UNITED
NATIONS, April
12 -- There
was no mention
of Africa when
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
emerged
Thursday from
his meeting
with US
President
Barack Obama.
Ban
gave a 740
word summary
of the meeting,
and not one of
them was Mali,
or Sudan, or
Congo, or
Somalia, much
less Haiti.
This
is strange,
since it is in
these
countries and
countries like
it that
the UN
actually has
billion dollar
peacekeeping
missions, and
actually does
its work. So
why didn't Ban
mention it?
In
Darfur, Sudan,
over 50,000
have had to
flee from
fighting into
Chad.
In the
Democratic
Republic of
Congo, the day
before Ban's
meeting
with Obama,
the UN's
inaction on
126 rapes in
Minova was
exposed on
BBC, putting
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous'
stonewalling
of
Inner City
Press'
questions
about the
rapes for
months into
sharp
contrast.
(Video here,
here
and here).
In
Haiti, the UN
mission
closest to the
UN, the
introduction
of cholera
was
met with legal
claims which
Ban tersely
dismissed.
The mission
continues
without a
permanent
head, as Ban
tries to force
the Haitian
to accept the
Trinidadian
candidate he
selected.
For
Mali, which
the US says it
cares about,
Ban is poised
as Inner City
Press has exclusively
reported to
name Italian
deputy foreign
minister
Staffan De
Mistura as his
envoy.
But
all Ban spoke
about after
meeting with
Obama was
Syria, North
Korea,
the “Middle
East” and
climate
change. Why?
Before
writing this
article, Inner
City Press
went to the
April 12 UN
noon
briefing to
ask. Ban's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey said that
in
such meetings,
time is
limited.
OK.
But what
exactly is the
UN's role in
the Korean
conflict,
other than
Ban's personal
interest as
former South
Korean foreign
minister?
Del
Buey quickly
emphasized
that North
Korea could
fire a small
nuclear
weapon. So if
Africa had
nukes? Or
Haiti?
Inner
City Press
asked if there
was any
read-out of
Ban's meeting
with
World Bank
president Jim
Kim. No, there
was not. On
that, Team Ban
is
extremely
sensitive when
Jim Kim's
Korean
heritage is
brought it,
essentially
calling this
racist.
But
if the UN
Secretary
General is
supposed to
base his focus
not on his
own
nationality
but on the
problems of
the world,
particular
those
overlooked by
leaders of
rich nations,
why could Ban
not bring up
Africa once?
At
a lower level,
why are the
noon briefings
of his
spokespeople
often
devoid of
questions
about Africa
except, we
hate to say,
from Inner
City Press?
And
why, given
this, did
Ban's UN
conduct a raid
on Inner City
Press'
office on
March 18,
rifle through
papers and
take photographs,
which
were
subsequently
leaked to
BuzzFeed
through an
anonymous
“Concerned
UN reporter”
email account?
Who are
these
“concerned UN
reporters”?
Why was the
president of
the
UN
Correspondents
Association
Pamela Falk
allowed to
take
photographs
of the raid?
When
the question
was raised,
she responded
with a legal
threat
from her
CBSNews.com
email
accounting,
which CBS has
refused
to clarify.
When
Ban met with
the UNCA
Executive
Committee for
lunch, he gave
them
quotes but the
highlights
given to
others hours
later had
nothing on
Sudan or Congo
or Haiti.
Ban's
spokesman
Martin
Nesirky, when
Inner
City Press
asked, said
that those had
come up, but
declined to
say
how. And none
of the UNCA --
UN Censorship
Alliance --
opaque
apostles wrote
on the topic,
or released
their tapes or
transcripts.
This UN is
broken, as it
breaks into
Press office
space. Watch
this
site.
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