Inner City Press

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

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

Google
  Search innercitypress.com Search WWW (censored?)

In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

,



Follow us on TWITTER

Home -

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

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



UN Still Won't Say If Has Any Claims Commissions After Haiti, "Not a Yes or No Question"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 18 -- At the November 14 UN noon briefing, referring to the Haiti cholera lawsuit against the UN, Inner City Press asked if any UN Peacekeeping mission has in fact established one of the Standing Claims Commissions provided for in their Status of Forces Agreements.

  UN acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said that actually setting these up depends on the request of the mission's host government. But that not only ignores the power relations, it does not answer the yes or no question: has any Standing Claims Commissions been set up?

  Haq referred to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. But its chief Herve Ladsous has refused to answer basic Press questions, such as about the 135 rapes at Minova by DPKO's partners in the Congolese Army. Video here, UK coverage here. So would will this simple question be answered?

  Not on November 18. Inner City Press asked again, yes or no. Haq said the question had been put to DPKO, but it's "not a yes or no question." Video here. If the answer's yes, can't it be said in four days? And if no - what's the explanation? Or does the UN, and DPKO under Ladsous, think they can just not answer?

November 14, 2013:

  November 18, 2013:

Likewise, on November 14 Haq was asked for a comprehensive list of UN Under Secretaries Generals and Assistant Secretaries General. He said these are announced. But Inner City Press asked, what about long-standing, part-time officials? Where is the list?

  As a follow up, Inner City Press asked Haq for the UN Secretariat's response to criticism of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon seeking to move his close associate Robert Orr from an ASG position funded by used portions of other empty budget lines to a new USG position, while seeking cuts elsewhere.

  Haq didn't provide a defense of this, other than saying that any new position is up to the General Assembly and if created would be recruited for in an open and transparent process. An example of why some doubt that is the refusal to answer simple questions like: does any DPKO Peacekeeping Mission have a Standing Claims Commission? That should be answered.

Footnote: after Inner City Press asked about Haiti cholera on November 14, including Stephen Lewis' statement that the UN should admit responsibility and try to make victims whole, Pamela Falk the president of UNCA, now known as the UN's Censorship Alliance, jumped onto the topic in essence to help the UN out.

  She said that Haq has been open, and raised a reason why the UN might still not be screening peacekeepers for cholera before deployment: the World Health Organization. What was the purpose of such a question? Especially after when the UN mis-answered Inner City Press' first question on this, saying that the UN does not screen, then admitted that it doesn't only when Inner City Press asked again. Open? Keep an eye out for that hard-hitting coverage -- not.


 

Share |

* * *

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

Click here for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City Press at UN

Click for  BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

            Copyright 2006-2013 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com