By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 20 -- When the UN announced on very short notice on August 20 that it would at noon host a briefing about the seemingly forgotten girls kidnapped in Chibok, by Ratidza Ndhlovu the head of the United Nations Populations Fund in Nigeria, there was an obvious question to ask.
What has happened to #BringBackOurGirls, which swept through Hollywood and Nollywood and the White House but has now waned and been superseded, by Islamic State and ebola, suicides and downed airliners?
Inner City Press was called and and prepared to ask the question -- but got cut off (see below). After a softball question about UNFPA's dignity kits and psychological support, Inner City Press thanked Ndhlovu on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access and asked: what is the status of finding or even trying to find the girls?
Ndhlovu said, “the government is working on it. As for the UN as a family we are pre-positioning for the girls when they come out, this is the role of the UN. The other part is for the government to take care of.”
Nice role, that. Inner City Press asked the UN spokesman if Ban Ki-moon's envoy on the issue Said Djinnit, since moved to the Great Lakes, has been replaced. “There will be a replacement if there hasn't been one already for the head of the West Africa Office” was the answer. Like we said: forgotten.
This spokesman had called on Inner City Press -- but allow the first question to be taken or “reclaimed” by the UN Correspondents Association, a group whose Executive Board tried to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN.
There have been no reforms; in anything UNCA, now the UN's Censorship Alliance, more aggressively demands the first question at such briefings, and then usually offers up a softball question of the type the UN likes. But the turning away from #BringBackOurGirls cannot be disguised, even by censors.
