By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 26 -- The UN's bid for impunity for bringing cholera to Haiti was assailed at a legal conference on Saturday, with Seton Hall law professor Kristen Boon saying that the UN does not possess absolute immunity, it's conditional on provision to provide forum for remedy.
But the UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous has refused to comply with its Status of Forces Agreement and set up any standing claims commissions.
Recently the UN lied or mis-spoke to Inner City Press -- it said that now UN Peacekeeping screens for cholera. Then when Inner City Press asked for the second time the next day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq admitted this is not the case. But media reported that the UN now screens, and the UN did not correct it.
It's worth noting -- and putting into context -- that the Security Council's resolution 2100 setting up the mission in Mali, MINUSMA, provides for
"the Secretary-General to consider the environmental impacts of operations of MINUSMA when fulfilling its mandated tasks and, in this context encourages MINUSMA to manage them, as appropriate and in accordance with applicable and relevant General Assembly resolutions and United Nations rules and regulations, and to operate mindfully in the vicinity of cultural and historical sites."
Sophie Ravier, Environmental Officer of the UN Department of Field Support -- whose Ameerah Haq Inner City Press is told and has reported is to be sent off to ESCAP in Thailand by Herve Ladsous -- has said that "The reconnaissance team visited a few locations to assess them from a security perspective, but also looked at the environmental aspects of those locations including water, energy and possible waste management solutions."
It's nice for the UN, now, to be saying it is looking at " possible waste management solutions" rather than simply putting cholera infested feces into people's drinking water as in Haiti. But what about the thousands of families injured, killed, by the UN's gross negligence?
And whatever belated review UN Peacekeeping is doing on its waste in Mali, Ladsous has incorporated into the mission a country on the UN's list of child soldier recruiters, and has yet to act on its rapes, or those of his partners in the Congo.
How can Ladsous and Ban Ki-mon preach or even speak of rule of law, while refusing to answer questions about their responsibility for deaths in in Haiti? Ladsous, who refuses all Press questions (video here, UK coverage here) is polluting, Haiti style, the entire UN. Watch this site.
