By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 14 -- How the UN could know, or admit to knowing, so little never ceases to amaze.
At this Wednesday's noon briefing Inner City Press put five questions to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey. Only one, or part of one, on Doctors Without Borders pulling out of Somalia got an answer.
On new reports of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, the UN had nothing, likewise of the beating to death of a person in Ed Daein taking photographs of the dead in a hospital to document it. Del Buey said he doesn't have information like that in the SG's Spokesperson's office.
But the UN's humanitarian chief in Sudan, Mark Cutts, to his credit acknowledged the UN heard of a beating death to Inner City Press the day before, open source, on Twitter, here.
On the expanding expulsions from Tanzania to Rwanda, Del Buey told Inner City Press to "ask UNHCR." But Ban Ki-moon has an envoy on the Great Lakes, to which these expulsions are clearly related.
As it did on August 13, Inner City Press asked Del Buey about crackdowns on protests in Bahrain. These were predicted on August 13, and happened on the 14th, with barbed wire and tear gas. Inner City Press asked, did anyone in the UN call the leaders in Manama? Apparently not.
Meanwhile, for the UN's France-replacing mission in Mali, Mauritania has said it will only give troops if they stay near its border. Inner City Press asked, will UN Peacekeeping underHerve Ladsous (the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the post) accept this? What is the policy? Del Buey said he will check. We'll see. Watch this site.
