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


In Other Media-eg New Statesman, 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

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

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



In US Power Shift from Activist to Ambassador, Darfur, Haiti, Sri Lanka on Margin

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 30 -- When an activist becomes an ambassador, what happens?

  On September 30, US Ambassador Samantha Power emerged from the UN Security Council and described to the press some of the General Debate week meetings held by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and she had in New York.

  She mentioned the Biden-chaired meeting on Strengthening Peace Operations, which came to be described as a pledging conference. But what of particular problems with UN Peacekeeping that need to be strengthened, such as its covering up of attack on civilians in Darfur as alleged by a whistleblower?

  UN inaction amid death in Darfur is the type of issue an activist, including this one, fastens onto and doesn't let go. But right now the Obama administration likes and is using the United Nations, and so offers very little criticism of it.

  Recently the US State Department filed legal papers supporting the UN's immunity -- read, impunity -- for allegedly having brought cholera to Haiti. In the General Debate on September 29, the foreign minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

called on the United Nations to accept itsrole and offer recompense to the victims of the cholera outbreak that its peacekeepers have been proven to introduce to Haiti. A year later, the UN continues to dodge its moral and ethical responsibility. The legitimacy of this body to conduct future peacekeeping missions and the legacy of its leadership at the highest levels, will be irreparably damaged by failure to immediately redress this glaring wrong.”

  An activist, including this one, would latch onto such an analysis and not let go. But right now, the US is supporting the UN's impunity.

  Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the quote at the September 30 noon briefing, and he said the UN is raising money, and Ban Ki-moon visited Haiti. But what about accountability? How can the UN preach rule of law while dodging the service of legal papers?

  Or a closer question: how can UN Peacekeeping, even to try to belatedly stop the bloodletting in the Central African Republic, use helicopters from the Sri Lankan Army, currently under investigation for war crimes by the UN's own Human Rights Council?

  How about moves against freedom of the press inside the UN, in writing, on video, systemic?

  Or back to Darfur: even in order to carrying corpses in the Ebola red-zone, how can the UN move out 400 four by fours from Darfur, which it is accused of covering up ongoing attacks on civilians?

  There are, of course, smaller or less media-genic issues on which the roles of activist and ambassador don't conflict. The freeing in Burundi, if only on health grounds, of human rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, would seem to merit some comment from Ambassador Power, given her comments at the beginning of the month and before.

  These type of questions are not taken or at least, were not taken on September 30. Instead the line of the questions taken, some in advance, ranged from a request to criticize Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's General Debate speech (done), to praise Ban Ki-moon (done), and to disagree with Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari (done). Even on the perennial issue of Palestine there was little pushing. It is an ecosystem. 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 2006-2014 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com