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Amos Takes
Questions from
UN Agencies,
Ignores DRC
Impartiality
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 16 – The
day the UN
hyped it up:
top
humanitarian
Valerie Amos
would answer
questions on
Tuesday, 9 am
New York time
before she
briefed the
Security
Council at 10
am on Syria.
But
when the time
came, Amos
answered
relatively few
questions,
clearly chosen
to emphasize
what she
wanted –
Syria, Turkey,
even Haiti as
a UN good news
story – while
ignoring longstanding
questions
about for
example the
decline in aid
impartiality
in the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo,
with the UN's
new
Intervention
Brigade tasked
with
“neutralizing”
particular
groups.
Amos'
staged Q&A
included taking
questions from
UN agencies
like OCHA in
Colombia
and from UN
Association
for Wales.
It is a waste
of Q&A
time for the
UN to take
questions from
itself. But if
one doesn't
want to take
or answer critical
questions,
that's how it
goes: UNsocial
media.
Even
on Central
African
Republic,
where the EU
has answered the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
that the UN
has a plan to
send staff
outside of
Bangui. Amos
only answered
an easy
question,
saying she had
just been
there. But
what's the
plan? It
shouldn't fall to
the EU to say.
Beyond
making aid
appeals, which
large
international
non-governmental
organizations
can do, an
important role
of the UN
Office for the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs at
least in the
past has been
to stand up
for
impartiality
and
independence
in aid
delivery.
In
the case of
Eastern Congo
today, OCHA
and Amos
wouldn't even
have to be on
the look-out –
Medecins Sans
Frontieres and
other groups
have gone
public with
their
complaints
about the
MONUSCO
mission of UN
Peacekeeping
under Herve
Ladsous blurs
the lines of
impartiality.
Worse,
MONUSCO
publicly fired
back,
criticizing
MSF. Where was
OCHA? Nowhere
to be seen.
Inner City
Press wrote
and asked
about it, and
was first told
archly on July
15 that OCHA
had been
consulted on a
response that
dodged MSF's
complaint.
Later a
response of a
sort came by
Twitter, but
no reply to a
follow up
question. Then
Amos didn't
address the
issue.
It
could be
called the “Ladsousificiation” of the UN, in
which
officials
beyond Ladsous
either refuse
or dodge
questions, and
openly take
the political
positions of
“their”
countries. Two
road are
diverging in a
brook... Watch
this site.
* * *
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