UN's
Deadly Helicopter Crash in Nepal May Have Been Presaged By Another,
Local Reports Allege
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- In the
wake of the deadly crash of a UN Mission in Nepal helicopter, at the
UN's noon briefing on March 4, Inner City Press asked the spokesperson
to confirm or deny reports of a previous UNMIN helicopter incident.
Inserted by the UN into the
subsequent transcript was
that "the
Spokesperson later added that there had been no previous recent incident
in Nepal with an UNMIN helicopter."
But
on the website of Nepal's Civil Aviation Ministry, a
complaint was posted on February
11, 2008 that "recently,
one of the Mi-17 helicopters operated by UNMIN was involved in an
incident near Okhuldunga, as reported by some dailies. Strangely,
despite the fact that the aircraft is on the Russian civil registration,
Nepal (State of Occurrence) has not instituted an investigation
in this incident, as required by the Annex 13."
UNMIN helicopter in Nepal
Minister Leela Mani
Paudyal
responded
that "I have taken inquiring on the issues including the UNMIN accident
and will post response after getting clear recommendation from CAAN
which I am waiting. The papers forwarded to the Ministry about that
incident were just papers prepared by UNMIN that too was received when I
personally asked CAAN to produce me." Did the Nepali minister mis-speak
about UNMIN papers about an incident? Or are different (but undisclosed)
definitions of incident at play? Watch this site.
* * *
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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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