No
UN Role in DRC
Dialogue,
Nothing on MSF
Death,
Guehenno's
Tweet
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 9, updated
-- Despite
spending
billions of
dollars in
public
funds, and
enjoying or abusing
immunity as in
Haiti, the
UN is often
irrelevant
when real
peace talks
start.
This
may now take
place in the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo -
but
earlier this
year when in
Burkina Faso
Mali reached a
deal with
rebels, the UN
despite having
three envoys
played no
role.
Now
in the DRC,
where a
"national
dialogue" has
been announced
to be mediated
by the
president of
next door
Congo-Brazzaville,
it
appears the UN
again has no
role.
Inner
City Press
went to the
UN's August 9
noon briefing
and asked,
what is
the role of
the MONUSCO
mission or of
envoy Mary
Robinson?
Secretary
General
Ban Ki-moon's
associate
spokesperson
Farhan Haq
said he is
not aware of
any UN role at
all, that Mary
Robinson is
working with
countries in
the region.
Why
then did Mary
Robinson do an
interview with
the UN's own
Radio Okapi,
the purpose of
which seems to
have been to
pledge support
for the new
Intervention
Brigade which
declared a 48
hour ultimatum
in North Kivu
recently?
And
why did Haq,
when Inner
City Press
asked, have
nothing to say
about
Doctors
Without
Borders
sounding the
alarm on
security
threat in
Pinga in the
Kivus? Haq
said he
wouldn't speak
for MSF -- and
this
extended to
the MSF
worker
recently
killed near
Juba in South
Sudan,
Haq said the
UN had nothing
to say.
When aid
workers were
killed in
Darfur, the UN
spoke. What's
different --
South Sudan?
Or MSF?
Coming
full circle to
Haiti, when
Inner City
Press asked
Haq about the
comment by
Herve Ladsous'
predecessor at
UN
Peacekeeping
Jean-Marie
Guehenno
having tweeted
that the UN
needs to "come
clean"
about cholera,
Haq said there
would be no
response to
what Guehenno
said in his
"private
capacity." Video here, from Minute
2:07.
So
much impunity,
but so little
role in the
peace deal in
Mali, and the
"national
dialogue" in
the DRC. Watch
this site.
, 
