press in order to ask about Congolese warlord Peter Karim staked-out Annan outside Conference Room 7 - in the same 1B area that Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up in, justified in a ghoulishAugust 17 letter from Guterres' "Global Communicator" Alison Smale as a place Inner City Press was prohibited from. So how was it permitted under Annan, and a offense under Guterres so severe or pretextual as to merit roughing up and a lifetime ban? What are Guterres and Smale doing to the UN? We'll have more on this. RIP.

 With the UN General Assembly High Level week coming up next month, the UN of anti-Press Secretary General Antonio Guterres is still moving to push further away from the action the visiting media that he and Under Secretary General Alison Smale, in their lawless way, allow in. Now this UN dynamic duo have not surprisingly gotten buy in fro the insiders they give offices to and use to censor others, those who don't need the tent but rather complain about the air conditioning and TV reception in their offices. For years the so-called Media Center has been in Conference Room 1. But this year Guterres and Smale still want to put it even further away -- now in a tent. Typically, they are trying to blame their anti-press policies on member states. But this is the duo which had Inner City Press roughed up by their Security - twice - and banned for 43 days and counting. They are censors, and hypocrites (see Smale's ex NYT myopic hand-wringing, here.)  On August 8, Inner City Press during the noon briefing it is banned from 43 days and counting emailed the spokesperson for President of the General Assembly Miroslav Lajcak: "Hello. Since I am still banned from the UN noon briefing, I am e-mailing you this question during your August 8 briefing: What does the PGA think and do about the moves to push the media even further away from CR 1 during High Level week?" The spokesman Brenden Varma to his credit replied, just after the briefing, "For the President, it is important that journalists are able to do their work and cover the general debate. As for the logistics, that is a matter for the UN Secretariat." Subsequent to that, Guterres' and Smale's partner in censorship UNCA made much of getting the same quotes, afterward, in a briefing they help keep others excluded from, as in an outside tent. The fact that this "United Nations Correspondents Association" is a censorship tool used by the UN is made clear not only by the fact they are desparate to get Antonio Guterres to raise them money on Wall Street in December but that Smale's Hua Jiang, before DPI and Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up and banned, told it it would be thrown out for merely darely to post a sign of the alternative Free UN Coalition for Access on the office (for) now given to a no-show no-question Egyptian state media retired correspondent who was president of the UN Correspondents Association in... 1984. We'll have more on this. Here's how their Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq spun on August 7, annotated in brackets: we are actually trying as best as we can to get suitable working accommodations for the large numbers of journalists who come here to cover the General Assembly.  As you know, every year, we have a challenge trying to find such accommodation, but over time, it works out that we get good space… working space for all the travelling journalists.  This year, the complication is that some of the Member States have made clear that Conference Room 1, which sometimes has been used, will be used for their own meetings involving their visiting Heads of State and Government.  So, we’re trying to get an alternative space, but we’re well aware that some of the options that have been bandied about are not workable because they would entail tremendous logistical difficulties for reporters to cover events.  So, we’re working hard, including with the various other departments who deal with arrangements for the General Assembly session.  And we’ll try to get the best available working space that we can get.  [The bus stop?] the Department of Public Information (DPI), do not believe that any demands from Member States should override the demands from the journalists who are coming in.  [Ha.] There are several States, partly because there are several different events on the key days at the start of the week that will require a large number of seats, and so there’s only a certain number of conference rooms that will accommodate those." We'll have more on this - still banned - and on this: as the Cameroon government of 36 year President Paul Biya slaughters civilians in the Anglophone regions as well as in the North, it has re-engaged Washington lobbying firm Patton Boggs, on a retainer of $100,000 per quarter plus expenses, documents show. This means that the July 11 meeting with Cameroonian ministers bragged about by this month's UN Security Council president, Karen Pierce of the UK, was actually in connection with a lobbying trip stage managed by Patton Boggs. Inner City Press has asked the UK Mission, see below, and also on the morning of August 7 asked Secretary General Antonio Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq before "his" noon briefing Inner City Press was banned from for the 35th day in a row. Guterres' Haq never answered (though perhaps relatedly envoy Francois Fall is supposedly going to Cameroon). Now Inner City Press has reviewed Patton Boggs long history with Paul Biya, as he has become more and more brutal. It began in 2004 with a letter from Patton Boggs' Joseph Brand (still involved in 2018) to Biya's Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo for Peter Mafany Musonge, here. We'll have more on this. UNanswered as of August8 by Guterres' team: "August 7-1: On Cameroon beyond the questions you have left unanswered from August 3 and August 6-1, please state if anyone in the UN Secretariat met with a Cameroonian government delegation in the US from July 11 (whcn they met UK Ambassador Pierce) to July 20 and if the UN was aware that this Biya delegation's lobbying trip was stage managed by the DC-based lobbying firm Patton Boggs." Neither Haq nor the others in Guterres' team whom Inner City Press asked - Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed, Eihab Omaish, Alison Smale and her officer in charge (of censorship) Hua Jiang answered that specific question. Instead Haq at the briefing said he trying to "get language" about Guterres' envoy Francois Lounseny Fall, who equated secessionists with extremists, may go to the country this week. What, some ask, for Patton Boggs? Inner City Press asked the UK Mission's two spokespeople Matthew Moody and Amy.Quantrill: "Good morning. This is a formal Press request for an answer I have sought from the UK Mission to the UN since August 1. On July 31 Ambassador Pierce stated on Twitter that she (and presumably others at the UK mission) had met on July 11 with Cameroonian ministers.

