On
Syria,
UN At Noon
Denies Arab
League
Request, Then
Selectively
Confirms
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 16 --
At the public
UN noon
briefing on
Monday,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
Deputy
Spokesman
Eduardo del
Buey was
asked, "Has
the Arab
League made a
formal request
for help to
the UN?"
Del
Buey answered,
on
camera, "I
don’t believe
they have,
no."
Action
returned to
the UN
Security
Council, where
a German
spokesman
complained to
the Press that
Russia's
re-draft of
their
resolution on
Syria had only
just been
e-mailed out,
and only to
the
experts. Click
here for that
Inner City
Press story.
Hours later,
some in the UN
press corps
complained
that Del
Buey's public
answer had
been
superseded,
but only to a
few. There
was an Agence
France Presse
story, quoting
not Del Buey
but a lower
ranked UN
spokesperson
Vannina
Maestracci
that, "At the
request
of the League
of Arab
States, the
OHCHR has
agreed to
train
observers
and will
deploy to
Cairo to do
this
training."
So what
changed,
between the
public noon
briefing,
which Inner
City Press and
other
attended, and
this quote? To
be sure, Inner
City
Press e-mailed
Ms. Maestracci
and asked "if
you said the
below,
when, to whom
and in
response to
what?"
She replied,
"yes, at the
request of the
League of Arab
States, the
Office of the
High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights has
agreed to
train
observers and
will deploy to
Cairo to do
this
training. You
can find this
information in
the transcript
of today's
briefing."
And sure
enough,
although not
e-mailed out
to UN
correspondents,
even those few
present at
Monday's UN
noon briefing,
there was this
addendum,
inserted in
brackets:
[The
Deputy
Spokesperson
later said
that, at the
request of the
League of Arab
States, the
Office of the
High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights has
agreed to
train
observers and
will deploy to
Cairo to do
this
training.]
What
does this mean
- that Del
Buey read out
this answer
over the UN's
internal
"squawk"
loudspeaker,
only to those
journalists
who were
sitting
waiting in
their
cubicles?
(c) UN Photo
Ban Ki-moon
with South
Koreans, Maestracci
behind Kim
Won-soo
For the
record, Inner
City Press has
repeatedly
asked Del
Buey, and his
boss Martin
Nesirky, to
ensure that
after-arising
answers that
are "squawk"
are also sent
by email, to
correspondents
that are not
in their
cubicles but
out covering
the UN, as
Inner City
Press was on
Monday
afternoon,
interviewing
USG Malcorra
about alleged
UN negligence
and death in
South Sudan.
But this is
what is called
spoon-fed
journalism, at
Ban
Ki-moon's UN:
we'll have
more on this,
watch this
site.
, 
