By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 20 --
The new report
on Haiti, from
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon to the
Security
Council, has
two long
paragraphs
entitled "UN
Ongoing
Efforts to
Eliminate the
Cholera
Epidemic."
But
the UN report
does not
mention the UN
having BROUGHT
the cholera to
Haiti, even to
try to deny
it.
Perhaps
that
is because it
can no longer
be denied. But
how then can
the report's
section on
"Public
Information
and Outreach"
about the UN
in Haiti not
mention the
slew of
editorials
criticizing
the UN for
impunity, most
recently the
Washington
Post on August
16?
Instead,
this
PIO section
gushes that
the UN "used
public
information as
a strategic
tool...
through
international
and national
media
relations."
Well, Inner
City Press and
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
both tweeted
at MINUSTAH
asking for
information or
some semblance
of shame or
rule or law,
without any
response.
Perhaps
silence and
denial are
their
strategic
tools.
Given
the Washington
Post's two
editorials on
the UN and
cholera last
week, one
expected
the issue to
come up in Ban
Ki-moon's press
"encounter" on
August 20, two
days before he
heads to South
Korea. But he
did not
mention it.
And the four
questioners
selected
predictably
did not raise
it.
So not
only has Ban's
UN's terse
dismissal of
legal claims
for those
killed by the
cholera
undermined the
UN's
credibility
and ability to
preach about
accountability
and the rule
of law -- now
the UN's
reports are
less credible,
when one sees
that an
elephant in
the room can
be omitted
entirely from
a UN report.
Denial
is not only a
river in Egypt
- it is a
river in Haiti
into which the
UN dumped raw
sewage. Watch
this site.
Foonote:
The
report,
apparently
only in
English so far
and therefore
only made
available in
hardcopy, not
electronic, is
or will be
numbered
S/2013/493.
, 
