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Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

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At UN, Ban Chooses Limousines Over Indigenous Drums, NGOs Complain of Exclusion

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 21 -- It was a tale of two UNs on Tuesday night: there was drumming and dancing in the General Assembly lobby as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues began, while in the roped off elite area of the cafeteria, Israel sponsored a high security reception. Inner City Press was asked, which one did Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attend? The latter, was the answer, sending not an Under but Assistant Secretary General to address the assembled indigenous.

  In attendance amid the drumming, despite many registrants being absent due to flights canceled by the Iceland's volcano's ash, were a range of what's called civil society and that stratum of the UN staff which serve them. Nearly uniformly there was dissatisfaction with Ban Ki-moon's lack of engagement with non governmental organizations and "regular people," and about the increasingly lack of access to the UN by civil society.

  "He's taken the place back thirty years," a UN staffer said. Another wondered, even with the General Assembly building to remain open for the next two years, how long groups like the indigenous would be allowed to use the lobby. The Ban administration, an involved staffer disclosed, has asked that the exhibition walls in the lobby be removed so he can host a high level luncheon during this year's General Debate. The walls would not be reinstalled, and thus public exhibitions would cease.

  A coalition on NGOs recently wrote to Ban to complain about deceasing access and got back what they called a mere form letter.


The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ban Ki-moon not shown

  The UN, including under Ban, pays lip service to the value of civil society. But for the past three years, representatives say, it has been implemented less and less. For how much longer, they wondered Tuesday night, will this UN allow the drums to beat? Watch this space.

Footnote: the head of the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Inner City Press learned on Tuesday night, will be leaving the post this summer. The new chairman of the Forum, for the first time, was chosen by a government rather than civil society within his country. Things are changing at the UN, including at the Forum. Nothing, it seems clear, is Permanent. Reforms can be turned back as much as thirty years.

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At UN, Security Council Moves to Push All But 15 Nations into the Hall, Cut Press Access: Turf Wars

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, April 5 -- Outside the first consultation meeting in the new UN Security Council chamber, both reporters and members states not on the Council were Monday in disarray, on the verge of losing even more access.

  A representative of UN Security Council Affairs told Inner City Press that the media will be moved further back, where they can't even see Council members enter. And member states other than the 15 Council members will be relegated to an open hallway by the stairs, under the plan.

  The UN representative said that Council members complained of "involuntary interation" with the press and even other member states "like India and Germany," wanting a way to leave without seeing either. Inner City Press countered that the media, and non-Council member states, must be consulted, but was told to quiet down.

  In what passes for news, in the beginning of the month consultations led by April's Council president, Yukio Takasu of Japan, the U.S. asked for a briefing about the elections in Sudan. Since U.S. envoy Scott Gration is in Khartoum appearing to praise the process as "as fair as possible," the U.S.'s request struck some as strange.

  Nigeria requested a briefing about the chaos in Guinea Bissau, in which the police arrested the Prime Minister last week. Apparently Myanmar will not be discussed. Ambassador Takasu will hold a press conference later on Monday. Watch this site.

  The background: After its final March meeting, the Council was moved from its longtime location on the second floor to a suite of rooms in the UN's basement.

There are no windows, but the UN says it is secure, safer than Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office atop the boxlike Temporary North Lawn Building.

But outside the Council, everything has changed. The suite of rooms has a closed metal door and a sign, "Consultation in session, Security Council members only."

This seems to mean that Permanent Representatives of member states not among the Council's 15 members -- including for example India, Germany and South Africa, to name a few -- can't even go into the Council's lounge, as for years they did upstairs.

Some Security Council reform -- getting less rather than more inclusive.

A stakeout with the 15 Council members' flags has been set up where the Vienna Cafe used to be. It is at some remove from the Security Council doors; members can leave by the stairs or garage without walking by the stakeout.


The new UNSC chamber under construction

Monday morning, reporters milled around between the stairs and the Council doors. Spokespeople of only two of the Council's members, one permanent and one in its second of two years on the Council, deigned to speak to the press scrum. By 10:15, Inner City Press was the only media left, on a rickety chair without a table by the stairs. Several Permanent Representatives asked Inner City Press how to get into the Council. "Through the General Assembly," was the reply. Watch this site.

 Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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