UNITED
NATIONS, June
22 -- While
the question
of who killed
an Ethiopian
UN
peacekeeper in
Kadugli, Sudan
on June 14,
asked by Inner
City Press
at the UN noon
briefings of
June 14 and
June 18, has
still not been
answered by
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
Office of the
Spokesperson
or UN
Peacekeeping
(DPKO), the
Office for the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs in
Sudan has to
its credit
responded.
Acting
on DPKO's
failure to
answer the
question, a
pattern under
Under
Secretary
General Herve
Ladsous, the
new Free UN
Coalition for
Access
asked in Sudan
not only OCHA
but the UN
Information
Center, which
tweeted a link
to OCHA's
report.
That
report said
without
qualification
that the
peacekeeper's
death was
due to
shelling by
the SPLM-North
rebels. FUNCA
asked:
“This says
SPLM-N killed
the
peacekeeper;
OSSG &
DPKO haven't
said that.
Explain?”
UNIC
Khartoum, run
by the UN
Department of
Public
Information,
has yet to
respond. But OCHA
Sudan, again
to its credit,
did:
“@FUNCA_info,
the bulletin
says
'according to
media
reports'...
plus, SPLM-N
press
release claims
responsibility
for Kadugli
shelling.”
The
part about the
press release
is true,
making DPKO's
silence all
the
more
troubling,
given that the
UN immediately
condemns after
such
claims the
Taliban in
Afghanistan
and Al Shabaab
in Somalia.
But
the OCHA
report
does not cite
“media
reports” for
who was doing
the deadly
shelling, only
for WHY they
were doing it:
"On
14
June, a member
of the United
Nations
Interim
Security Force
for
Abyei (UNISFA)
was killed and
two others
injured when
shells fired
by
the Sudan
People’s
Liberation
Movement-North
(SPLM-N) hit
the
UNISFA
logistics base
in Kadugli,
the state
capital of
South
Kordofan.
According to
media reports
the shelling
was aimed at
military
targets in
Kadugli"
But
we want to
again
highlight
OCHA's
responsiveness
-- they did
the same
thing earlier
this year when
a report of
their on Haiti
was
mistranslated
and called the
residents of
IDP camps in
Haiti
promiscuous. Once it was
pointed out,
they
explained, and
re-did
the
report.
By
contrast,
Ladsous' DPKO
did not even
explain an
early
attribution of
the attack to
South Sudan.
Ladsous'
spokesperson
Kieran Dwyer
put out
a statement
masquerading
as a UN News
article on
June 14, that
"'We
condemn in the
strongest
terms this
shelling. It
is essential
that
the
Governments of
Sudan and
South Sudan
immediately
cease
hostilities
and resume
ceasefire
negotiations,'
Mr. Dwyer
said."
This
statement
including
South Sudan,
though corrected
to
"SPLM-North"
without
explanation by
Reuters,
remains online
not
only on
Reuters'
website,
but also on
the
Daily Star in
Lebanon; RTTnews.com;
the Premium
Times in
Nigeria, via
NAN; Euronews
and the Star
in Malaysia,
both again
with the
quadruple
byline
"Reporting By
Michelle
Nichols in New
York and
Khalid
Abdelaziz in
Khartoum;
Writing by
Maggie Fick;
Editing by
Michael
Roddy."
Still
no
explanation.
And we note
that the
Department of
PUBLIC
Information's
Khartoum UNIC
did not
respond.
Rather
it continues
blithely
one-way
tweeting about
the UN “Day of
Public
Service” and a
June 24
meeting on
sexual
violence in
conflict --
can you say, Ladsous'
cover up of
135 rapes in
Minova by two
units of
the Congolese
Army that UN
still
supports?
-- a meeting
we will
cover, on
belatedly
provided benches
but not yet
any worktable,
which
in the past
facilitated
new media
coverage of
the Security
Council.
Watch this
site.
, 
