As US Taps Peter Pham
as Great Lakes Envoy Inner
City Press Asks UN Of
Burundians In Tanzania
By Matthew
Russell Lee, CJR Letter
PFT Q&A
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, November 9 – The US
State Department today named a
Special Envoy on the Great
Lakes Region of Africa
including on refugee flows, a
topic Inner City Press has
been covering without the
requisite transparency or
cooperation from the UN with
regard to Burundi refugees in
Tananzia and other issues.
Here is the US State
Department spokesperson
Heather Nauert's announcement:
"Secretary Pompeo is pleased
to announce the appointment of
Dr. J. Peter Pham to serve as
the United States Special
Envoy for the Great Lakes
Region of Africa. Dr.
Pham will be responsible for
coordinating the
implementation of U.S. policy
on the cross-border security,
political, and economic issues
in the Great Lakes region,
with an emphasis on
strengthening democratic
institutions and civil
society, as well as the safe
and voluntary return of the
region’s refugees and
internally displaced
persons. Dr. Pham serves
as Vice President and Director
of the Africa Center at the
Atlantic Council. He
brings to the Department vast
Africa experience as the
former vice president of the
Association for the Study of
the Middle East and Africa
(ASMEA) and editor-in-chief of
its quarterly Journal of the
Middle East and Africa; an
associate professor of
Africana studies at James
Madison University, where he
was director of the Nelson
Institute for International
and Public Affairs; and on the
Senior Advisory Group of the
U.S. Africa Command. Dr. Pham
will assume the work
previously undertaken by
Senior Coordinator for the
Great Lakes, Ambassador Larry
Wohlers. U.S.
ambassadors to the countries
of the Great Lakes region
remain charged with the
conduct of bilateral
relations. Dr. Pham will
work in close coordination
with the Assistant Secretary
for African Affairs and our
ambassadors in the region to
further the Department’s work
toward lasting peace,
stability, and economic
prosperity in the Great Lakes
region." We'll have more on
this. When "Addressing
Contemporary Protection
Challenges in Complex Crises"
was presented across First
Avenue from the UN by UNHCR's
Volker Turk on November 2,
Inner City Press went, to ask
two questions. Video here.
It asked Turk, who it knew had
toured refugee camps of
Burundians in Tanzania, if the
UN really thinks it's safe for
these Burundians to return, as
Tanzania tries to pressure
them to leave. Turk emphasized
that some want to return, to
some unnamed farming
communities, and it is UNHRC's
job to help. Sure. But what
about the pressure from
Tanzania and indirectly
Nkurunziza. As with a question
about Libya, Turk largely
dodged. It was Antonio
Guterres, we note, who
politicized UNHCR including as
part of his campaign for
Secretary General. But we
remain grateful to the host.
Previously there Inner City
Press asked UN Peacekeeping
official Thomas Kontogeorgos
what the UN has done about its
negligent loss of weapons and
ammunition - which Inner City
Press asked about IN the UN
before being banned as cover
up by SG Antonio Guterres and
his USG Alison Smale. Kontogeorgos
to his credit
answered, only
somewhat
evasively,
that DPKO
"provided
inputs" to the
Small
Arms Survey,
and now UNPOL
passes
information to
INTERPOL (the
disappearance
of whose head
Guterres has
said nothing
about, despite
written
questions from
Inner City
Press.). At
the end of the
IPI program,
Youssef
Mahmoud spoke
about the
elephant(s) in
the room,
selling arms.
Afterward Dr.
Mihaela
Racovita
of SAS told
Inner City
Press they are
trying to make
further
inroads with
DPKO, for
example with
the mission in
Mali. We hope
to have more
on this - the
lawless ban by
Guterres and
Smale, for
reporting on
UN corruption,
is not
helpful. But
we will not
stop. Back
on September 5, hours after in
the UN Security Council
chamber UK Ambassador Karen
Pierce said
she supported the morning's
meeting about Nicaragua due to
refugee flows, across the
street from the UN Inner City
Press asked her why this logic
didn't apply to the confict in
the former British Southern
Cameroons and the flight of
Anglophones from state
violence into Nigeria.
Periscope video here.
Pierce replied that a country
is less likely to end up on
the Security Council's agenda
if it is taking some positive
steps. But given 36 year
Cameroonian head of state Paul
Biya's torching of villages,
what are his positive steps? A
sceptic might point to the
natural gas deal he signed
with UK-based New Age, which
UK Minister Liam Fox
bragged around as showing UK
companies can still get deals
after Brexit.
Also
on the panel on the "Culture
of Peace," moderated by Kevin
Rudd, was Secretary
General Antonio Guterres' head
of policy planning Fabrizio
Hochschild. When Inner City
Press began a question to
Hochschild, who had spoken
with gruesome examples from
Colombia of the need for
opposing sides to humanize
each other though
“dignification,” Rudd cut it
off.
Stepping off the
crowded elevator at ground
level Inner City Press
endeavored to ask Hochschild
the questions, both Cameroon
and whether Guterres and his opaque
Global Communicator Alison Smale,
purporting to ban Inner City
Press from the UN for life
without once speaking with it,
should engaged in some
dignification. He declined to
answer -- declined to dignify
the question, so to speak --
then said “Ask Steph.”
It was a
reference to Guterres'
spokesman Stephane Dujarric,
who Smale has twice written
would answer Inner City Press'
question but who has refused
to for a full week.
This as
Inner City Press, already
banned from the UN for 64 days
amid its questions on
Guterres' inaction on Cameroon
with the country's ambassador
Tommo Monthe heading the UN
Budget Committee, has an
application pending to cover
the UN General Assembly as it
has for the past 11 years.
Dignification, indeed. We'll
have more on this.
***
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