Ban
on Africa at
UN, 10
Questions,
None on
Africa,
Meeting Coup
Leaders?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 19
-- The UN
under
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
says it is
very concerned
with Africa.
Over 50% of
the work of
the UN
Security
Council
concerns
Africa.
But when Ban
and his
spokesman
chose and took
10 questions
on Wednesday
about the
upcoming
General
Assembly, not
a single one
concerned
Africa.
Afterward
a
UN official
replied that
no Africa
questions were
asked.
Inner
City Press had
said in
advance it
wanted to ask
a question and
to be
put on the
list that the
Office of the
Spokesperson
maintains.
From
the first
question until
the tenth by
raised hand it
sought to ask.
For example:
"You
spoke of the
Sudans, and of
your meetings
with leaders.
After the NAM
summit, Sudan's
foreign
minister said
you had met
with Omar al
Bashir, who is
indicted by
the ICC for
genocide,
about four
issues.
Were
there four
issues?
What was
accomplished?
And next week
will
you be
meeting with
the Guinea
Bissau leader
who was put in
by the coup
d'etat in
that
country?"
There
are other
questions that
should be
answered. For
example,
beyond Mali
and the Sahel,
what is the
UN doing to
ensure that
the shelling
of Kismayo in
Somalia, done
in
conjunction
with the UN
funded AMISOM
mission,
comports at
least with
the laws of
war?
And,
still pending
after Ban's
chief of
peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous
refused
to answer it
not due to any
lack of time,
why did the UN
use
international
funds for
flight to try
to recruit one
Congolese
militia, the
Mai Mai, to
fight another,
the M23
mutineers?
One
continues to
expect some
better UN
communications
and even
Department
of Public
Information
strategy, both
on even
handedness and
some
commitment to
independent
and free press
and questions,
if not
answers. We'll
see. Watch
this site.
Footnote
on
yet another
continent:
eight
questions into
Ban's presser,
incredulous
that it could
reach that end
without any
question on
Africa, Inner
City Press
tweeted it.
Seeing the
tweet, a
colleague
noted that
there were no
questions on
Latin America
either. Two
continents, no
questions.
Some United
Nations.
, 
