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On Gaza, New Year's Eve Council Meeting, Missiles and
Protests on 42nd Street, Casualty Confusion
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 31 -- As a Security Council meeting on Gaza was scheduled for
6 p.m. on New Years Eve, the UN's
humanitarian coordinator John Holmes revised his way of presenting the
number
of civilians killed. He put the total dead in Gaza at 320 to 390, and
eschewed
the
distinction he made on December 29, that the 62 women
and children killed were a proxy for
civilians.
But
the spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Administration, Chris
Gunness, had since said that 25% of those killed have been civilians,
which
would put the figure at 80 to 97. Inner City Press asked UNRWA head
Karen
AbuZayd to explain the steps taken to move the analysis from Monday's
figure,
62, to the current UN reported tally.
Ms. AbuZayd
said that 62 had been an UNRWA figure, albeit one which on Monday she
had immediately
characterized as not credible. She then said that UNRWA is now
conservatively
saying 20 to 25% of fatalities have been civilians, and again equated
this with
women and children. Video here,
from Minute 36:28.
It
was surprising that even with two days to eliminate
their double standard, the UN system was still floundering on this
issue. In
its other reporting on conflicts, the UN does not equate civilians with
women
and children.
Inner City
Press asked John Holmes about the Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs report, apparently sent by e-mail to some but not all
journalists who
cover the UN, of over 150 civilians fatalities in the Congo, in
Orientale
Province -- did that number include all of the men who were killed,
what was
the UN system's involvement in the underlying offensive against the
Lord's Resistance
Army and what is the UN doing now to try to protect civilians going
forward? Video here,
from Minute 36:40.
Tellingly,
Holmes began by saying that those killed in the Congo were just
"villagers," and therefore presumed to be civilians. But is Gaza not
something of a village, albeit densely populated? The UN had been the
first to
note the prevalence of militias among the population in the Eastern
Congo. So
why equate men with combatants in Gaza but not the Congo? Is it only
because
the LRA's Joseph Kony, even more than Sudan's Omar Al-Bashir, has few
defenders, or none so persistent as the U.S. and Israel?
In Gaza, flour delivered in earlier days
Inner City
Press also asked Ms. AbuZayd about which UN premises in Gaza have been
impacted
-- she focused on the UNSCO compound next to the presidential guest
house, in
which as "collateral damage," she said, all vehicles had been
destroyed -- and about OCHA's
own report that for maintenance workers from the
Gaza Coastal Management Water Utility, "the
use of water piping
greatly increases the risk of CMWU employees mistakenly identified by
IAF
aircraft as militants transporting rockets." Video here,
from Minute 18:17.
Ms. AbuZayd said she
wasn't
aware of CWMU workers being targeted, as they wear "bright orange vests
that are carefully guarded." Some
drones, those.
First-hand footnotes: Inner
City Press witnessed two men in dark overcoats loading the two foot
long rear portion of a missile into a 4 by 4 on 43rd Street and Second
Avenue.
The license plate was diplomatic, and one of the two men had a security
officer's ear piece and held a letter on UN stationary. An inference:
the
Israeli mission has an exhibit, or prop, to play show and tell with.
Tuesday
night in
front of the Israeli mission on Second Avenue and 42nd Street there
were two
competing protests. North of 42nd Street the signs read, Free
Palestine. To the
south were Israeli flags. An e-mail encouraging participation in the
latter did
not mention that the goal was to shout over the Free Palestine crowd.
Props
everywhere.
That
the protests
were not on First Avenue where the UN is, one wag opined, is just
another
symbol of the UN's lack of centrality and influence on unfolding events
in the
Middle East. Reference was made to Ban Ki-moon's "extensive"
telephone log, no copy of which has been provided. Wednesday's
announced calls were to ministers of Brazil and Canada. Courtesy calls,
all,
apparently.
As previously
reported, Israel's UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev on December 23 met
with Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press asked Ban's Deputy Spokesperson
Marie Okabe,
at that day's noon briefing, what the meeting had been about. That the expiration of the cease fire in Gaza
would have been discussed seemed obvious. The question was intended to
glean
whether any statement as to timing had been made by the Israeli
Ambassador.
"We'll get you a readout," Ms. Okabe said. Video here.
Later on
December 23, Ban's Spokesperson's Office sent Inner City Press the
following:
From: unspokesperson-donotreply
[at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 12/23/2008 3:31:10 P.M.
Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Your question at noon
Regarding the Secretary-General's
meeting with the Israeli Permanent Representative today, it was purely
a
courtesy call.
"Purely a courtesy call"? That is the phrase used
when
diplomats who are leaving the UN visit the 38th floor for a final photo
opportunity with the Secretary-General. We'll see.
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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