UNITED
NATIONS, June
17 -- On
issues ranging
from Sri Lanka
to Syria,
Rwanda
to reform,
France to
freedom of
speech, the UN
openly favors
one
point of view
and tries to
marginalize
the other.
Moving
in that order,
after
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon was
accused of
being too
quiet as
40,000 Tamils
were killed in
Sri Lanka in
2009,
his UN
Censorship
Alliance,
still known by
some as the
UN
Correspondents
Association or
UNCA,
arranged to
screen inside
the UN a
government
film denying
war crimes.
When
Inner City
Press, at that
time an
elected UNCA
board member,
wrote about
how
the film
screening came
about, the
powers within
UNCA asked
that the
article be
taken off the
Internet, and
ultimately
tried through
Voice
of America,
which said it
had the support
of Reuters
and AFP,
to get Inner
City Press thrown out of
the UN.
(Instead,
Inner City
Press quit
UNCA and
co-founded the
Free
UN
Coalition for
Access).
On
Syria, by the
UN giving UNCA's president Pamela Falk of CBS
the first
question, on
June 14 one of
only two
questions to
Ban Ki-moon,
the
position of
some in the
West that a no
fly zone
should be
established
over Syria was
promoted.
That
same day, Ban's
Department of
Public
Information
demanded that
a mere sign
for FUNCA
be taken down
off Inner City
Press' door,
while UNCA
would be left
with two signs
at the
entrance
to the UN
press floor.
On
Rwanda, the
UN's new
consensus
seems to be to
blame the
country that
it abandoned
to a genocide
of one million
people for the
UN's own
failings in
the Eastern
Congo.
There
are moves to
marginalize or
stonewall any
one that
questions
against that
narrative,
like Inner
City Press asking
why France's
Herve Ladsous
should now
head UN
Peacekeeping
despite having
for France
argued for the
escape of the
genocidaires
in 1994.
So
here is a
first initial
take on who
runs UNCA, and
their
politics.
The president
for 2013 is
Pamela Falk of
CBS News,
present most
recently
on June 17
pressing to
see what it
would take to
get Ban
Ki-moon,
through deputy
spokesperson
Eduardo Del
Buey, to agree
to a no fly
zone over
Syria that she
characterized
as "limited"
and
"only twenty
five miles
in." Video
here.
UNCA's
first vice
president is Louis
Charbonneau
of Reuters,
seemingly a
pass through
for the UK
mission on
many positions
and documents,
rabidly
anti-Iran to
the point of
festooning
Reuters'
office door
with documents
mocking Iran.
These would
apparently be
permitted by
the Department
of Public
Information
rules agreed
with UNCA,
setting
off a witch
hunt against
even signs of
FUNCA.
Much
of the rest of
the Executive
Committee is
either rabidly
or
reflexively
anti-Assad; Agence
France
Presse's Tim
Witcher goes
beyond that to
be so
pro-Ladsous
that he even
filed a
complaint with
the UN on
March 8, 2013
leading with
how Inner City
Press asked a
question to
Ladsous.
In
this context,
for the UN to
be trying to
outlaw even a
sign of the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
while leaving
up two big
UNCA signs is
a total
violation of
the principle
of free
speech,
freedom of
association,
and
multi-party
systems. And
those on
UNCA's board
who,
having been
listed as
supporting the
rule, stand by
as it is
applied
to ban free
speech? Watch
this site.
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