On August 1, for the Program of Work press conference I was and am banned from by USG Alison Smale and SG Antonio Guterres, after being roughed up by UN Security while covering an event and a meeting on June 22 and July 3, I asked both of you:

"Did she mean government ministers or religious ministers? If the former, who were they? Which departments? And what was it mean to say “we were watching the situation closely.” Does this mean the UK or the Council? Is there a role, does the UK think, for UN envoy Francois Lonseny Fall? Or should another mediator be assigned?"

  I have yet to receive an answer, including after tweeting substantial the same question to Amb Allen yesterday. Nor did I receive any response to my August 3 question to you, explicitly your UK's capacity of President of the UNSC, about Yemen and a Saudi letter.

This time I am addressing this to Stephen Hickey as well. (Hello).

  I am requesting an immediate answer to these Cameroon questions:

Name the ministers Amb Pierce met with on July 11.

State whether Amb Pierce or anyone else at the UK mission was aware this this Biya administration "tour" July 11-20 was stage managed by DC-based lobbying firm Patton Boggs (reflected on documents Inner City Press has this morning published), including US ex-Amb Frank Wisner.

  State whether any non-Cameroonians were present at the July 11 meeting and if so, who they were.

state whether Amb Pierce has had any meetings with Cameroonian opposition or Federalists or separatists, and if not, why not.

  Also, as I asked on August 1 in advance of these week's UNSC meeting I remained banned from,

Last month Sweden said at the beginning of the month that it would be seeking agreed Press Elements from every consultation. Will the UK be seeking Press Elements from this Western Sahara consultation? And if not, why not?

  On deadline. Thanks you in advance. -Matthew." Nothing.

