As
MERCOSUR
Complains to
Ban of NSA,
He's Said to
"Hide
Behind" Pillay
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 5, updated
-- When
Venezuelan
foreign
minister Elías
Jaua
Milano spoke
to the media
at the after
he and
MERCOSUR
colleagues met
with Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon about
US spying,
Edward Snowden
and the
treatment of
Bolivia's
President Evo
Morales and
his plane,
the obvious
questions were
what did Ban
say, and would
the ministers
raise this to
Samantha
Power on her
first day
as US
Permanent
Representative
to the UN.
Only
the first of
these two
questions got
answered, and
that response
was
supplemented
to Inner City
Press by a
MERCOSUR
Permanent
Representative
who said Ban
"hid behind"
Navi Pillay,
the
High
Commissioner
on Human
Rights.
Ban
was
quoted in
Iceland as
saying that
Snowden has
"misused"
information
and his
position. (The
UN called it a
private
meeting.)
But this
resonated with
questions
raised by
UN
staff about
Ban's
treatment of
UN
whistleblowers.
But now Ban
says
that Pillay
has expressed
the UN's
position.
Inner
City Press
asked the
Snowden as
whistleblower
question, video
here at
Minute
15:20.
One
wanted to get
this from
Ban's office
and not a
diplomat, even
a
Permanent
Representative,
in the UN's
first floor
lobby to which
the
stakeout was
moved from
upstairs at
the Security
Council.
But Ban's
spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky, at
the noon
briefing
delayed (unlike
for
Rwanda's
foreign
minister on
July 25, here)
for the
stakeout, said
he
did not yet
have a
read-out. This
led some to
surmise that
he had not
been at the
meeting. Not
to pry, of
course, but
this too would
seem a
fair question.
The
foreign
ministers, the
UN listing of
which included
Antonio de
Aguiar
Patriota of
Brazil, Héctor
Marcos
Timerman of
Argentina, and
Luis
Almagro,
Minister of
Uruguay while
not mentioning
Bolivia, spoke
also
about Argentina's
sovereignty
over the Malvinas
Islands,
the blockade
of Cuba and,
at Ban's
request,
Haiti.
One
wanted to know
if the Haiti
discussion
address
cholera, which
the UN
brough to the
island and
then denied
all claims
about.
This Inner
City Press will be
pursuing.
Footnote:
At
the stakeout,
as another
media began
with a
question,
Pamela Falk
of CBS shouted
louder
invoking the
name of the UN
Correspondents
Association
-- ironic,
since it
or at least
its first vice
president
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters has
been
demonstrably
shown to spy
for
the UN. Story
here, Charbonneau
& UNCA
audio here,
document
here.
UNCA
should not get
the first
question in a
sit-down press
conference,
including
because it
gives it only
to those who
pay in money.
But at
a stakeout
like Monday's
it's even
worse: a
question was
inappropriately
grabbed for
UNCA, and
wasted on a
softball.
Meanwhile
the
Department of
Public
Information,
which gives
UNCA this
special
status and
attacks others
for it, didn't
have the video
archive of
the MERCOSUR
stakeout
online even as
of 1:33 pm,
and did
not respond
to a question
why from
the new
Free UN
Coalition for
Access.
And so
it goes at the
UN.
Update:
after
publication of
the above, the
archive video
went online, here.
The sound quality,
particularly
at the
beginning, is
low quality.
FUNCA would
ask, surmising
TeamPeople --
but it seems
DPI doesn't
answer, or
only answers
to UNCA, now
known as its
UN Censorship
Alliance.
We'll see.
Update
II: Ban
Ki-moon's readout
of the
meeting,
emailed out
after 5 pm, is
here.
, 
