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At UN, Untouchable Fashion Show Livens
ECOSOC, China Chides NGOs about Darfur
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
July 2 -- The very surreality of the
UN sometimes pierces through the fog. Wednesday night a group of
blue-clad Dalit
/ "Untouchable" women from India participated in a fashion show while
tuxedoed waiters passed platters of sushi and speeches praise the
benefits of
the two-pit, pour-flush toilet. They had come to thousands of miles to
attend
this week's "High Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council,"
an event few reporters at the UN can understand, much less cover. Each
day
press conferences have been held, but few questions have been asked,
and fewer answered, about ECOSOC.
When
China's envoy to Africa Liu Guijin came to speak on Tuesday, the
moderator
quickly sought to cut off questions about Zimbabwe and Darfur, and
limit the
topics to ECOSOC. Afterwards, Inner City Press asked Liu Guijin about
his
statement,
a week previous in Beijing, that some Western
media and NGOs misrepresent China's role in Sudan and turn rebel groups
against
China. Inner City Press asked if he was aware of a statement at the UN
on June
17 by John
Prendergast, that Chinese oil workers could be targeted.
"Yes I have heard of that," Liu Guijin
said. Then it was back to ECOSOC.
But the
Dalit women were irrepressible. In one appearance, they brought plastic
bags of
human excrement, which is turned into fertilizer. Bindeshwar
Pathak, the founder of the Sulabh
International Social Service Organization, said he wished some of the
focus
spent on the intake of food was shifted to issues surrounding its exit.
In the
audience, a longtime diplomat who served six years in New Delhi told
Inner City
Press that India's Ambassador was not at the event because of
discomfort at the
Untouchable issue. Perhaps it was the excrement, one wag quipped. Tall
models
walked down the catwalk accompanied by Dalit women in blue robes.
Outside the
East River flowed, inside there was liquor and cheese and lentil and
chicken.
It is the year of sanitation. At the UN even this is turned to glitz.
ECOSOC press conference in nearly empty room,
Untouchable fashion show not shown
As for the
ECOSOC event, Inner City Press asked Chairman Leo Merores if
there would
be any carbon offsetting of the gashouse gasses emitted for travel to
the session,
at least those on climate change. No, as it turns out. Video here,
in which Under Secretary General Sha Zukang
tells Inner
City Press of his moves to reform and strengthen DESA and,
refreshingly, calls
his and DESA's performance "miserable."
There was and is a
need for
an update on the corruption charges against DESA's
Guido Bertucci. But at least
questioning of Sha Zukang was allowed, unlike earlier this week with
Rajendra Pachauri
and Lord Nicolas Stern. After that, Inner City Press asked the latter,
who
despite saying he doesn't work with the British government has an
office in the
Bank of England, to comment on Ban Ki-moon's reported coup of
convincing Saudi
Arabia to pump 200,000 more barrels of oil. Well there's short term and
long
term, he answered diplomatically. Lord (oh Lord), you got that
right. Just ask the Untouchables.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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