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 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

RSS

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv

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



As UN Stonewalls ICP On Somalia DNA to US Story, Threatens Accreditation

By Matthew Russell Lee, 2d Follow Up on Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- A whistleblower's complaint that the head of the UN Mine Action Service in Somalia, David Bax, has been giving genetic information from Somalia bombings to US intelligence was filed on Friday, June 21 with three UN officials.

There were the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, his Rule of Law chief and the director of UNMAS, Agnes Marcaillou. Inner City Press before publishing a June 22 story about this whistleblower complaint sought comment from two of three above, as well as from Bax. (Also, even a Twitter question was sent to UNMAS; this is a type of non-response issue worked on by the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.

Amid reports of a witch hunt in Mogadishu to find the whistleblower, Inner City Press put the question at Monday's noon briefing to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey, video here:

From UN's transcript:

Inner City Press: whether Mr. [Hervé] Ladsous, Mr. [Dmitry] Titov and the head of UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) have received a detailed complaint from an UNMAS whistleblower in Somalia that the head of UNMAS in Somalia provided genetic information from bombings to United States intelligence agencies and also moves around Mogadishu with armed guards from that group, Denel, that we were talking about. It’s a pretty troubling thing, I’ve seen a copy of it, and it seems to have been directed to and received by those three individuals, so I would like to get a statement from you that they have received it and what their response to it is. I also e-mailed several of them and asked for a comment; I haven’t received anything.

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Well, we’ll have to check on that for you, Matthew, we’ll check with DPKO [Department of Peacekeeping Operations].

Inner City Press: is it your understanding that UNMAS individuals and their contractors can walk around with arms, weapons?

Deputy Spokesperson: Matthew, you’d have to ask DPKO that, I don’t have the information.

Inner City Press: It’s UNMAS… I mean it’s…

Deputy Spokesperson: I don’t have the exact nature of what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do. Speak with DPKO over that.

Inner City Press: You always say that and then I don’t have any answer from them. I’ve e-mailed the head of UNMAS about a complaint that her agency provides genetic and other information to US intelligence and she wouldn’t deny it, so I am asking you.

Deputy Spokesperson: Well, you know we… there are all kinds of complaints, they have to be…

Inner City Press: By a UN individual?

Deputy Spokesperson: …they have to be proven.

Inner City Press: And the individual says that there is already now a witch hunt to find out who the complainant is, so I am asking to get a response, that’s all.

Deputy Spokesperson: Well, I wouldn’t say there is a witch hunt, but when people are being accused of something, we obviously have to go to the bottom of it and find out what is happening. So, as I said, we will check with DPKO and then get back to you.

Inner City Press: But, when a UN person comes forward… will this person be protected by whistleblower protections?

Deputy Spokesperson: We will have to get back to you on that, Matthew. We don’t discuss hypothetical situations. Right now, we… right now, I certainly don’t know anything about a whistleblower. Pam?

  But seven hours after this exchange, the UN system had still not gotten it together to respond to these serious allegations. They were engaged in a witch hunt in Mogadishu; in UN Headquarters in New York, Inner City Press on Monday afternoon, four hours after these questions, was threatened with suspension or withdrawal of accreditation. Watch this site.

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 2006-2012 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com