By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un8quakehaiti011510.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 15 -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in his third day in a room of addressing the Press about Haiti, declined to Friday to provide casualty figures, leaving that for his spokesman Martin Nesirky. Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban, in light of his call that all aid be "coordinated" through the UN, whether the $100 million announced by U.S. President Barack Obama will be part of the UN's $550 million flash appeal.
Mr. Ban answered that giving money NOT through the UN is a decision that any sovereign government can make. Only yesterday, he said that increased U.S. military presence in Haiti would be coordinated with the UN, or as some reporters heard it, under UN control.
Already, there is a call for an independent aid monitor. Inner City Press asked Ban about the idea. Ban said yes, there is a need for transparency, the idea will be studied. Notably, after Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, the UN allowed millions of dollars in aid to be taken by the Than Shwe government, as exposed by Inner City Press. The UN at first denied it, then admitted it, then later downplayed it.
Nesirky came back after Ban and took very few questions. The paper of record asked about visits to national staff members homes, which the Deputy SRSG described in response to Inner City Press' question on January 15, but only as to UNDP. Nesirky said the visits are continuing.
But are the peacekeeping mission's national Haitian staff all being visited?
In terms of now 38 deaths among the "UN presence in Haiti," on January 14 the briefers from Haiti said that deaths are only listed once families are informed, which is coordinated through UN headquarters in New York.
But is that the process for national Haitian staff? Nesirky took no more questions. So here's another: what about contractors who worked for the UN? At UN headquarters in New York, the cooking and cleaning and even UN TV is done by contractors, many of whom have worked in and for the UN for more than a decade. But such contractors would not show up or be counted, as the UN is doing it. Watch this site.
