To Whom It May Concern

United Nations Office of Media Accreditation

I am writing to protest the rejection by the United Nations Office of Media Accreditation of my applications and those of Lorenzo Ervin for press credentials as news correspondents at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism.

This evening, in phone calls to me and Mr. Ervin, a female member of your staff informed us that our applications as correspondents for Black Scholar magazine and The Black World Today were denied because we are not full-time employees of these African-American news organizations.

The staff member, whose name we did not get, said that Mr. Ervin and I were also rejected as correspondents for WIDR Radio, a student-run station at Western Michigan University (WMU) where I am an associate professor of communication. I was told that press credentials for the WCAR will not be issued to non-profit organizations. WIDR is affiliated with a university, which is a non-profit organization.

Bottom line, the staff member said, the United Nations will not give media credentials to free lance journalists. She said that Mr. Ervin and I are considered free lance journalists because we are not full-time employees of The Black World Today, WIDR Radio, or the Black Scholar magazine (for which I was formerly the managing editor). Our applications were rejected even though they included letters of assignment from the publisher and editor of the Black Scholar, the national editor of The Black World Today, and the news director of WIDR Radio.

Unlike such mainstream news organizations as CNN and the New York Times, most African-American and student news organizations can rarely afford to send full-time reporters to an international conference that is held abroad like the WCAR. Consequently, since Mr. Ervin and I will be in Durban for the NGO Forum, we agreed to be unpaid correspondents at the WCAR for the Black Scholar, The Black World Today, and WIDR Radio. We did so because for a significant number of people, these three news organizations will serve as the primary sources of information about the WCAR.

Mr. Ervin and I are experienced African-American journalists, who for the past 30 years have each written about news and issues that are frequently ignored by the mainstream press in the United States. Mr. Ervin is also an experienced radio broadcaster.

As a member of the faculty at Western Michigan University, I want to point out that WIDR Radio serves the some 28,000 students who attend the university, as well as many of the approximately 90,000 people who live in the city and county of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the university is located. I am a journalism educator, and I am appalled that the U.N. Office of Media Accreditation would deny a student-run radio station at a major university the opportunity to provide news coverage of an historic event like the WCAR.

The United Nations' denial of media credentials to free lance journalists like Mr. Ervin and me, who have been assigned by bona fide news organizations to cover the WCAR, will give the mainstream media a virtual monopoly at the conference. As a result, the diversity of news coverage will be severely weakened. This is censorship, in effect.

As an African-American, I cannot help but wonder if the exclusion of free lance journalists from covering the proceedings inside the WCAR is tied to the threat of the United States to boycott the conference if the issue of reparations for the enslavement of Africans and their descendants is on the agenda. I believe that in kowtowing to the U.S. government, the conference conveners are stifling the ability of the Black press to report on the vital issues of the WCAR, thereby allowing only a pro-government position to be broadcast or published.

I am sending a copy of this letter to NGOs, journalists' organizations, human rights activists and others around the world, asking them to protest this censorship by the U.N. Office of Media Accreditation.

Sincerely,

JoNina M. Abron

Kalamazoo, Michigan

This is clear evidence of U.S. intimidation of the U.N. In order for the U.N. to fulfill its mission free of interference from any government, at least two things need to happen:



1. The United Nations headquarters needs to be re-located from the U.S. to a country with a track record of neutrality like Switzerland( for example).

2. The U.N. Charter needs to be revised to allow the full U.N. Assembly to make policies that affect all member nations, not just the members of the Security Council( of which the U.S. is a member, of course), as it presently stands. Also, the Assembly delegates should be chosen from member nation's NGOs that represent human rights, Democracy, world peace and other issues which are the mission of the U.N. to uphold and defend, not the governments of the member nations. This should also apply to the make up of the membership of U.N. departments and commissions like the Human Rights Commission.

U.S. intimidation and domination of the U.N. must be stopped,as it is clear that the U.S. has no intention, nor desire for the U.N. to fulfill its mission. The steps above will help end U.S. manipulation and allow the United Nations to resume its mission without interference from Uncle Sam or any other government with imperialist intentions.

The UN is pretty oppressive in it's own right, and while some issues, like land-mines might be proactive, such issues, such as drugs, and gun-control, are highly suspect.

The UN is not the answer to world troubles. sorry.