By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- What's wrong with the UN on Somalia, Kismayo and Puntland? Inner City Press at Tuesday's UN noon briefing asked for any UN comment on Puntland severing ties with Mogadishu, assuming there would be one. But Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky said he would have to check.
Where is UN Envoy Nicholas Kay on this? Inner City Presshas tweeted at him, as it did on the still unanswered questions about the use of armed guards by the UN in Somalia: are they from Denel, which some say has a drone better than thecrash prone drone procured from Finmeccanica's Selex ES for MONUSCO under Herve Ladsous? Or some other company?
There are also attacks on journalists: an attempted assassination in Kismayo on Abdikhadar Iman Dhaqane in Farjane, and the banning at the Mogadishu airport of journalist Mascud Abdulahi Adan from traveling to Nairobi for an operation to remove a bullet from his backbone.
The UN had nothing on this as well, just after the speeches in the Security Council on protection of journalists in conflict.
The Free UN Coalition for Access works on such issues, on Somalialand (click here) and elsewhere. What is the UN's position, for example on Puntland?
And where is the response, from Ladsous and the UN Mine Action Services, to the whistleblowers' unrebutted complaint that UNMAS' David Bax shared genetic information from bombings with US intelligence, through Bancroft Global near the same Mogadishu airport Mascud Abdulahi Adan was banned in? Watch this site.
