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By Matthew Russell Lee, Scope, song, II, song II

UN GATE, Oct 6 -- On Western Sahara, Inner City Press has repeatedly asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, his spokesmen and now Communications chief Melissa Fleming about sexual harassment charges against his representative Colin Stewart, which it has exclusively reported as credited here and even here.
 
  Now as Guterres prepares to reward harasser Stewart with a job elsewhere, while still protecting his crony Fabrizio Hochschild, he is giving the Western Sahara envoy post out: "Staffan de Mistura of Italy as his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara.    He succeeds Horst Köhler of Germany, who completed his assignment on 22 May 2019 and to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his steadfast and intensive efforts which laid the foundation for a new momentum in the political process on Western Sahara." Momentum? Colonialism and censorship support Guterres is killing the UN. Here's Mistura Q&A in 2017 with Inner City Press on video - will he end or benefit from Guterres' Press-ban?

  For the UNFCCC in Glasgow, the UN system of Guterres' allowance of fraud continues: " Like other parties to the Paris Agreement, Morocco has set its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC): a national plan highlighting climate actions, policies and measures governments aim to implement in response to climate change. However, in its submissions to the registry that is maintained by the UNFCCC secretariat, Morocco has included its projects in occupied Western Sahara. The reports are available at the UNFCCC website.153 Morocco’s first NDC submission of 2016 relies heavily on the “National Wind Plan 2020” and the “National Solar Plan 2020”. Combined, these two programmes alone account for 40% of Morocco’s envisioned emission-reduction through the listed unconditional actions. Both these programmes, as initially conceptualised, include a significant share of projects in Western Sahara. The same applies to the solar and wind plans towards the 2030 horizon, as included in Morocco’s submission. In addition, several other listed “national” actions are highly likely also being deployed in part in Western Sahara, such as importing supposedly “cleaner” LPG to replace other fossil fuels, make industrial firms more energy efficient and allow for privately owned wind farms. In 2021, Morocco submitted an update to its 2016 NDC that specifically includes the 40 MW Dakhla wind-powered desalination farm.154 As implied through the adjective ‘National”, an NDC is to correspond to a national territory – that’s where emissions count. In October 2017, WSRW asked the UNFCCC whether it was acceptable for a State Party to report on actions taken outside of its national territory. In August 2018 the UNFCCC responded that “the secretariat does not have a mandate to review or assess content of NDCs submitted by Parties”. Yet on the UNFCCC’s website the express purpose of the secretariat is described as “reviewing climate change information reported by Parties”.155 WSRW asked UNFCCC to clarify what its “review” is to address and whether it accepts that State Parties report progress toward their NDCs resulting from actions that are implemented outside of their national territory, as well as inside a Non-Self-Governing Territory without consent of the people of that territory.156 In July 2020, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC responded again that “the secretariat continues to not have a mandate to assess the content of Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by Parties”.157 There are two grave consequences to the UNFCCC secretariat’s apparent lack of concern for Morocco’s dishonest reporting. First, Morocco is allowed to artificially inflate its climate ambitions, which would be less impressive if it were to report only on actions it would undertake on a national level – as every other State Party to the UNFCCC is expected to do. The image of a climate champion is obtained, at least in part, through rolling out projects that serve its colonial ambitions in the territory it brutally occupies. At the moment, Morocco is regarded as one of seven countries whose NDCs are considered ”almost sufficient” to reach the 1.5°C Paris objective and one of only 17 countries that have submitted an NDC with higher ambitions in 2021 than in 2016.158 How would Morocco score if it were to report only its contributions on a national level? Second, Morocco has without impediment used the UN climate meetings – the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP) – as a platform to showcase its energy infrastructure projects on occupied land. The invasion of Western Sahara was part of the opening speech of COP22 hosted by Morocco in Marrakech, coming a day after Morocco’s national holiday in celebration of that very invasion.159 The official COP22 twitter account and COP22 website – both controlled by the Moroccan government as organisers of COP22 – were rife with Moroccan propaganda on Western Sahara. The UN Secretary-General himself asked UNFCCC to intervene regarding the erroneous map depicting Western Sahara as part of Morocco.160 Morocco also introduced a COP22 label for climate-friendly projects, which were accorded by the Comité de pilotage de la COP22, whose members have been appointed by the king of Morocco.161 Several projects in occupied Western Sahara today bear the COP22 label – creating the appearance that such projects have received some form of approval by the UNFCCC. The secretariat did not respond to WSRW’s question as to whether it accepts Morocco’s use of its name to accord a “COP22” label to projects in occupied Western Sahara. Subsequent COP meetings have provided Morocco with welcome opportunities to advertise its renewable projects, including those in occupied Western Sahara. Morocco is reportedly keen to attract investments at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.162 It is not the first time that the UNFCCC secretariat has been drawn into greenwashing the brutal occupation. In 2010, the Moroccan company Nareva, wholly owned by the Moroccan king himself, had requested carbon credits from the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for the Foum El Oued wind farm.163 However, the certifying company DNV turned down the proposal before it had been presented to CDM for approval. A DNV spokesperson stated that the firm originally believed that the wind farm was to be built in southern Morocco, but after a while began to suspect that this was not the case. “It was therefore fairly simple on our part. In January [2012] we disclosed that we would be negative to the project”, the spokesperson told the media.164 UNFCCC’s selective blindness regarding Morocco’s renewable energy projects in occupied Western Sahara seems to extend to other UN agencies. Since 2018, UNESCWA, the UN Economic and Social Mission for Western Asia, has published two reports that extensively cover Morocco’s renewable sector, ignoring the fact that a number of projects mentioned in the reports are located in Western Sahara.165 WSRW reached out to UNESCWA in 2018 and 2020, but the UN organisation never responded.166Meanwhile, the UN Global Compact is turning a blind eye to the creative reporting of its participants, obscuring their activities in occupied Western Sahara. Siemens Energy’s progress report enlists all countries in the world where the company has installed wind turbines, but fails to mention Western Sahara.167 Enel started replacing “Western Sahara” with specific location names, such as Boujdour, in 2018.168 The only time the UN Global Compact has seemingly intervened in the matter, was when Vigeo Eiris had to correct its progress report in 2018. In it, the company had claimed that “Vigeo Eiris were not found to have breached any of the 10 Principles of the United Nations Global Compact”. This incorrect statement was amended after a month, following a WSRW complaint."

