Obama
Speech at UN
Doesn't
Mention Yemen
or S Sudan,
Much Less
Ban's Nepotism
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 20
-- The UN was
primed for
Barack Obama's
final General
Assembly
speech as US
President.
Would the UN's
decay in the
last eight
(really, ten)
years come to
the fore?
First
Obama came
late; Chad's
Deby took his
place. Then
Obama spoke
for 47 minutes
but did not
even once
mention Yemen,
where
US-supported
airstrikes
have killed
more than
1,000
children. He
did not
mention South
Sudan.
He
said, “we’ve
pushed for
transparency
and
cooperation in
rooting out
corruption” -
but did not
mention the
ongoing UN
bribery case,
of John Ashe
(RIP) and Ng
Lap Seng, much
less Ban
Ki-moon's lack
of
transparency,
on nepotism
and jobs for
insiders like
Han Seung Soo.
Han is
Ban's mentor,
now a UN
official
moonlighting
on the board
of South
Korea's Doosan
and of
Standard
Chartered, the
UN's bank. Who
is Obama's
“we”? And
where is the
push?
While
many will
focus on
inaction in
Syria, which
allows the UN
Secretariat to
blame “the
member
states,” what
about the UN
killing more
than 10,000
people with
cholera in
Haiti, then
citing
immunity?
What about the
increasing
bursts of rape
and sexual
abuse by
peacekeepers,
even as the US
Mission's
Ambassador for
“Reform”
Isobel Coleman
delivers
praise to Ban
Ki-moon's
supposed “zero
tolerance”
policy --
while Ban's
head of
peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous
has publicly
linked the
rapes to
“R&R”? Video here.
How about
Ban's own
increasing
nepotism -- promoting
his own son in
law
Siddharth
Chatterjee to
the top UN job
in Kenya
without
recusal -- and
the Ng Lap
Seng / John
Ashe UN
bribery case?
What has the
Obama
administration
done or even
said about any
of these?
The US
continues to
support the
Saudi-led
Coalition's
airstrikes on
Yemen; Ban
took the
Saudi-led
Coalition off
the UN's
Children and
Armed Conflict
annex.
This
undermines
other UN human
rights lists
-- but Ban is
leaving the UN
(coyly running
for president
of South
Korea, and
using the UN
to do so), as
Obama leaves.
There
is lip service
to
multi-lateralism,
but while Ban
Ki-moon has
actively
harmed the UN,
the Obama
administration
has done
nothing. Who
will they
choose to come
after Ban?
Watch this
site.
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