By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 12 -- UN Peacekeeping is in disarray, from Darfur in Sudan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On August 12 Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey what the UN, which spends $1 billion a year in Darfur, was doing after 100 people were killed over the weekend in East Darfur. Video here.
Del Buey replied that the UN mission had given a "special flight" to governmental authorities to the site, and sent "senior personnel" to provide technical assistance to a mediation.
This ignores the number of Sudanese government officials who have been indicted for war crimes and genocide in Darfur, and echoes the UN flying ICC indictee Ahmad Harun to Abyei.
Meanwhile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the killing and displacement in Katanga has apparently drawn no response from the UN. Inner City Press asked Del Buey about Katanga, but there was no answer. Video here from 2:21.
Inner City Press also asked if the UN still respects or abides by the Kampala agreement under which the M23 rebels pulled back to positions outside of Goma. Is the MONUSCO mission seeking to disarm or dislodge from these agreed positions the M23 rebels? Del Buey did not really have an answer to this question. He reiterated that the "Security Zone" is meant to protect civilians.
Like the UN is doing in Darfur?
In Sri Lanka, after having no comment on the Army's use of live fire against protesters of water polluted by Hayley's in Weliweriya, now the UN has no comment on the attack on a mosque in the Grandpass section of Colombo. Video here from 1:45.
Inner City Press has also put these Sri Lanka questions to the office of High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. Watch this site.