The documents show the agreement is to run to mid 2019, long after Biya's next "election" in October (also made amockery of by French President Emmanuel Macron inviting Biya to an event in Paris as head of state in November). The "confidential" letter agreement is addressed by Patton Boggs' Robert S. Kapla to Biya's Prime Minister Philemon Yang, to be signed by Ghogomu Paul Mingo and cites Prof. Nkot. It  says Joseph Brand and "Ambassador Frank Wisner" will work on the Biya fileAfter the abuses by Cameroon's security forces have been ignored by the UN, as Inner City Press has repeatedly asked about them until being banned from the UN on July 3 and since, new leaked videos show summary executions and manhandling of prisoners. On July 14 and 25 Inner City Press raised the issue, and that of the UN's censorship
 to the French Mission to the UN, and also directly to Deputy Ambassador Anne Gueguen. Nothing, from France and from the Security Council as a whole, not even an "Any Other Business" briefing, with none as yet foreseen under August's Security Council president the UK, whose Liam Fox bragged of UK New Age's gas deal with Biya; Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador Karen Pierce about it here, before Guterres' Security's ouster and ongoing ban on which the UK has done nothing. July 20 video here.  After that, Pierce said on Twitter - while ignoring Inner City Press' question as her mission has in recent days, also on Yemen - that she had met with Cameroon ministers on July 11. Inner City Press asked the UK Mission in writing on August 1 to explain: "Amb Pierce disclosed in yesterday's Twitter Q&A that she “spoke to a delegation of Cameroon ministers at the UN on 11 July.” Did she mean government ministers or religious ministers? If the former, who were they? Which departments? And what was it mean to say “we were watching the situation closely.” Does this mean the UK or the Council? Is there a role, does the UK think, for UN envoy Francois Lonseny Fall? Or should another mediator be assigned?" Nothing, still no answer as of noon on August 6 from the UK Mission. (Inner City Press' later on August 6 online question to returned-toTwitter Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Allen on this has yet to be replied to.) Instead, Pierce said the initiative is with Biya and his government. Now it emerges that Paul Biya sent a delegation of five from July 11 to 20, to DC and New York to meet members of the UN Security Council. This while UNSG Antonio Guterres had banned from the UN Inner City Press, which has ask him for more than a year about the slaughter in Cameroon and his inaction, as he needed thesupport of the Cameroonian chair of the UN Budget Committee. New filing on Guterres and conflict of interest, here. We'll have more on this - and this: ghoulishly in Cameroon, where there is supposed to be an election in October, French Ambassador Gilles Thibault, of whom Inner City Press has asked French Permanent Representative Francois Delattre before being banned from the UN since July 3, has invited Paul Biya to an Emmanual Macron "Peace" event, as Cameroonian head of state.. in November. We'll have more on this. On August 1 in a briefing Inner City Press was banned from Pierce said the initiative is with the President and government of Cameron - that is, 36 year ruler Paul Biya. On August 2 Inner City Press emailed Guterres' spokesmen and team including Alison Smale and officer in charge Hua Jiang, "On Cameroon and refugees from Cameroon in Nigeria, what is the comment, response and action if any of the Secretargy General to the deaths of eight Cameroonian refugees in Ikom, Cross River who died of fumes from a generator in their room? What has the SG done about the conflict and crisis in the Anglophone areas of Cameroon since his visit to Younde in October 2017? What has he done in the last 12 days?" Haq did not email any response back before heading out to lunch. On his way back in, Inner City Press reiterated the question and he just walked by, as didHua Jiang, schooled in this with UNMIS in Sudan it seems, part of the censorship, minutes later. Video here. This is today's UN.

On Congo, ICC Belatedly Convicts Germain Katanga, But Child Soldier Recuiter Kerim Still Free, Ladsous Who Met With Bashir Stonewalls Still

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- After the International Criminal Court scaled back its charges against Germain Katanga, today it announced:

Germain Katanga, alleged commander of the Force de résistance patriotique en Ituri [Patriotic Force of Resistance in Ituri] (FRPI), was tried before Trial Chamber II, composed of Judges Bruno Cotte, Fatoumata Dembele Diarra and Christine Van den Wyngaert... In her dissenting opinion, Judge Van den Wyngaert challenges the change in the characterization of Germain Katanga’s mode of liability. She argues that the change in characterization rendered the trial unfair and breached the rights of the Defense, as it did not receive proper notification of the new charges and was not afforded a reasonable opportunity to conduct investigations in order to mount a defence against them.

  But if Katanga is guilty, even of lesser charges and with this dissent, why wasn't Peter Karim ever put on trial? For the FPRI he recruited child soldiers, and kidnapped (and killed) UN Peacekeepers.

