Lost in Washington? The Disappearing Director-General of UNESCO
The night of Dec. 12, with the sold-out closed-to-the-press gala dinner, Bokova as guest of honor, came and went. Not a peep about it from UNESCO. No press releases. No photos on the UNESCO site. Nothing in the press. Not a whisper to suggest Bokova was in Washington.
On Dec. 13, because I was writing about her visit, I set out to confirm that she had actually materialized in Washington. You might suppose that would be a fairly easy thing to do. She is, after all, the director-general of UNESCO. UNESCO has an amply staffed press office in Paris, and a liaison office at UN headquarters in New York. The UN has a UN Information Center in Washington. And I had the email address and phone number of the aide who had been ducking in and out of meetings to organize Bokova’s Washington trip.
I began working my way through the list, starting with the Paris press office, to catch them before the office closed, six time zones ahead of the U.S. east coast. Got nothing but voicemail.
I phoned the UNESCO liaison office in New York, and was told by the staffer who answered the phone that she had no idea where the director-general was, and didn’t know where her own office colleagues were, either. They had gone out, maybe to lunch. Call back in an hour. Or maybe an hour and a half.
I phoned the UN Information Center in Washington, and reached a congenial staffer who told me that he had no information on the schedule or whereabouts of the UNESCO director-general, apart from a notice that she would be in Washington on Dec. 13 (not on Dec. 12). He had received from UNESCO no further information on what she was doing, whom she was seeing, or when she was leaving. It seems that UN agencies are not expected to keep UN Information Centers informed of anything unless they are in the mood to do so.
Once again, I checked the UNESCO site. There was a press release dated Dec. 13 that mentioned Bokova, but it had nothing to do with her Washington trip. If anything, it implied she was elsewhere, maybe Paris, or Latin America. It was about her designation of a young Colombian social scientist as the winner of a prize for research on youth violence. This was beginning to feel like we’d entered the realms of Hitchcock’s vanishing man in North by Northwest.
I was about to call the UNESCO aide, Papagiannis (who had been too busy organizing meetings for Bokova to disclose what meetings he was organizing), when I received an email from him, responding to one of my phone messages. It said only: “I got your call. Our meetings are very fluid. At the end of the visit there will be a press release, which you will have access to.”
OK, so that amounted to confirmation from a UNESCO source that Bokova was indeed in Washington. Since then, UNESCO has posted on its site her speech at the Dec. 12 US/ICOMOS dinner, inviting the assembled guests to “think big.”And the Paris press office, in response to another of my queries, has confirmed that Bokova was indeed there, in Washington, and delivered this address in person. But beyond that, “No press releases on this visit are planned at this point.”
Perhaps there’s nothing more going on here than the head of a U.S.-defunded UN agency enjoying the Washington sunshine and social life, in which case, Merry Christmas. Everyone needs a little time to unwind. But this is unusual behavior, and given UNESCO’s interest in getting hold once again of $79 million or more per year in U.S. tax dollars, at the expense to the U.S. not only of a lot of money, but of waiving America’s own law and eroding the credibility of American policy that the Palestinians must arrive at statehood via a negotiated peace with Israel, this trip is worrying. What’s UNESCO Director-General Bokova doing in Washington that is so fluid and so secret?
Claudia-did you cross reference Bokova’s itinerary with Arne Duncan and other senior DoED officials? Given Ban Ki-moon’s statements from a few months ago that they see education as the UN’s top tool for gaining implementation of their agenda, that’s where I would look. Think about that statement. Not their ed agenda, their entire agenda. Social, economic, political, environmental, Islam as the largest voting bloc, all of it.
Maybe Bokova was meeting with the accreditation agencies or the federally-funded behavioral ed labs. Both have been doing the legwork for UNESCO’s agenda for decades. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/is-accreditation-the-enforcer-for-unescos-vision-of-solidarity/
Maybe she was meeting with the officials running the Data Quality Campaign in DC collecting what UNESCO calls “psychotherapeutic data” on the students.
Lots of possibilities here that pertain to the Transformation UNESCO has in mind.
It’s wonderful to see real journalists still exist though I think there are more UFO sightings than credible journalist ones..
I’ll put out an obvious and deliberatly unsaid hypothesis: She was meeting and coordinating with fellow travellers in the congress and/or White House to coordinate strategies to subvert U.S. law. Wanna bet San Fran Nan was paid a visit?
There is little doubt that UN thug-o-crats are up to no good, and also receiving many helping hands from Obama and gang (think Huma Abedin, Hill’s Deputy COS, the most dangerous Muslim Brotherhood Mafia operative within the body politic) as one such handy helper. And this is easier said than done, even if the Islamist-in-Chief had to obey the law – this time – to defund UNESCO.
That being said, we all know that there is more than one way to do ‘business’ in Washington and it is this business which is keeping the elusive UNESCO gal away from prying eyes.
More to the point, Obama, despite his so called vote against PA statehood he did no such thing. He could have blocked Abbas’s latest putsch, not unlike Bush the elder did during his tenure, and Bush was no friend of Israel’s either…but that’s for another time. However, the POTUS’s record is most relevant to the issue at hand….coming full circle.
In any case, it is imperative to keep sharp eyes on this UN reprobate, as she is getting her mitts – one way or another – on taxpayer funds, despite its illegality.
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/11/06/obamas-second-term-plans-for-israel-if-re-elected-going-for-broke-addendum-to-stunning-video-exposing-islamist-in-chiefs-mendacity-re-israel-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
She is probably consulting w/ other UN crooks on how to embezzle more funds from the UN. Heard she was meeting w/ Kofi Anan’s son…
Thank you Claudia for some great journalism!
I have nothing to add – the facts speak for themselves, even as Bokova does not. Facts, huh, I remember when those were considered a standard, even required part of journalism. Along with US laws and stuff. Oh yeah, back in the day, …
Whatever that UNESCO woman may want from us in Washington, “Just say NO!”.
Remember UNESCO is funded by the Saudi’s now.
I look forward to further dispatches…dog them and force the issue!
I admire your tenacity. See it through !