The problem with the leadership of the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA) like much else at the UN, is that people get to a position because they have an agenda.

In this case the agenda is Palestine. People may aspire to positions at UNCA for no other reason except to keep reminding the world that there are suffering Palestinians and someone else must be blamed for this. Since last elections, the President is from The Daily Dawn of Pakistan, the First and only active VP is a free-lancer registered for the Saudi Press Agency; the Secretary is from the Maghreb Arab News Agency. Similarly one third of the Members-at-Large of the UNCA Committee, but even these Members-at-Large, like many other correspondents, do not show up usually to the Press Conferences and prefer to watch them on their screens. The simple truth is that unless you have an overriding agenda, you do not compete for positions - if you are accredited to the UN you probably prefer to spend your time doing other things then ask questions on TV. On the other hand, if you push the agenda, you also manage to influence the UN officials. If there is a competition for time between an UNCA official and someone else who may have a less focused interest in the UN, but who wants to see the UN really succeed in what may be some important area, you can bet that the UNCA official will do his best to push aside this intruder to what he considers by now has become his fiefdom. Let me demonstrate my case by describing what occurred today, June 28, 2006, on the occasion of the daily noon press conference of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

The Press Briefing dealt with the following topics: Montenegro; Timor-Leste; Sudan; the Security Council; Cyprus; Bangladesh; the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and the UNDP. There was no mention of the Israel & Palestine problems - those were covered in the previous day. But among the first questions were the following exchanges:

Question from the UNCA President: Does the Secretary-General have any opinion on the recent Israeli incursions into Gaza?

Spokesman: The Secretary-General has been following this situation very closely. I think yesterday he spoke to urge restraint on all parties. He was on the phone with a number of regional leaders, including President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, President Assad of Syria and he will be speaking in a short while to the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert. After that phone call we should be able to tell you a bit more about the Secretary-General’s position on all of this. We will either have a statement or the Secretary-General may come down to the stake-out and speak to you on this.

Follow up question from the UNCA President: The remarks he made yesterday…

Spokesman: I understand he’s following the situation very closely. He’s obviously very concerned about the humanitarian impact of any operations. He has repeatedly called for the release of the kidnapped soldier, but as I said to you, he’s continuing his consultations with people on the phone and we hope to have a bit more to say to you, around, right after 1:00.

Question from the First VP of UNCA: Regarding the humanitarian situation with the 1.3 million residents of Gaza who don’t have any electricity or water, is there going to be any sort of separate, aside from what the Secretary-General says, is he going to mobilize the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or any sort of humanitarian…?

Spokesman: Well the United Nations humanitarian agencies are already extremely present in those areas in Gaza and no doubt they are doing their utmost to try and alleviate the situation.

Follow up question from the First VP: Well since this is like, an uber-emergency, are they adding anybody?

Spokesman: We’ll check with the humanitarian side.

I must say that the Spokesman held himself very well, under this useless barrage, and I tip my hat to him on this occasion. I believe that people should be allowed to question freely, and I would be the first to stand up for their right they have to ask their questions, but what is the purpose of asking about adding further UN personnel, in conditions of fire, when it is known to the whole world that lots of do-gooders, and lots of European money, have been invested in humanitarian work with the Palestinians - without any measurable results. I do not want to over-stretch the point, but I was hurt personally, on a different occasion, when these two people went behind my back to complain that I am making statements on climate change issues, when all what I was doing was pose a question in an attempt at getting the information if a certain angle relating to the impact of climate change in Africa was to be blamed for some of the African misery? What I specially disliked, was the fact that they made no attempt to talk to me first, but supposedly ran to the UN accreditation officer to complain about me - raising the specter of NGO behavior - this coming from someone claiming Saudi credentials. As a member of UNCA I had all the right to have them speak to me first, we could have settled things if there was a misunderstanding, this before making their complaint. Further, as I understand they made a written complaint, when I asked for a copy, the accreditation officer did not give me such a copy - so now this seems like an Iranian Court at the UN, and all this because an agenda has created an atmosphere that is disruptive to good decorum. The victim here is no less then the UN institution itself.

I wrote this article also in an attempt to clarify further what I think is the need for UN reformation, as too many interests will always interfere with attempts at honest reform. It is a pity that so many people that work at the UN, because they want to see a better world, are handicapped by a few that see in the UN their playground.