As
2 UN Bribery Cases Proceed, Flashback
to Ban Ki-moon Use
of UN & Compliant Media
By Matthew
Russell Lee, 25rd in a Series
UNITED NATIONS,
January 30 – Before Ban
Ki-moon left the UN, he
involved it in one US federal
bribery case - and
another was filed against his
brother
and nephew days after he left.
But not
before Ban had evicted and
still restricts Inner City
Press which asked him about
his nephew Dennis Bahn working
at the UN's landlord Colliers,
for example in May
2015, here.
Ban's double standard toward
sycophants and the critical
Press, and assembled team to
run for the Presidency of
South Korea, were on display
in early 2011 when Han
Seung-soo spoke for him, and
Ban and his allies allowed
South Korean media to retain
UN desks and resident
correspondent accreditations
despite, like Akhbar
Al Yom's Sana'a Youssef
today, rarely coming in and
never asking questions.
From Inner
City Press' January
6, 2011 story:
"UNITED
NATIONS, January 6 -- Ban Ki-moon's
relations with the press, particularly the
Korean press, were on display Thursday at
the UN.
At the day's noon briefing, Inner City
Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky
about a story
in the Korea Herald quoting a
“senior
UN official” -- on information and belief
senior advisory Kim Won-soo -- that Ban 'said
it was extremely unfortunate that he was
named as a [South Korean] presidential
contender in opinion polls despite having
repeatedly said that he has no intention
to run in the presidential elections.'
The Korea
Herald also published these quotes: 'It is
our duty to free Secretary General Ban
from domestic politics so he can serve the
world,' Han Seung-soo, chairman of the
Global Green Growth Institute, was quoted
as saying by the Yonhap news agency.
'Repeated mentions of his name in domestic
politics would be disadvantageous for him
as he performs his role as the U.N.
secretary general.'"
Inner City
Press asked Nesirky if Han Seung-soo is
still functioning as an advisor to Ban on
climate change, and if he was speaking for
Ban. Nesirky replied that Ban too busy on
such issues as Cote d'Ivoire and Sudan,
which Inner City Press also asked about,
to have time for the Korea Herald article.
Then Nesirky abruptly called
the day's noon briefing to a close, say
that Ban was about to tour the press area.
Upstairs, Ban and his titular chief
of staff Vijay Nambiar moved slowed around
the press floor, shaking hands and
commenting on whether the cubicles are
adequate for journalism. Inner City Press
said that enclosed walls were needed for 'quiet
diplomacy,' at which Ban laughed.
After touring the cluster of
Japanese media desk in what has been
dubbed the A or Asian room, Ban was shown
the entirely empty side of the room
devoted to Korean publications. Ban read
their names. An enterprising journalist
informed Ban that often the Korean do not
come in to use their desks, while other
reporters need space - and some long time
reporters are being ejected from their UN
desks.
While Ban
did not respond to this, Choi Soung-ah who
works in Nesirky's office told the
reporter that “we are aware of that.”
Inner City Press has previously reported
on this -- click here."
On January
23, 2017 Inner City Press
asked Ban's holdover spokesman
at the UN Stephane Dujarric if
he had even seen the Ban
Ki-moon diary now being cited
in South Korea before
threatening the press for its
reporting. There was no clear
answer. Story
here; video
here.
This is
Ban Ki-moon's pattern. Even
back in 2011, beyond trying to
have Inner City Press
"disappeared" from Google
News, Ban's guards pushed a
journalist who asked Ban a
question, Inner City Press here -
and NY
Daily News here.
Now in
South Korea, where Inner City
Press' exclusives including
about brother Ban Ki Ho mining
in Myanmar with a UN
delegation are credited,
Ban is being exposed as what
he is. He can only fill out a
condolence book when he has
prepared notes, there
as here.
He was overheard,
with Lee Do-woon to whom the
UN told Inner City Press to
direct all of its UN
questions, called students he
had just met with "bastards."
It is reminiscent of this,
from Inner City Press' 2008
archives, part of its
ongoing Ban's
Bad Decade series:
"UNITED NATIONS, May 28 --
There are reasons that relations with the
press can go awry. This column is devoted to
only one recent example, with the Office of
the Spokesperson for the Secretary General
of the UN, the OSSG.
Just
before Ban Ki-moon left to travel to Myanmar
to meet with Senior General Than Shwe, the
UN press corps was summoned to a question
and answer session with him at the media
stakeout in front of the Security Council
chamber. One of the junior members of the
OSSG came down and said that only two or
three questions could be taken. Then he
whispered instructions to technicians, "We
would appreciate it if you don't give the
microphone to [Inner City Press]."
This
seems more controlling that necessary, given
that the OSSG by pointing tries, usually
successfully, to decide who gets to ask Ban
a question. It is possible that Ban does not
even know of these things done in his name.
Inner City Press wrote
obliquely about the incident on May 20,
choosing not to identify the frozen-out
media.
During
Ban Ki-moon's side-trip to China on May 24,
the day he left Myanmar so as to not be
present during the controversial polling in
the cyclone zone, occupying one of only
three "press" seats on the plane was a
representative of UN Radio. Since this is an
in-house organ, which pointedly did not ask
Ban any questions about Aung San Suu Kyi,
back in New York, in
an article about events in Myanmar,
Inner City Press included a half-joking
footnote which in admitted hyperbole said "the
UN, on Ban's jaunt to China, allowed very few
outside reporters, but made a space for its
own in-house radio to come along, as Than Shwe
himself might have done."
At
the end of Ban Ki-moon's decade
as UN Secretary General,
covering up genocides in Sri
Lanka, Burundi
and Yemen
and evicting
the Press which asked about
(t)his corruption, Inner
City Press is reviewing Ban's
tenure, year by year. See also this Twitter
Moment.
And
now Ban aver evicting the Press
in New York threatens
to sue, for ambition.
While Ban threatens further necessary
measures according to one Korean media -- Ban
refused to release the threat letter; Inner
City Press appeared
on JTBC television news in Korea, here
-- others are given
statistics about how much Ban traveled
during his UN decade.
This special service to some Korean
media, while evicting the investigative Press,
was a hallmark of the Ban era, which early on
featured false Ban claims of transparency,
which would culminate in 2017 with Ban
unwilling
to state his net worth in 2007 and
now.
***
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