 Guterres has repeatedly refused to answer, and denied Inner City Press access to the UN he lets dozens of Moroccan state media into as he and Fleming continue the ban on Inner City Press supported by a frivolous complaint filed against Inner City Press' coverage from the UN Security Council stakeout. So, after the December 2020 developments, on SoundCloud this song, here.

  On August 27 Guterres after massive delay gave the MINURSO post to Alexander Ivanko of the Russian Federation, who previously served as Director of Public Information for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo - where when, before Guterres ousted it, Inner City Press asked Ivanko five questions, four of which he essentially no-commented on, here.

  On December 26, 2020 amid report of abuse below, Morocco trolls comically called out not only Inner City Press, banned for questioning Guterres not only on his support for colonialism not only in Western Sahara but also Cameroon, CAR and elsewhere, but also a UN insider, "The Plant," Abdel Hamid Siyam, here.

This guy is let into every UN briefing, usually only asking about one issue, entirely silent on UN ban of Press. But the trolls don't like his questions either, though when asked what secret (or "closet") meeting it covered, they reply "We don't need to remember the facts.. Everyone knows the story."

Yeah - sounds like Melissa Fleming.

Guterres' role in orchestrating colonial lies, from Western Sahara to Cameroon, and censoring and banning independent Press and refusing its questions, is decisive. Here are just some of the Morocco state media Guterres and Melissa Fleming let in, and Steph Dujarric answers, from the UN Censorship Alliance (UNCA) --

Enhari Naoufal Moroccan News Agency (MAP) UN correspondent United Nations Secretariat Building Room S-0419 New York NY 10017 enharinaoufal@gmail.com Tel: 917-530-2673

Benyoussef Bouchra Quid.MA  Tel: (212) 758-6461 Mobile: (201) 873-5656 www.quid.ma @b.bouchra2001 -- "does not exist" (also a UN staff member - incredible)

There are more, and there will be more. Guterres should be fired.

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