By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 20 -- Before the killing of two UN peacekeepers and a still unknown number of civilians in Akobo, South Sudan, which Indian ambassador Asoke Mukerji told Inner City Press came from 1500 Lou Neur youth, a Danish UN staffer there named Mathilde Kaalund-Jørgensen tweeted about "Lou Nuer youth mobilising in big numbers" in Akobo.
But the tweet, and the whole Twitter account, quickly disappeared. Inner City Press reported on it November 8, and when UN envoy to South Sudan Hilde Johnson came to the Security Council on November 18, Inner City Press asked her about the disappeared Akobo / Nuer tweet.
Johnson replied it never should have been tweeted. More should be said -- including the rights where appropriate for whistleblowers to make things public that the UN may be covering up, for example on having brought cholera to Haiti.
Also at the November 18 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked for an answer to a question it asked last week, related to the UN bringing cholera to Haiti and then refusing to be accountable. Does UN Peacekeeping in any of its missions have established the Standing Claims Commission provided for it its SOFA or Status of Forces Agreements?
Haq said he had asked DPKO -- whose main spokesperson Kieran Dwyer stood to the side of Johnson's stakeout -- but that it is "not a yes or no question." Really? Does DPKO have any Commissions - if you can't say yes after multiple days, is the answer "no"?
UN Peacekeeping as a whole is declined into a stonewalling organization under Herve Ladsous: click here for video, here for UK coverage. Each SRSG -- and, in light of the disappeared Akoba tweet and subseqent events there, each UN staffer -- is free to be more responsive, and should. Watch this site.
