As
UNSC Leaves
Haiti, UN
Dodges on
Cholera on
France Inter,
No Ladsous
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 25 --
As the UN
Security
Council ends
its Haiti
visit, has
there been any
answer, much
less
accountability,
for the UN bringing
cholera there?
The UN Mission
MINUSTAH has
refused to
answer
questions.
And when the
question was
put to UN
Spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric, in a
France Inter
radio piece
broadcast
tonight, he
shifted the
question to
old UN sins of
omission --
Rwanda and
Srebenica --
rather than
the more
recent sin, or
murder, of
commission. Audio
here;
Inner City
Press at
Minute 24, UN
response at
end.
The long-form
France Inter
piece includes
a clip up in
the UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operation's
24/7 center,
where
strangely they
said they were
monitoring
Burkina Faso,
where DPKO has
no
peacekeeping
mission at
all.
DPKO's
spokesman is
interviewed,
but Inner City
Press
understands
that promised
interview with
Ladsous was
canceled once
the questions
got less than
friendly. It's
no surprise -
see
this with
video, from
last week, of
Ladsous saying
“I do not
respond to
your questions
Mister.”
Telling, the
show lists
Cote d'Ivoire,
where UN
Peacekeeping
help oust
critic of
FrancAfrique
Laurent Gbagbo
from power, as
a success of
the UN, and
attributes UN
Security
Council
blockages to
Russia and
China, without
much
mentioning US
vetoes on
Palestine, and
France's
abstention for
BNP Paribas.
Human Rights
Watch's
self-described
“lobbyist” is
interviewed
and says the
obligatory
things about
holding the UN
accountable.
But what has
HRW actually
said or done
about the UN
killing 8,000
people in
Haiti? When
Inner City
Press asked
HRW what its
Ken Roth
raised to Ban
Ki-moon, no
substantive
answer was
given, and
HRW removed
Inner City
Press from its
email
lobbying. And
so it goes.
Hope, of
course, must
spring
eternal. If an
Ambassador
from Jordan,
hosted in
Haiti by the
US and Chile,
can publicly
note the
plight of
women
imprisoned
without trial,
then no
cover-up can
be complete.
That, at
least, in the
hope. Watch
this site.
, 
