On
Rule of Law,
UN Cites Haiti
But Not
Cholera or IDP
Deaths, Due
Process Banned
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 30 --
With the "Rule
of Law" the
topic in
the UN
Security
Council on
Wednesday, one
might have
expected such
legal topics
as the UN's
responsibility
for
introducing
cholera into
Haiti or
the
application of
its supposed
Human Rights
Due Diligence
Policy to be
on the agenda.
But,
at least in
public, there
was only one
speaker:
Deputy
Secretary
General Jan
Eliasson. Then
the Security
Council's 15
members went
into the
smaller
consultations
room.
The
representative
of a country
which attended
but had to
leave after
Eliasson
finished asked
Inner
City Press,
"an issue like
this has to be
behind closed
doors?"
Inner
City Press
later put this
to January's
Security
Council
president
Masood Khan,
on camera. He
affably
replied that
since it was
an
"interim
report," it
was closed
consultations.
But the
report was
commissioned a
full year ago.
Is it that the
Security
Council
doesn't trust
the other
members of the
UN?
And
so we are left
with
Eliasson's
three page
public
statement. It
is
full of
buzzwords but
mentions a few
of the
countries
where there
are
UN
peacekeeping
missions:
Liberia, South
Sudan, Cote
d'Ivoire and
Haiti.
Of
course of
Haiti it does
not mention
accountability
for
cholera.
Nor
on Cote
d'Ivoire does
it mention UN envoy
Bert Koender's
cover up of
the
murders at the
Nahibly IDP
camp and
the UN
peacekeepers'
role. How
can the UN
preach rule of
law if it
doesn't
practice it
itself?
A
simple but
currently open
example of
this is the
UN's refusal
to
answer what it
rules of due
process are
when a
complaint is
filed
with it
against an
accredited
journalist.
On
June
20, 2012 Voice
of America
filed a
request
with the UN's
Stephane
Dujarric,
citing its
bureau chief
Margaret
Besheer,
asking that
Inner
City Press' accreditation
be "reviewed."
Voice of
America
said it had
the support of
UN
Correspondents
Association
"colleagues"
at Agence
France Presse
(Tim
Witcher)
and Reuters
(Louis
Charbonneau,
who had
already filed
his own
complaint,
secretly of
course).
Dujarric
thanked
VOA's Steve
Redisch for
the complaint
and said he'd
call him
about it
-- but never
told Inner
City Press.
After
the
unconstitutional
complain was
exposed and
questioned
from Capitol
Hill -- Voice
of America is
a US
government
agency under
the State
Department --
Inner City
Press'
accreditation
was extended.
But,
according to
VOA documents,
Dujarric
assured VOA
that Inner
City
Press had
received a
warning.
What
type of
warning? Did
it, still
unconstitutionally,
concern the
content of
coverage?
For
now, despite a
direct
request from
the New York
Civil
Liberties
Union, and
now the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
Dujarric and
those above
him have not
answered the
basic
question of
due process:
that is, of
the rule of
law. Watch
this
site.
, 
