UNOPS
Buries
Somalia Probe
as Taranco
& Pollard
Vye to Head
It, Censorship
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 2 --
As 2014
begins, the UN
is among other
things a
shadowy system
in which
investigations
are buried,
answers aren't
given, and
proxies
defend.
Take
the UN Office
of Project
Services, on
which Inner
City Press has
previously
reported, back
to 2009.
In the middle
of 2013 when
Inner
City Press first
reported a
scandal in
Somalia in
which the head
there of the
UN Mine Action
Services was
accused of
sharing
genetic
information
from bombings
with US
intelligence,
Inner City
Press was
told that the
UN would say
nothing under
UNOPS finished
its
investigation.
Six
months later
on the last
day of 2013,
Inner City
Press asked
if the
UNOPS
investigation
-- or is it
another cover
up? -- was
finished
yet:
Inner
City
Press: I just
wanted to be
sure I ask
again about
this David Bax
in Somalia.
There was a
UNOPS [United
Nations Office
for Project
Services]
investigation,
it was about
the middle of
the year that
it
was said that
it had begun.
I wanted to
know, you
know, if it’s
finished or
when the idea
for finishing
it is?
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky: With
regard to the
investigation
you were
referring
to out of
Mogadishu, I
don’t believe
we have any
update on that
at
this point.
Okay.
Well,
not okay.
First, Inner
City Press
repeated put
this question
to the
UN
Spokesperson
in writing, without
response.
When asked
in-person
when noon
briefing began
again, there
is without
explanation no
completion of
an
investigation
UNOPS began
six months
earlier.
Meanwhile
at
New Years
UNOPS was tweeting
self-promotion,
but did not
respond
to the
question:
where IS the
Bax
investigation?
UNsocial
media.
And
so Inner City
Press now
exclusively
reports, from
its sources in
the
system, that
among those
vying to head
this UNOPS
going forward
are
Oscar
Fernandez
Taranco, who
declined
move-outs from
the Department
of Political
Affairs in New
York to
assignments in
Haiti and
elsewhere, and
the head of
the UN Office
of Human
Rights
Management
Catherine
Pollard.
Leaving
UNOPS
as we're
previously
reported is
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
soon in law
Siddarth
Chatterjee,
headed for
another
promotion as
head
of UNFPA in
Kenya. The UN
has at each
turn resisted
answering
questions
about these
promotions, as
even a
Chatterjee
defender
recently (Dec
23)
acknowledged.
But he while
he cited UN stonewalling,
he did not
mention censorship.
When
Inner City
Press first
reported on
this, and it
was picked up
by
media
from
Chatterjee's
native India,
that media was
contacted and
told to take
the story down,
and to ask
Inner City
Press to do
so.
Why?
Now a media
very close to
the UN has
filed a bad
faith Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act
complaint
to get Google
to block
access to
his
own leaked
email to the
UN trying
to get Inner
City Press
thrown
out. And so it
goes in this
UN.
, 
