Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 27 -- After the UN Security Council adopted its Syria chemical weapons resolution 15-0, things got interesting.

  In the chamber, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius claimed the resolution provides for accountability, which is false; his Chinese counterpart said that Japan used chemical weapons against China, which is true.

  At the stakeout, Inner City Press asked Syria's Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari about the French sponsored event the previously date, Group of Friends of the Syrian People, where Saudi-sponsored rebel Ahmad al Jarba was declared the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

  Ja'afari replied that he told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in advance, that the so-called side event violated the UN Charter; he added that Fabius has a "surreal" view of the resolution and the law.

  History too, apparently. Inner City Press asked Fabius, when he came out, how the Jarba event complied with the UN Charter.

  Fabius said he hadn't fully understood what Ja'afari said.

  Inner City Press said, en pasant, "Clearly."

  Fabius said, Either did you, probably. Video here, from Minute 4:16.

  Then Fabius said that while perhaps there was an issue under "the rules" -- that would be, the UN Charter -- it was clear that Assad killed 1,500 people.

  But, it occurred, when Sri Lanka killed 40,000 people in 2009, France didn't call any meeting, much less declare someone other than Mahinda Rajapaksa to be the representative of the Sri Lankan people.

  From the riser, a reporter from Al Mayadeen asked Fabius what about France killing Algerians. Fabius said, that's not a question. Then he turned to those closer to him, saying let's find "a real journalist."

  And so it is more clear that this French government, far from respecting freedom of the press, deems those whose questions it does not like to be non-journalists.

   It is similar to the way France as "pen holder" on the Democratic Republic of the Congo made it its business to hand pick which correspondents can go on and cover the Security Council trip to the Great Lakes region, including Rwanda.

  Ban Ki-moon took only two questions, one from a reporter for among others France 24 and then Pamela Falk, the 2013 president of the UN Correspondents Association, host of a faux UN briefing by Jarba in July. The UK also called on her, after Reuters. This is how it works at the UN.

  But a question arises: what was Ban Ki-moon's response to being told, in advance, that the UN Charter was being violated by France in the ECOSOC Chamber with Jarba?

  Ban's Spokesperson's Office refused to answer Inner City Press' question about UNCA calling its session(s) with Jarba "UN briefings," saying, ask UNCA. That is not sufficient.

  It was said that Geneva Two should happen in mid-November; Australia's Gary Quinlan graciously stopped at the end of the evening and told Inner City Press that the next step is adopting the "humanitarian text" by next Wednesday. But wil that be a resolution or a Presidential Statement? Watch this site.