By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 25 -- After a "mass grave in Bentiu" was announced by the UN's High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay, the UN Mission in South Sudan has a day later denied the existence of the mass grave in Bentiu.
But even before Pillay's announcement, French Permanent Representative to the UN Gerard Araud on December 20 was asked by Inner City Press about Dinka soldiers seeking shelter with the UN in Rubkona, which is directly across the Bahr al Ghazal river from Bentiu, in Unity State. Video herefrom Minute 12:54.
Araud replied curtly that Rubkona wasn't discussed in the briefing by UN Peacekeeping -- but the French Mission to the UN it is transcript misspelled it as "Rupkona. CompareFrench transcript to UN Video at Minute 13:10.
Earlier in the week, the head of UN Peacekeeping, former French Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Herve Ladsous, had understated the death toll in Juba, putting it at 400 to 500 when multiple reports now put it substantially higher.
But Ladsous says he "has a policy" of not answer Press questions: video here, UK coverage here.
All of this takes place after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that following the UN's failure in Sri Lanka in 2009, in which as Inner City Press exposed the UN even concealed and denied its own reports counting the civilians dead, now the UN will put "Rights Up Front" and sound the alarm on human rights violations, even in countries whose government's the UN is supporting.
In South Sudan, lead UN envoy Hilde Johnson is closely aligned with Salva Kiir; little was heard in terms of calling for restraints during the "re-taking" of Bor, and prospectively of Bentiu.
There are echoes of Sri Lanka: while another documented mass grave was unearthed in Mannar only yesterday, a cable released by Wikileaks shows current Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to the UN Palitha Kohona denying Pillay's statements about Mannar in March 2009.
It's one thing for a government to dismiss what UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay says - but for UN Peacekeeping and its mission to dismiss the human rights report? To this has UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous sunk. Rights Up Front? Hardly.
Footnotes: When Inner City Press reported Kohona's previous financial relationship with the president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, as background for UNCA's screening inside the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium of his Sri Lankan government's film purporting to rebut a expose of war crimes which itself was never shown in the UN, leaders of UNCA -- now the UN's Censorship Alliance -- ordered Inner City Press to remove the factual report from the Internet.
When Inner City Press refused, at least three of these leaders moved and supported moves to throw Inner City Press out of the UN: the UN bureau chiefs of Voice of America,Agence France Presse and Reuters, also spying for the UN.
Yet just last week this group's 2013-14 president Pamela Falk of CBS, who has done nothing to reform it, was for example automatically given the first question even about the UN's post Sri Lanka failure Rights Up Front plan on December 19. And the UN erased from its transcript even the mention of the new anti-censorship Free UN Coalition for Access, like another attempted erasures. This is how the UN works -- or doesn't. Watch this site.
