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As UN Excludes the Press, Cuba Complains of VP's
Treatment to Committee on U.S. Relations
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 2 -- While the Press was
excluded from the UN's Committee on Relations with the Host Country
meeting on
the morning of October 2, interviews by Inner City Press of those
entering and
exiting the meeting in the UN's basement Conference Room 3 determined
that Cuba
filed a complaint about how its vice president was treated in Montreal.
The
U.S. reportedly argued that the events in Montreal are not under U.S.
jurisdiction. No Canadian response was made on Thursday. "Further
inquiry" will be made.
The
question arises -- and has been asked in advance to the office of the
President
of the General Assembly, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann -- why
exclude the
public and press from a meeting concerning how individuals are treated
by the
U.S. in its capacity as host country of the United Nations? He has
called for democratization, revitalization and presumably meaningful
transparency of the General Assembly -- this will be a test. An answer
is anticipated on October 3.
Cyprus
as chair of the committee has only said, "it has always been this way."
That is not an answer. Cyprus' new ambassador was (made)
aware of the issue after this President's press conference during last
week's General Debate, but apparently without effect.
The U.S.,
when asked, has not been willing to openly say that it wants its deeds
kept secret. Coming down the pike are such matters as the possible
denial of visas to representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- the
independence of which has been recognized by Nicaragua, for what it's
worth -- and, prospecively, the exclusion of particular journalists
from the U.S..
General Assembly President d'Escoto
with Cuba's Vice President, Press not shown
Secondarily, if the independent press is
going to be excluded, ostensibly because the matters discussed are so
sensitive, why allow in the UN's in-house press, which churns out a
press
release? This Inner City Press report,
for the record, is coming out before the UN version, despite the
exclusion of
the Press from the meeting. But why the reflexive secrecy? We hope to
run the
response of Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann in this space -- he holds a
press conference on October 3. Watch this space.
Watch this site, and this Sept. 18 (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
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