UNITED
NATIONS, April
12 -- At the
“MDGs
Momentum”
event in the
UN's
re-opened
lobby on
Friday
afternoon,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
thanked the
Ambassadors of
the two
countries
chairing his
MDGs
advisory
group:
Australia and
Rwanda. (Inner
City Press photo
here.)
Both,
as it happens,
were elected
to the
Security
Council this
year.
Australia may
be said to
represent
donor
countries, and
Rwanda the
developing
world.
But
Rwanda's
Permanent
Representative
Eugene
Richard Gasana
made a point
of saying, in
his speech,
that his
country is not
for MDGs at
the behest of
donors.
For
Rwanda in the
recent past,
one wag noted,
donors have
been fickle:
here today,
gone tomorrow.
Afterward
Inner
City Press
asked Gasana
about the
line. “It's
about national
ownership,” he
said. “It's
all about us.
Nobody should
champion
the MDGs
because they
got money.”
Another
speaker,
Jeffrey Sachs,
said that
Rwanda's
neighbors are
all inspired
by its
progress on
the MDGs.
Again one wag
had to note,
that's not
been the
message from
the neighbor
in Kinshasa --
which now, at
least
according to
the UN's Herve
Ladsous, is
belatedly
suspending
military
officers for
the 126 rapes
in Minova in
late November
2012.
In
offering this
thanks, Ban
Ki-moon cited
Rwanda's
President
Kagame and
Australia's
“Prime
Minister
Gilani.” Inner
City Press was
there,
and heard and
taped it.
Afterward,
the Australian
delegation
tried
to insist it
had not
happened. And
to
respond to
that, and
because the UN
often just
doctors up its
transcripts,
Inner City
Press is uploading
the audio clip, here.
In
fairness, Ban
was recounting
his call -- on
Skype -- to
courageous
schoolgirl
Malala in
Pakistan, and
about kicking
off a soccer
game in
front of
90,000 fans.
Afterward,
more
surprise was
expressed that
in his meeting
Thursday with
US
President
Barack Obama
-- that's a
name Ban
wouldn't get
wrong -- Ban
didn't
raise any
issues about
Africa,
“not even
about Mali,”
as
one African
diplomat put
it.
“Maybe
these things
seem important
to us here,
but are not
important even
to
Ban Ki-moon
out there,”
the diplomat
continued,
pointing
outside to
rainswept
First Avenue.
Perhaps not.
Watch this
site.
, 
