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At UN, Guterres Has No Read-Out of Angola Meeting, Cancels Internal Note-taking Too

By Matthew Russell Lee, Photos, Periscope

UNITED NATIONS, November 20 – Antonio Guterres since taking over as UN Secretary General has dramatically reduced transparency, for example the number of read-outs issued after his meetings or calls with heads of state and foreign minister (see Angola, below). Now Inner City Press is informed that Guterres has also stopped internal note-taking of such calls, sot hat even those working on the issues or countries for the UN have no idea what Guterres discussed with the country's leadership. It is an obsession with secrecy that results in wasted time and money, and increased ineptitude by the UN. But who's counting? On November 17 Guterres met with the foreign minister of Angola, to whom Inner City Press exclusively reported Guterres had offered the position of UN Special Adviser on Africa. But Guterres issued no read-out; Angola did. This is the trend. Last week Guterres flew through the night to Manila, but to what effect? The UN initially issued no read-outs; the UN in the Philippines Facebook page had a few photos welcoming "Don Antonio Guterres." Is anything being accomplished on the Rohingya issue in Myanmar, where Guterres provided support to cover up artist Renata Lok-Dessallien? Even on UN - Duterte relations, Guterres' UN blocked the Press from his meeting with Duterte's foreign minister Cayetano, then delayed any read out (until Inner City Press repeatedly asked) such that UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard issued rare intra-UN criticism of Guterres' pervasive lack of transparency. The only rationale is that some quiet diplomacy is being done. But are conflicts being prevented? Look for example at Cameroon: no. We'll have more on this. On November 10 when Guterres took three media questions on November 10 before leaving New York for a week,starting with ASEAN, none of them were on Yemen, much less Cameroon or the related Rosewood racket scandal in which his Deputy signed over 2,000 certificates to send kosso wood to China. After the last question - on robots, for which Guterres seemed strangely prepared - there were (gently) shouted questions on Yemen, and Inner City Press asked about Guterres calling Kenya's Ambassador "unfair," click here for that. Even on Myanmar, question two of three, Guterres' answer showed his weakness. He is waiting for a non-binding General Assembly resolution to ask him to appoint a Special Envoy, sometime he could do without any resolution. The glaring omission of Yemen from his opening statement or the three questions his spokesman Stephane Dujarric hand-picked shows the extent to which Guterres is afraid of Saudi Arabia, which has imposed a blockade on Yemen which violates international law, during a famine. Then Dujarric canceled the day's noon press briefing, so no other questions could be asked. Neither he or Guterres less than credible public schedule listed Guterres' next stop, out of the building, at 9:15 am. More on that soon. On October 4, Guterres took five questions, all of them on climate change, and his trip to Antigua and Barbuda. With the UN for example refusing to give any estimate of how many civilians Paul Biya killed this week in Cameroon, Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric gave the first question to Voice of America (on climate change), then AP and SABC, then an ex-Reuters reporter who called the US the "elephant in the region." For this, Dujarric canceled the UN's noon briefing on all other topics, while refusing to answer the majority of questions which Inner City Press submits to him and his deputy by email. Guterres cited as a precedent the World Bank loans to Jordan and Lebanon. Inner City Press previously asked him about these, before he became responsible for UN censorship of the Press and cover ups in Cameroon and elsewhere.

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