By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 16 -- The lawlessness and lack of responsiveness of the UN on its responsibility for bringing cholera into Haiti has been noticed by the Washington Post. They call Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's letter to the editor "something closer to a non-response," in that it evaded the issue of responsibility.
But inside the UN, Inner City Press has asked Ban's spokespeople repeatedly about the cholera. After sitting on claims for more than a year, Ban's UN ruled the claims were "not receivable."
Then when Inner City Press asked for a more detailed legal argument, Ban's last top lawyer Patricia O'Brien said there was just "nothing more to say."
Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN, too, since Ban listens so much to them. But even after 19 members of Congress wrote to Ban about the issue, the US Mission has not follow up on the issue of accountability.
During new Ambassador Samantha Power's Twitter town hall on August 15, as Inner City Press noted, she glaringly did not respond to the tweets about the UN's role in bringing cholera to Haiti. Some supporters of the think that to ignore this is best. They are wrong: it makes the UN unable to credible preach about rule of law and accountability.
Ban's chief of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, with his own history in Haiti as on Rwanda, has simply refused to taken this and other questions from the Press, compilation video here. Ban has a new chief lawyer from Portugal, Miguel de Serpa Soares. Can he be credible without addressing this issue?
On August 16 it was announced that Ban will hold a "press encounter" in the briefing room on Monday, August 19. While some fear this means he will not take questions -- i.e., hold the type of press conference that at one point was promised to take place every month -- it seems clear that he should address cholera in Haiti on Monday. Watch this site.
