On
Nepal, ICP Asked UN of Abuse of
Madhesi Community, Spox
Doesn't Fwd What UN Office
Said
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
March 7 – What is the bare
minimum a spokesperson should
be expected to do, for an
organization like the UN?
Should it include, if a
spokesperson has no answer to
a journalist's questions at an
in-person briefing, e-mailing
an answer when it becomes
available? Not in today's UN
Spokesperson's office, at
least not for Inner City Press
which that Office evicted
from the UN Press Briefing
Room and then
the UN, and still
restricts. On March 6,
Inner City Press asked Deputy
Spokesman Farhan Haq about
Nepal. From the UN
transcript:
Inner City
Press: I know that the
UN used to have a mission in
Nepal, but there's been kind
of increasing problems in the
Madhesi and Tharu communities
there, including now today
people killed by security
forces. And it seems to
be politically there are
groups trying to
mobilize. So, I just
wondered, since the
Secretary-General talks about
preventative diplomacy, is the
UN actually looking at this
growing problem in
Nepal? And does it have
any idea of trying to somehow
get involved as well as
commenting on the killing of
unarmed individuals by the
security forces?
Deputy Spokesman: Well,
of course, we want to make
sure that any excessive use of
force will be
investigated. Beyond
that, we're monitoring the
situation. If there's
anything further down the
line, we'll let you know at
that point.
"We'll let you know." Well,
the UN Office in Nepal put out
a statement that it is "seriously
concerned by the escalation of
tensions in the lead-up to the
local elections announced for
May," which others (not in the
UN) then sent to Inner City
Press. From the UN's two holdover
spokesmen, nothing. This is
similar to lead spokesman
Stephane Dujarric, when Inner
City Press asked last week
about the abuse of Anglophones
in Cameroon, not even asking
or providing a response from
the Department of Political
Affairs, whose Jeffrey Feltman
in a rare Q&A session on
March 6 said that ONUCA's
Francois Lonseny Fall had
visited the region. Lazy spox,
indeed. UNacceptable. We'll
have more on this.
Earlier (2016) here.
***
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