By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 26 – Five days after the UN tersely dismissed the pending legal claim that it introduced cholera into Haiti, Inner City Press asked the director of operation of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair John Ging if the dismissal impacted the UN's credibility, even in aid delivery. Video here, from Minute 34:32.
Ging acknowledged that it did. After answering another Inner City Press questions about Sudan, he said of the Haiti dismissal, “of course those of us working for the UN feel the impact of the debate... it effects our corporate reputation, of course.” Video here, from Minute 37:54.
As the UN has refused to provide the legal reasoning for its dismissal, and brag instead about new missions it plans in Mali, new brigades in Eastern Congo, this impact seems not to have been taken into account.
Nor has the Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous been willing to answer Inner City Press' simple question of what safeguards if any have been implemented to avoid the UN spreading cholera elsewhere.
Ladsous at first outright refused to response to the Inner City Press question, then after complaints by the Free UN Coalition for Access, he responded but did not answer. He described UN programs on clean water, after the fact, but nothing about DPKO-wide safeguards.
Ging said that “no OCHA colleagues have had cholera, in Haiti.” That is clearly not true of the peacekeepers under Herve Ladsous' command. But what has he done about it? Watch this site.
