At UN,
Silence on Sri Lanka and Congo Accusations, Toilet Taboos Broken with Champagne
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Muse
UNITED NATIONS,
November 23 -- The day after America's Thanksgiving, we are told, is not a
holiday at the United Nations. There was however no noon press briefing, and the
three meetings on the schedule were each cancelled. The last of these three, on
"combating corrupt practices," was to have begun at 3 p.m. in Conference Room 7
in the basement. A visit found the room empty, a sign for ethics training tipped
over in the corner.
Unlike
Thursday, the UN Spokesperson's office was open, and issued a
statement welcoming the naming of a new
prime minister in Somalia. (The
UN's own
canned news story
had a
non-working link,
to a domain called secint12, strangely enough.) No response was made, however,
to
accusations by Congolese rebel general
Laurent Nkunda that the UN is wrong to be helping attack his forces,
nor to Sri Lanka's demand that UN humanitarian workers leave the country for
participating in demonstrations. An email to
UNICEF, which has previously acknowledged
participation by staff in the protests,
was acknowledged, but no response to Sri Lanka's demand was forthcoming.
Sanitation Year launch, see
cartoons on the floor
Sometimes
the UN system can admit error. On November 20, after announcing
significantly reduced AIDS statistics, UNAIDS' Paul De Lay acknowledged to Inner
City Press that skeptical scientists long critical of the UN numbers had been
right, and been effective. Video
here.
The day
before Thanksgiving was more full, with "HRH" Willem-Alexander of the
Netherlands speaking of toilets in the Delegates' Dining Room while champagne
was poured. On the floor were cartoons of excrement with speech bubbles, "I
could kill you." It was the launch of the International Year of Sanitation and
the point was to break the silence about defecation. The champagne was... just
for kicks.
* * *
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
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UN Office: S-453A,
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