By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 21 --
When the Gaza
field director
of UNICEF Pernilleae Ironside took questions at the UN on
August 21,
Inner City
Press asked
her when a
Board of
Inquiry into
the
destruction of
UN premises
like the UNRWA
schools will
begin. Video
here.
Ironside
said
that will be
up to the
Secretariat of
Ban Ki-moon
and UNRWA. Earlier
this week
Robert Serry
told Inner
City Press the
same thing.
But where is
the Board of
Inquiry? On
the one
conducted in
2009, Inner
City Press
reported on
how Ban
Ki-moon
allowed
himself to be
lobbied and
blunted in his cover letter
recommendations
in the report,
later shown in
detail by a
cable
published by
Wikileaks.
Does
that explain
the delay?
Inner
City Press
also asked
Ironside about
her statement
in her recent
Reddit Ask Me
Anything that
“Gaza's
economy has
been severely
depressed,
particularly
since the
closure of the
informal
tunnel system
with Egypt in
July 2013.”
Ironside said
Gazans are
well educated
and eager to
work, but
precluded from
doing so; she
said the
negotiators
should take
this into
account.
Ironside
said
she previously
served the UN
in Goma in
Eastern Congo,
and more
recently in
Yemen. With
the Houthis
now in Sana'a,
that's
something we'd
like to hear
more about.
The
moderator on
August 21
began by
giving out the
first question
to Ironside
without
set-aside, but
then allowed
the first
question to be
taken or
“reclaimed” by
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
a group whose
Executive
Board tried to
get the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN.
There have
been no
reforms; if
anything UNCA,
now the UN's
Censorship
Alliance, more
aggressively
demands the
first question
at such
briefings, and
then usually
offers up a
softball
question of
the type the
UN likes. Then
the same media
takes a second
question. This
is something
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access
will continue
to oppose --
the UN should
not promote
hierarchy,
censorship,
set-asides.
Watch this
site.
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