By Matthew Russell Lee
UNdisclosed Location, March 20 -- The day before Haiti became the topic in the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked the UN's new Youth Envoy Ahmad Alhendawi if, like the UN's third highest humanitarian official John Ging, he thought the terse dismissal of claim for bringing cholera to the island hurts the UN's credibility, in his case with young people.
Unlike Ging, Alhendawi said he didn't know much about that; instead he cited a relative who served in MINUSTAH at the time of the earthquake. Likewise, when Inner City Press asked about fairness for younger people applying to work at the UN, he answered that since he got hired, the UN must be fair. Really?
Also on Haiti, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Wednesday morning Ireland for the EU spoke of helping with economic, social and cultural rights. But what about the UN saying the Haiti cholera claims were “not receivable”? Where's the rule of law in that?
And where's the rule of law in the UN conducting a non-consensual search of Inner City Press' office on March 18 -- and then on March 19 demanding that the video shot after the raid be removed from YouTube?
On worker fairness, Inner City Press earlier this week reported that Ban Ki-moon would meet with some in the Staff Union on March 19 -- those who didn't refuse to come based on the general membership's vote of no confidence in Ban after he called them “selfish.”
Inner City Press published an advance copy of what Ban would be told at the meeting, including about the use of the word “selfish.”
Then... Ban canceled the meeting. And so it goes at the UN. Watch this site.
