On
Ebola,
UN's Nabarro
to Liberia,
Sierra Leone,
Guinea,
Maybe Nigeria,
Qs
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 19 --
With the UN's
new envoy on
ebola David
Nabarro
in New York
before he
heads to
Washington and
then West
Africa, he
met on August
19 with
representatives
from Liberia,
Sierra Leone,
Guinea and
Nigeria.
One of the
attendees
contacted
Inner City
Press
about the
meeting,
praising
Nabarro but
frustrated
that “the UN
is
just talk,
talk, talk”
which these
countries
struggle to
emerge
from or deal
with conflict.
Inner
City Press
asked Nabarro
about the
meeting, and
also what he
would
say to authorities
in the
Philippines
who are
considering
withdrawing
their
country's
soldiers from
the UN
peacekeeping
mission in
Liberia,
UNMIL.
Nabarro
said
the meeting
was useful,
adding
diplomatically
that the
countries
would like to
be empowered
including to
deal with
future
outbreaks.
(This is
consistent
with the
report /
complaint that
Inner City
Press
got about the
meeting).
On
the
peacekeeping
mission,
Nabarro said
it has a big
role to play
in
Liberia and he
will speak
with the
members of the
mission while
there. He
might want to
speak with the
capitals of
the Troop
Contributing
Countries,
since that is
where the
decisions will
be
made.
Nabarro
said
that after a
day in
Washington,
where among
others he will
meet
with the CDC,
he will travel
to Dakar, then
for two days
to Liberia,
to Freetown,
Sierra Leone,
Conakry and,
he hopes,
Nigeria. We'll
have
more on this.
Footnotes:
After
the UN set
aside the
first question
for the UN
Correspondents
Association, a
group whose
Executive
Committee has
tried to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN
for reporting
on a financial
relationship
between UNCA's
president and
a diplomat for
whom UNCA
screened a war
crimes denial
inside the UN
-- see
here for a
summary
and here
for a
documents
obtained under
FOIA --
Inner City
Press thanked
Nabarro for
the new,
alternative Free UN
Coalition for
Access:
FUNCA.
Nabarro
asked
about FUNCA,
which is only
fair, and
asked if that
was OK (it
was). As long
as the UN sets
aside first
questions for
UNCA, become
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance, and
continues to
grant it
privileged
status from
which it can
try to get
investigative
or alternative
media thrown
out of the UN,
this stage
with continue.
Watch this
site.
, 
