UN's
Ban-tourage to Haiti Grows After Protest, of Turf Wars,
Hillary and Planes
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, January 16 -- As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and an
entourage prepare to leave the UN in New York at 6 a.m. on Sunday
morning, for Newark International Airport and, reportedly, a U.S.
provided plane to Port au Prince, the turf war to coordinate aid to
Haiti has just begun.
Despite
UN claims
to be at the center, at least in this country where it had 7000
peacekeepers, 490 international and 1200 Haitian staff, the U.S. has
taken control of the airport. With Ban slated to go to Haiti on
Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared Saturday.
Inner
City Press
asked Ban Ki-moon if he thought the $100 million in aid pledged by
U.S. President Barack Obama would channeled through the UN's $560
million flash appeal. Ban said that whether or not to work through
the UN is the decision of each sovereign government. Well, the Obama
Administration's $100 million is not going through the UN.
Well
placed
sources tell Inner City Press that went Ban asked Bill Clinton how to
fly to Haiti, the response was to "ask Hillary, she'll probably
give you a better plane than she'd give me."
Close
watchers of
Ban Ki-moon see in all this an attempt to re-brand Mister Ban.
Accompanied
by new spokesman Martin Nesirky, Ban has appeared each day at the
Security Council stakeout, providing television sound byte and avoid
questions such as the safety compliance of the UN headquarters
building which collapses, and his not counting national Haiti staff
in the casualty figures he provided.
Late
Friday, Inner
City Press published
a detailed report on how Ban and Nesirky chose
to accompany Ban to Haiti a TV reporter from Ban's native South
Korea, while excluding major wire services.
Later,
and after subsequent protest by spurned wires, an angry
Nesirky reversed course and included first two more wires, including
the one he used to work for, then also the Voice of America and CNN's
long time Diplomatic License correspondent. Another media was belatedly
asked if it wanted a seat on the plane but declined, just as the
South Korean Yonhap declined Ban's invitation to document his trip to
post-Nargis Myanmar.
UN's Ban and copter- Myanmar 2009, Haiti 2010 not yet shown
Troublingly,
it has
emerged that the UN initially reached out and hand selected which
journalists it wanted to accompany Ban. Inner City Press covered
this
self-selection of coverage in connection with Ban's controversial
trip to Myanmar, where by most accounts he was used and abused by
dictator Than Shwe.
A
humanitarian
tragedy like Haiti should not present such dangers to Team Ban. Some
see in the inclusion from the beginning of Korean television an
attempt to use the tragedy for promotion in the homeland, and wonder
if that means Ban wants to return there. But that's another story.
For the immediate future, along with other UN matters Ban and Nesirky
have tried to sideline, we will be reporting on Haiti, in as much
detail as allowed or possible. Watch this site.
* * *
As
UN
Ban Plans Sunday Haiti Trip, Picks South Korean and UN Media, Spurned
Sources Say
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, January 15, updated Jan 16 -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
will fly to Haiti
for a one-day trip on Sunday. To publicize his trip, Ban will be
accompanied
by journalists from France's wire service and television station, and
in a surprise to some, South Korean media.
Several
journalists who had put their names on the list to go demanded to
know why they were not included, while not only South Korea media but
also the UN's own in house self documentarians were selected.
One
reporter,
representing a major South Florida daily, says he was told by Ban's
spokesman Martin Nesirky, this is not like selecting a soccer team, I
don't have to say how I made choices, remember, I'm not new at this
job, I was with Reuters for years.
When
pressed,
Nesirky told the reporter the criteria included multi-media
platforms, "coverage of the UN," circulation, history of covering the
region and inclusion
in the directory of the UN Correspondents' Association. At least one
of the invitees does not comply with this last criterion. And it is
unclear, at least to some, if by "coverage of the UN" positive or
negative coverage is meant.
While
the inclusion
of South Korean media seems designed, several correspondents told
Inner City Press, to feed Ban Ki-moon's image in his native country,
they also saw a wider communications strategy at work.
The
earthquake
was and is a disaster, they were quick to acknowledge. (We agree.) But
for both Ban and his spokesman to resist for days now answering
questions on any topic but Haiti represented, to them, a drive to
remain "on message" as a politician would.
At
the January 15
noon briefing, Nesirky told Inner City Press that "I'm sticking with
Haiti today," when a question about a rocket attack near
the UN in Kabul was being raised. Video here,
from Minute 43:05; the exchange was omitted from the UN's
transcript.
While
Nesirky later relented and
allowed this and a question about the UN in Somalia to be asked, ten
hours later neither question had been answered. Even Nepal, on the
Security Council's agenda with the UNMIN Mission, got no UN
headquarters support from the UN on Friday, click here for
Inner City Press story today
on this and impunity.
UN's Ban and his spokesman on Jan. 14,
only Haiti questions, even those (on Haitian staff) not answered
Notably, a
2000 word
expose of corruption in Ban's UN that moved on American newswires on
Tuesday was never asked about or responded to, lost in the UN's wall
to wall statements on Haiti.
Even
on Haiti
matters, controversies were identified, outsourced and marginalized.
When questions arose about Ban not counting casualties above the UN's
national Haitian staff in the nation-specific presentations he made,
to member states and to the press, Ban next said he would not report
by nation, only Nesirky would.
Nesirky
in turn tried to explain the
UN's reporting focus on international staff, and then to argue that
while processed differently, reports of the deaths of national
Haitian staff were treated equally.
Ban
received
several waves of negative coverage in 2009, on topics ranging from
seeming weak with strongmen in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. (Inner City
Press went on Ban's May 2009 Sri Lanka trip, remaining on the issue
since and, in full disclosure, applying to cover Ban Haiti trip.)
Most
recently, Ban has been accused by French President Nicolas
Sarkozy of saying and accomplishing too little before, at and after
the Copenhagen climate change talks.
Responses
to
natural disasters are the UN's finest (media) hour, these long time
correspondents said, pointing to the post-tsunami omnipresence of
Kofi Annan's humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland.
In this case,
Ban
himself needs better coverage -- the correspondents tied it to Ban's
drive to get a second five year term as Secretary General, since more
than three years of his first term have expired -- and so he, rather
than Egeland's successor John Holmes, is presented day after day at
the stakeout camera.
And now on a
flash tour of Haiti, documented by
the UN itself and South Korean media. Mr. Ban has scheduled a meeting
with UN staff in New York for Monday at 11 a.m.. Watch this site.
Footnote:
when Nesirky was selected, and Inner City Press asked if the fact
that he speaks Korean and has family and professional tied to Korea,
having covered Seoul for Reuters, were part of the reason why, the
question was not answered. Then Nesirky came to a briefing and, while
taking no questions, pointed out that he speaks German as well, but
not French.
France is understood to have insisted that UN lead
spokespeople speak French, the UN's other working language. Now
French print, TV and wire are all included on the Haiti trip, along
with South Korean media. Whether all this assists in the drive to
assert the UN's centrality in coordinating aid and action in Haiti
remains to be seen.
Update
of Saturday, Jan 16, 1:30 p.m. -- Fifteen hours after the
publication
of the article above, the UN's Ban and Nesirky reversed course and
moved to include two more wire services on Ban's trip, increasing the
size of the Ban-tourage. Their initial exclusion, and the inclusion
of South Korean media (and UN in house documentarians as media)
remains unexplained. Watch this site, and see this morning's Inner City
Press story on U.S. description, with little UN in it, of aid work in
Haiti, here.
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