With
UN Vague on
South Sudan
& DPKO,
Ban's Press
& Rights
Policies
in Shambles
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
13 -- Does the
UN support the
looming
offensive by
the
South Sudan
army on the
David Yau Yau
rebels, and if
so does
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
supposed Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy apply?
Inner
City Press
asked both of
these
questions at
an abbreviated
UN noon
briefing on
Wednesday.
Neither
question was
answered, and
then the
briefing was
abruptly
ended.
Earlier
in
the week the
UN's envoy to
South Sudan
Hilde Johnson
spoke about
the coming
offensive, not
in the UN but
across the
street at the
International
Peace
Institute.
Inner City
Press asked
her what the
UN
is doing about
South Sudan's
expulsion of a
UN human
rights officer
in November.
Johnson,
who
is close with
South Sudan's
government,
said that
decision will
not be
reversed.
She
said that
Russia is
happy with the
speed with
which they
were given
the black box
and voice
recorder of
their
helicopter
which was shot
down by South
Sudan's army
in December,
killing the
crew of four
Russian
pilots.
(Russia, it
seems, does
not agree.)
Johnson
indicated
that the
peacekeepers
or troops
under her
command are
somehow
coordinating
with the South
Sudan army,
but not
directly in
support of
them.
(An Indian
peacekeeper,
whose
nationality
the UN would
not confirm at
Wednesday's
noon briefing
when Inner
City Press
asked, was
shot by rebels
left
unidentified
by the UN. Is
the UN taking
sides, or is
it perceived
to be taking
sides?)
How
much support
triggers the
applicability
of Ban's Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy,
already made a
mockery of by
Peacekeeping
chief
Herve Ladsous
by inaction on
126 rapes in
Minova by the
Congolese
Army which he
supporters?
Inner
City Press has
asked, and
gets no
answer.
Instead, DPKO
is allowed to
belatedly give
half-answers
to friendlier
journalists
who never
asked
the question,
as happened on
March
7 when DPKO
purported to
answer
the question
Inner City
Press asked
Ban Ki-moon on
camera on
March 5
-- to a group
of scribes not
including
Inner City
Press.
(Subsequently,
Inner City
Press replying
to two of
these scribes,
AFP's
Tim Witcher
and Reuters'
Michelle
Nichols,
entirely
verbally about
their
"reporting"
has resulted
in a bogus UN
Security
complaint, no
copy of which
has been
provided nor
the rules that
apply to it --
and to the
filing of
false
complaints.)
No
one in the UN
communications
world will
come out and
say what
Ladsous and
DPKO are doing
is wrong.
The UN
Department of
Public
Information,
which should
handle
this issue,
has not. In
fact, it has
tried to keep
quiet its
reaction
to Ladsous'
spokesman
seizing the
UNTV
microphone,
under the
jurisdiction
of DPI, on
December 18 to
try to avoid
Inner City
Press'
questions
about the
Minova rapes.
Video
here.
Ban's
spokesperson's
office, which
fields
questions and
says “we will
get
back to you,”
does nothing
when the
answers to the
questions are
given by DPKO
to journalists
who didn't
ask, and not
to those who
did.
It
is becoming a
joke, un
relajo
as they say in
Spanish. But
this is
today's UN --
we are
Pressing to
reform or
expose it.
Watch this
site.
, 
