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At UN, Democracy Does Not Mean Openness, Nicaraguan
Priest Preaches Family, Staff Picnic
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 4 -- "Democratization
does not mean making everything public," Father Miguel
D'Escoto Brockman,
President of the UN General Assembly, told Inner City Press on October
3.
"The most important thing is unity," he said. "This is a family." Video
here,
from Minute 22:40.
Inner City
Press had asked for his position on the exclusion of the Press and
public from
the October 2 meeting of the GA's Committee on Relations with the Host
Country.
Although barred from entering, Inner
City Press interviewed those entering and
leaving, and gleaned that inside, Cuba had lodged a complaint about
difficulties its Vice President had in entering the U.S. for the GA's
General
Debate. Why would Father Miguel, a leader of the Sandinista revolution
in
Nicaragua against U.S.-based strongman Anastacio Somoza, want the
General
Assembly under his watch to conceal Cuba's complaint against the U.S.
as host
country?
D'Escoto with VP of Sudan, which D'Escoto
called "the hottest potato"
Father
Miguel said, "I had nothing to do with that decision," but guessed
that it was closed to not "unnecessarily add fuel to the fire." He
said, "It's like a husband and wife quarrel, is the press there? Some
things are private."
But he had
just bragged about Nicaragua's case against the U.S. in the
International Court
of Justice. That was a dispute, but everything was public. Why is the
UN so
secretive? Is it, as Father Miguel said, a family?
Among the
countries, no. Among the staff, somewhat. In the East Meadow of New
York's
Central Park on October 4, the UN's Department of General Assembly and
Conference Management held a picnic, complete with Colombian dances by
the UN's
Colombian Cultural Club. Inner City Press interviewed two of the
dancers,
neither of whom wanted to be identified by name, but who let drop that
they
will perform again in November, probably in the UN's Ex-Press Bar. That
was the
venue for the recent retirement party for DGACM's Yohannes Mengesha,
which
Inner
City Press wrote an article about it. It seems that the
head of DGACM, Shaaban Shaaban,
did not like the praise of Mengesha, taking it as an indirect criticism
of him.
No insult was intended.
Returning
full circle to the there of openness to the press, there is one
solution was
can think of: Shaabah Shaaban should finally hold a press conference
and engage
in questions and answers, among others things so that the work of his
large
department becomes better known. Even the so-far reclusive Angela Kane,
Under
Secretary General for Management, has finally consented to attend a
Press
briefing, this coming Thursday October 9. There, further topics of
tranparency
will be asked. Perhaps they will be answered.
Watch this site, and this (UN) debate.
* * *
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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