McFaul
Retells Uzbek - Kyrgyz Stand Off
Without Any UN, Introduced by
Censor Ensor at GWU
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 4 – Amid breathless
stories about how little the
new US Administration cares
about the UN -- the Secretary
of State may not come to the
ministerial meeting of the
Security Council this month
and there may be be any
ministerial meeting in April
under US presidency of the
Council - it's worth reviewing
how the last administration treated
and left the UN.
They allowed
the UN under Ban Ki-moon to
engage in corruption
and censorship; they said
little when the UN killed
10,000 people in Haiti with
cholera and paid nothing. In
retrospect, they hardly took
it seriously. Only yesterday,
March 3, Michael McFaul spoke
at George Washington
University and in recounting
the Obama administration's
response to the Kyrgyz - Uzbek
tensions said the US and
Russia together worked it out,
with no mention of the UN or
Jan Kubis at all. So much for
respect. (Instead, McFaul
mentioned that Samantha
Power was across the
hall from him, as if her name
by itself would stop genocide:
not.)
Introducing McFaul at GW was
David Ensor, who at
Voice of America worked
with Steve
Redisch to try to get
Inner City Press thrown
out of the UN. Ensor
picked the questions, at least
two from VOA as well as adding
that "VOA is on Snapchat." Here
is Ensor's July 31, 2012
spin to the Broadcasting
Board of Governors. Later,
after a few FOIA responses
showed this, his VOA /
Broadcasting Board of
Governors just stopped giving
out documents under FOIA.
We'll have more on this.
Sergey
Kislyak was slated for the new
United Nations counter-terrorism
Under Secretary General
position, sources have told
Inner City Press as it published
on February 15 - but now
"it is unlikely." Given his
higher profile now, the UN
would be putting itself in the
spotlight with such an
appointment. The delayed
budget cuts could begin.
And so,
Inner City Press' sources
exclusively tell it, there is
another candidate, also
Russian: Andrey Kurdskikh. The
sudden death of Russia's Ambassador
to the UN Vitaly Churkin, and
the likely retirement of
Russia's long-time
representative in the UN
Secretariat Dmitry Titov, will
necessitate other moves,
involving a current spokesperson.
We'll have more on this.
At the UN
there has been talk since the
beginning of the year about
the new Under Secretary
General for Counter-Terrorism
position, but UN spokesman
Farhan Haq on February 15
refused to answer the most
basic question from Inner City
Press about it. From the UN
transcript:
Inner City Press:
the Under-Secretary-General
for counter-terrorism — many
people are speaking about the
position — is it something
that needs, like the SRSG
[Special Representative of the
Secretary-General] on
migration, any kind of
approval by ACABQ [Advisory
Committee on Administrative
and Budgetary Questions], or
is it fully funded and ready
to go? What's the status
of USG counter-terrorism?
Deputy Spokesman
Haq: I would actually
have to see where we are with
that right now.
When Haq
left the UN for the day at
4:30 pm, he had not answered
Inner City Press' questions.
On March 3, the UN's lead, also
holdover, spokesman Stephane
Dujarric left the briefing
podium as Inner City Press
began asking a question,
saying he would answer
"tomorrow" - meaning Saturday,
adding "I'm lazy." This is
today's UN.
UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres has
extended the contract of
Obama-nominee Jeffrey Feltman,
as Inner City Press first
reported on January 27
(leading the UN Spokesman to
call it "despicable.")
It seems the US Mission is
comfortable - some add, for
now.
Also on
February 13 Guterres has put
atop UN Peacekeeping its fifth
Frenchman in a row,
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, whom
Inner City Press named
as one of three Francois
Hollande nominees on February
8.
Meanwhile news wire Reuters,
whose Stephen J. Adler vows to
cover Washington aggressively,
has done little but retype the
UN's press release, here
and here.
Reuters did not mention that
France has controlled UN
Peacekeeping for 20 years,
despite sexual abuse and
negligent sanitation scandals,
much less that Feltman was
Obama's nominee.
This is
not mentioned by AFP
either; a Google News search
10 hours after the UN's
announcement didn't even find
a Voice of America story on
Feltman. Why is the UN so
UNaccountable? We'll have more
on this.
Hollande
is soon to leave power; Obama
has already left. Do these
choices signify the claimed
meritocracy? Are they smart
for the UN? Has there been
enough House-cleaning? Seems
not.
There was a
female candidate for UN
Peacekeeping, also French, Sylvie
Bermann. While the UN
may claim, as it did in the
case of Salam
Fayyad, that they
consulted with the US about
Feltman, Inner City Press
predicts Feltman's extension,
like Fayyad, will bring
conflict. News, too. Watch
this site.
Antonio Guterres was chosen as
the UN's new Secretary General
in a closed-door process that
was paradoxically praised as
transparent. Forty two days
into his tenure, he is on a 12-day
trip to Saudi Arabia,
the UAE and Egypt, accompanied
and led by his predecessor's
(and Hillary Clinton's) Gulf
political adviser Jeffrey
Feltman. His holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric is
spinning
UN-friendly scribes with
quotes about how Guterres was
ostensibly
misled by US Ambassador
Nikki Haley. This is not
propitious.
Who is
traveling with Guterres?
Unlike many countries, it has
not been announced or
disclosed. But Inner City
Press, which Dujarric and the
UN's Cristina Gallach evicted
from the UN (and restrict
it still) understands
from sources it includes not
only Dujarric and Feltman but
also Feltman's "plant"
Katrin Hett. When Inner City
Press asked about her
position, Dujarric called
the question "despicable." Who
is running this show?
When Saudi
Arabia's foreign minister, in
his first meeting with
Guterres in the last nine
days, effusively greeted
Feltman, it should have set
off alarms. But it didn't.
What was the role of the UAE,
along with Feltman, in telling
Guterres to appoint Salam
Fayyad to the Libya envoy post
previously occupied by
Bernardino Leon, bought
by the UAE? Questions,
questions.
It is
reminiscent of one of Ban
Ki-moon's trips to Egypt, when
Mubarak asked him why there
were no Arabs in the UN
delegation. No, Ban said, we
have an Egyptian - as a
security guard. This story
long circulated among the Arab
heads of state the inept Ban
met with. We want Guterres to
be different - for the good of
the UN. Watch this site.
***
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