Hot Press from Columbia University Today

Thalif Deen … in Email to Roberts, 1 April 2024**

At a press conference last night, New York City Mayor and his Police Commissioner tried to justify the police intervention against pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University claiming the protests have been corrupted by “outside agitators.”

I think this is a steaming pile of horse-shit.

Last Saturday, I visited the site.  The entire ampus was on a locked-down mode. Of the 7 or 8 entrances and exits, only one was open, with several security officers standing by. Only current students, academics —and the press– were allowed in. The security checks were tight.

How “outside agitators” infiltrated the campus beats me—unless they parachuted or were air-dropped on the sprawling campus?  Like American food drops in Gaza.

 I noticed the only press pass valid was the New York city press pass issued in collaboration with the New York Police Department (NYPD) — although I was also armed with the UN press pass, the US State Department press ID and my Columbia student ID of a bygone era.

The 80 tents brought back memories because they occupied the huge lawn opposite the Journalism School. I still remember a creative sign on that lawn back in my student days: “IF ALLOWED TO GROW, THIS GRASS WILL PRODUCE ENOUGH OXYGEN FOR TWO STUDENTS TO BREATHE FOR ONE SEMESTER”.

Forget “KEEP OFF THE GRASS”.

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A NOTE from Michael Roberts:

Thalif was one year junior to me at Peradeniya Campus in the late 1950s and resided at Marrs Hall at the other end of the campus to my abode at Ramanathan Hall.  We are as geographically distant now as were then! BUT let me provide his credentials drawn from  the web circuit.

“Thalif Deen, Senior Editor & Director, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency has been covering the United Nations since the late 1970s. Beginning with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, he has covered virtually every major U.N. conference: on population, human rights, the environment, sustainable development, food security, humanitarian aid, arms control and nuclear disarmament.

As the former UN Bureau Chief for IPS, he was cited twice for excellence in U.N. reporting at the annual awards presentation of the U.N. Correspondents’ Association (UNCA). In November 2012, he was on the IPS team which won the prestigious gold medal for reporting on the global environment– and in 2013, he shared the gold, this time with the UN Bureau Chief of Reuters news agency, for his reporting on the humanitarian and development work of the United Nations.

A former information officer at the U.N. Secretariat, he served twice as a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions. His track record includes a stint as deputy news editor of the Sri Lanka Daily News and senior editorial writer on the Hong Kong Standard.

As military analyst, he was also Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group. He was a longstanding columnist for the Sri Lanka Sunday Times, U.N. correspondent for Asiaweek, Hong Kong and Jane’s Defence Weekly, London.

A Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, he is co-author of the 1981 book on “How to Survive a Nuclear Disaster” and author of the 2021 book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote me on That”— and subtitled ‘from the Sublime to the Hilarious’, both of which are available on Amazon.”

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