Annan
Sells Books
With No
Questions of
Failings from
Oil for Food
to Sri Lanka
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 14 --
Many books
were sold and
fewer signed
when
Kofi Annan
came back to
the UN midday
on Monday and
took
questions,
selected by
new Deputy
Secretary
General Jan
Eliasson.
The
question were
either fawning
or about
Annan's brief
time as Syria
mediator. None
of the
questions take
were about the
UN
Secretariat's
failing under
Annan or
Eliasson's
boss Ban
Ki-moon.
While
Annan
repeatedly
spoke about
the
Responsibility
to Protect,
for
example, no
mention was
made of the UN
standing by,
pulling out
and
even covering
up as 40,000
people were
killed in Sri
Lanka in
2009.
Eliasson
is
heading yet
another
back-room
panel on the
UN's actions
and
inactions,
but he did not
bring up Sri
Lanka, or call
on any
questioner who
would.
Rather,
one
of the
questioner
selected
asked, "Will
you sign my
book?"
And there was
a long line of
people who had
bought Annan's
memoir
"Interventions."
They would be
disappointed
and not get
his
autograph. But
it does not
seem that
there were any
refunds. (Nor,
for those who
remember or
ever cared,
was Oil for
Food
addressed.)
When
India's
Mission to the
UN gave out
Aakash 2
tablets
recently,
they
said no
commerce could
take place in
the North Lawn
building and
people went
outside for
the hand-over.
How was this
mass Kofi
Annan
book sale
different?
That question
wasn't
selected, or
answered.
Inner
City Press reviewed
Annan's
"Interventions"
back on
October, here.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
At
the Kofi Annan
book sale, a
concerned
Ambassador was
greeted with
this, "I am
the new
[officer] of UNCA
-- not of
FUNCA." Has
even the press
corps or its
representation
by UNCA
decayed at the
UN?
That answer is
yes. Watch THIS site: the Free UN Coalition for
Access.
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