  Then head of UN Peacekeeper Jean-Marie Guehenno knows or knew all about Kerim, who in exchange for releasing the UN Peacekeepers he didn't kill demanded such things as the return of his motorcycle and a slew of boots. Guehenno, back in the era before candor was banned in the UN, mused that Kerim might be on drugs. 

  On camera, Guehenno told Inner City Press of Kerim / Karim, "I know he wanted to be a colonel... if he does become a colonel in the Congolese army, he will need a lot of training, let me say that." 

  But he struck a deal in Congo itself, and moved into the Grand Hotel in Kinsasha. The ICC became a tool of Joseph Kabila against his enemies.

  And the UN? Has it gotten better on child soldiers since it looked the other way on the Peter Kerim (non) case? Guehenno's successor twice removed, Herve Ladsous, on March 6 refused to answer an Inner City Press question about child soldiers.

  Under Ladsous, UN Peacekeeper has incorporated into its Mali Mission a UN-listed recruiter of child soldiers, and is about to do it again in the Central African Republic. 

  Ladsous may cook the books, so to speak, and pragmatically get them delisted. But it is not credible, including because no questions are taken about it.

  Nor has Ladsous explained his meeting in July 2013 with ICC-indictee Omar al Bashir, which Inner City Press asked ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda about, click here for that. 

  Now Ladsous' DPKO in South Sudan has been caught driving guns, by road, in white UN trucks. Where's the accountability?

   Here is UK coverage of how low Ladsous has taken UN Peacekeeping. His new spokesperson Nick Birnback, who used to work for Guehenno, has adopted the circus-like stonewalling of his predecessor, Kieran Dwyer.

  Dwyer now runs communications for OCHA, the UN's humanitarian arm. Click here for a video of Ladsous refusing questions about the 100 rapes in Minova by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army, and Dwyer's rationalization. 

  This is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

After Lubanga, Questions at UN on Ntaganda and Peter Kerim Go Unanswered

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 16 -- The conviction of Thomas Lubanga this week triggered a UN Security Council press statement, read out before two journalists on Friday afternoon by this month's Council's President, UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.

Inner City Press asked him about the narrow scope of the indictment, about the failure to arrest Bosco Ntaganda and the failure to even indict fellow warlord Peter Kerim, who not only recruited child soldiers but also kidnapped and killed UN Peacekeepers, before being made a Colonel in the Congolese Army, the FARDC.

UNICEF had previously acknowledged to Inner City Press having counted up child soldiers recruited by Kerim, but has still not provided any information about where they now believe that Kerim is or what follow up they did.

The spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would look into it, and returned with a statement about how concerned the UN in the Congo is: but no more information.

Peter Karim's impunity for killing UN peacekeepers was arranged under then Congo envoy Alan Doss and UN Peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, both now "back in the game" as part of Kofi Annan's Syria team. Ah, accountability.

So Inner City Press asked Council president Lyall Grant:

Inner City Press: There’s been some criticism to only indict Mr Lubanga on child soldier recruitment when he was actually thought to be responsible for the death of UN Peacekeepers in 2005. There’s also the issue of Bosco Ntaganda who was indicted at the same time, who is now in the Congolese army and who another ex warlord Peter Karim, who killed UN Peacekeepers also in the army. I understand you have to take victories where you can get them. What do you make of this idea that they should have gone further on Lunbanga and that it is something of an outrage that Bosco Ntaganda continues to be in an army that the UN works with in the DRC?”

Amb. Lyall Grant: Let me answer first as president of the security Council. I think that as this is the first verdict of the International Criminal Court is important. I think that the fact that the Security Council, although in fact only six members of the current Security Council are state parties to the Rome Statute, the fact that they have unanimously welcomed this verdict, I think is also important. So, let’s look at it as a sign that the International Criminal Court is coming of age, that international justice is seen as important, that it is making progress and that it is fully supported by the Security Council even by those members that themselves have not become state parties to the Rome Statute. I think it sends an important signal of the absence of impunity, the fact that the Security Council does not accept impunity for some of these most serious crimes.

