Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

UN Staff Supporting Myanmar Cyclone Relief Ask Ban to Hear Their Call and End Delay

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 13, interim update May 14 -- While gallons of inks are spilled, even on the Internet, about Myanmar's top general Than Shwe not returning Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's phone calls, Mr. Ban himself is being questions by UN staff members from Myanmar, who have waited a week for permission to raise funds for their countrymen.  In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, on May 6 the UN Staff Union made a routine request to the okay to raise funds in the UN's lobby, as was done for example following the snow storms in China. But Mr. Ban was in Atlanta, they were told, and his other staff could not sign off.

            Since Ban has been back, he has not given the okay. While some Staff Union sources wonder if Ban does not want to risk offending Myanmar's UN delegation by allowing expatriate, even exiled staff to talk about suffering under the "junta" or "regime," others ascribe it to too much travel, too little focus, a certain tone-deafness. How can the Secretariat complain about ignored calls while itself ignoring calls?

Update of May 14 - after asking about this at the May 14 noon briefing, it appears there will be news to report on May 15, watch this stie.

UNHCR cuts through red tape in Myanmar, while delay remains at UN in New York

            Meanwhile at UN Headquarters on Tuesday another side of Myanmar was presented. The head of the UN Environment Program, Achim Steiner, spoke of the planting of billions of trees, and passed out a list of the ten best-performing countries. On the list was Myanmar, the only country for which the government number and the total number of trees planted was the same. Inner City Press asked Steiner, what would the empowerment of individuals he had referred to? Video here, from Minute 29:27.

    I can't speak to that, Steiner said. He also said that the pledge is credible because citizens can monitor it, for example using Google Earth. Not sure how well that's working in Myanmar...

            Finally, at day's end, author Samantha Power spoke to a philanthropic audience about Sergio de Mello. The UN was unprepared, she said, for the bombing in Baghdad on August 19, 2003. "No search and rescue," she said. "No jaws of life." A man's legs were amputated with a rusty saw. The tools to try to save Sergio included a big purse and a curtain from the Canal Hotel.  Sounds like Myanmar?

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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