By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 4 --
The UN
Security
Council was in
Kinshasa
Friday night,
planning to
head to
Eastern Congo
on Sunday, but
the UN in New
York refused
to answer
basic Press
questions such
as if they
would meet any
opposition
while in the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo. Video here and embedded below.
Secretary
General
Ban Ki-moon,
it must be
noted, a
week ago met
with
Saudi-sponsored
Syria rebel
boss Ahmad al
Jarba, and
ignored
a protest
under the UN
Charter of
France
sponsoring
Jarba in a UN
meeting room as
the "sole
legitimate
representative
of the Syrian
people."
Ban's
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
on Friday also
refused to
answer Inner
City Press'
request for
information
about the
Security
Council's
meeting in
Brussels with
the EU
Political and
Security
Committee,
saying "ask
Council
members."
That's a neat
trick -- Ban's
Office
"in
consultation"
with France
rejected Inner
City Press'
requests to
accompany and
cover the trip
on the UN
plane, as
it did in 2010
and 2008.
Even
thus Banned,
Inner City
Press mid-day
Friday
reported that
the topic of
the
International
Criminal Court
came up in the
Brussels
meeting and
Council
members were
told that the
ICC is
controversial
in Africa
because of its
politicization
(not unlike
Ban's and
France's Jarba
meetings.)
For
this African
trip, France
hand picked
three media to
go along as
scribes,
including Reuters
(whose UN
bureau has
spied for the
UN, click here)
and US state
media Voice of
America.
Neither
reported
anything on
the first day
of the trip.
The third
media, a
procedural
Council
reporter, was
first to break
radio silence
-- and said
that while
Rwanda's
president Paul
Kagame has
committed to
meet the
Council, a
meeting with
the DRC's
Joseph Kabila
was not yet
confirmed.
Amazing.
When
Inner City
Press
accompanied
the Security
Council in the
past, it
reported
on waiting for
hours in
N'djamena
while then
French
Ambassador
Jean-Maurice
Ripert
promised the
Idriss Deby
would come
meet with
Council
member.
Deby never
arrived, and
Ripert in
anger stopped
speaking to
the Press. (In
fact, Ripert
confronted
Inner City
Press in the
Kigali
airport, but that's
another story.)
By
contrast to
Nesirky's
refusal to
provide basic
information,
Rwanda's
Foreign
Minister
Louise
Mushikiwabo
when asked by
Inner City
Press what the
Rwanda
government
hopes results
from the
Security
Council trip answered,
"@innercitypress
#UNSC #Rwanda
Good/better
understanding
of regional
reality, and
what stakes
are."
So a
foreign
minister can
be responsive,
while Ban
Ki-moon's
Office of the
Spokesperson
is not?
Nesirky said
that the
function of
his Office's
staffer on the
trip, Jerome
Bernard, is
only to
"support the
journalists on
the trip" --
that is, those
hand-picked by
France. It
seems M.
Bernard
himself was
hand-picked:
he worked for
a dozen years
for Agence
France Presse.
The
Security
Council still
functions as a
neo-colonial,
non-transparent
institution.
This, not just
the often
cited vetoes,
is what has
held it back.
Ban's
Secretariat is
too often a
plaything of
the P3. But we
will continue
to cover this
trip. Watch
this site.
, 