On your other point about other, I’m now speaking in my national capacity, obviously the British government would like to see all those who are responsible for these most heinous crimes brought to justice. Obviously the decisions on who is brought, how long the cases take, which crimes they are indicted for, and are convicted of, is a matter for the court, not the matter for the British government. We would like to see more cases come to trial. We would like to see more cases come to conclusion with appropriate verdicts, so we’re not saying that the fact that Mr Lubanga has now been convicted, means that others have not been, or others should have been. We would like to see this as the first step in what I hope will be a number of convictions of people who are responsible for these crimes.

While the statement is appreciated, sometimes naming names is a required element in accountability. Earlier in the week Lyall Grant commented on accountability in Sri Lanka, but declined to comment on General Shavendra Silva, whose 58th Division is depicted in Ban Ki-moon's own Panel of Experts report as engaged in war crimes, being a Senior Advisor on Peacekeeping Operations to Ban and the UN.

Bosco Ntaganda is a known quantity, whose presence in Goma "at the finest restaurants and playing tennis" has been commented on even in the UN, by Patrick Cammaert and more recently. Ntaganda should be named, as should Peter Kerim. Watch this site.

Missing from ICC's Lubanga Verdict is Kerim, Given Immunity Under UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 14 -- Amid the backslapping and self-congratulation around the 593 page Lubanga verdict released today at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, there is no mention of another recruiter of child soldiers well known to the ICC, to the UN and former high UN officials who are now back in action in Syria: Peter Kerim, a/k/a Karim.

Kerim was the leader of a competing militia, the FPI, which inarguably recruited child soldiers, as well as taking hostage and killing UN peacekeepers.

But when he negotiated an impunity deal with the government in Kinshasa, the UN under then top envoy Alan Doss either looked away or was involved.

Then UN Peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, the second of what's turned out to be four Frenchmen in a row to hold that post, told Inner City Press he thought Kerim was "on drugs... asking for boots and the return of his motorcycle" in exchange for releasing the MONUC Nepali peacekeepers.

So what ever happened to Peter Kerim? Well, as part of the impunity deal the UN in essence signed off on, he was made a Colonel in the Congolese Army, and installed in a hotel in Kinshasa. Doss knew of this.

Now both Guehenno and Alan Doss, who left the UN amid a nepotism scandal after asking or order UNDP to break the rules and give a job to his daughter, are visibly "back in the game" with Kofi Annan, traveling to Syria in what one disgusted Gulf diplomat told Inner City Press is their "old school, back room diplomacy" that sucks up to war criminals. Accountability, indeed...

For the record, UNICEF wrote to Inner City Press:

Dear Matthew, below are some of the answers to your questions. Child soldiers DRC:

19 April, 201 FNI members left the Centre de Brassage Initial in Kpandroma (where ex-combatants are retrained and integrated into the FARDC - the DRC Armed Forces) and went to Bunia.

On 13 May, a second FNI group of more than 177 members arrived in Bunia.

Since April, 542 former combatants have surrendered, including 51 children associated with armed forces and groups.

From January to the present, 101 children associated with armed forces and groups have left and 95 per cent of them have been reunited with their families. The others have been transferred to COOPI’s transit and guidance centre awaiting reunification with their families.

It is currently estimated that some 150 children are still in Peter Karim's army.

Footnote: the above is Congo-specific; one might also note that the UN has offered helicopter flights to ICC indictee Ahmed Harun, and Ban Ki-moon's envoy Ibrahim Gambari recently partied with ICC indictee Omar al Bashir at a reception for the wedding of Chad's Idriss Deby and the daughter of janjaweed leader Musa Hilal -- and has said, without repercussion from Ban, that he'd do it again. But that's another story. Watch this site.