By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unhcr4nestle112709.html
UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Two weeks ago, the UN's refugee agency told Inner City Press on the record that despite Nestle's alleged involvement in child labor in Cote d'Ivoire and abusive water practices, "we are in discussion with Nestle about cooperation on future projects that will help deliver clean water and support small scale farming initiatives for refugees."
Inner City Press published an article about this prospective "bluewashing," citing non governmental organizations which had made UNHCR aware of their concerns about Nestle record.
On November 22, UNHCR sent the NGOs two messages, first that "there is currently no plan for an agreement with Nestlé but we do not rule out the possibility in the future." Asked a follow up by the NGOs to confirm that no deal would be announced in late November, UNHCR's Sybelle Wilkes replied that "I can confirm that there is no agreement and no planned agreement."
Inner City Press asked Ms. Wilkes and Ms. Melissa Fleming, in light of her earlier in the month "we are in discussion with Nestle about cooperation," to confirm the last assurance to the NGOs, that there is "no planned agreement" between UNHCR and Nestle.
But Ms. Fleming said she was traveling, and Ms. Wilkes would not confirm her own earlier statement, instead stating "I'm writing to follow up on a question you sent to Melissa Fleming. I can confirm that there is no agreement with Nestle, but UNHCR does not rule out the possibility in the future." Why wouldn't she say for the record what she'd told the NGOs, that there is "no planned agreement"? Can UNHCR be trusted? Why stonewall? Why fudge?
In fact, UNHCR came under fire this month in the UN budget committee, for failing to provide documentation for many of its expenditures. There are many well meaning people working for UNHCR, but the way the agency is being run is not consistent.
And Nestle, under fire for its participating in the UN's CEO Water Mandate as well as UN Global Compact, has a history of paying money to try to make problems go away. Previously it demanded compensation from Ethiopia for a subsidiary nationalized decades ago, then tried to diminish the backlash with a donation to UNHCR. Watch this site.
