By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 25 – With at least two South Sudanese threatened with deportation by Kenya, Inner City Press on January 25 asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric for the UN's response. From the UN transcript:
Inner City Press: extradition questions, not South Korea extradition but are you aware of the impending extradition of South Sudanese human rights lawyer Samuel Luak, who defended Pagan Amum? Basically, a number of highly respected groups are saying that, if he’s deported, he will face unjust treatment. So I’m wondering, has the UN…
Spokesman Dujarric: I, I have, don’t have an update here, but, again, you can check locally with the mission.
Inner City Press: So that would be the resident coordinator? I’m talking about in Kenya.
Spokesman: In Kenya, you can check with the UN Information Centre in Nairobi.
Spokesman Dujarric: I, I have, don’t have an update here, but, again, you can check locally with the mission.
Inner City Press: So that would be the resident coordinator? I’m talking about in Kenya.
Spokesman: In Kenya, you can check with the UN Information Centre in Nairobi.
Dujarric was until December 31 the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, who before he left the UN promoted his own son in law Siddharth Chatterjee to the top UN post in Kenya, as Resident Coordinator.
In December as Kenya detained journalist Jerome Starkey, Ban Ki-moon's son in law Chatterjee was entirely silent. Like his father in law has proved to be with the Press in New York, he is at heart a censor. But it makes a mockery of Ban Ki-moon's post Sri Lanka claims of "Rights Up Front," even as Ban angles to run for President on South Korea.
In fact, in Sri Lanka Ban's son in law is implicated in presumptive war crimes, the Jaffna Hospital massacre and the crushing of civilians with tanks. And it's from him that Ban took his advice on Sri Lanka, where Ban oversaw the killing of more than 40,000 civilians.
Ban is allowing those scribes who ignore this and praise him to sell access to him on December 16 for $1200 on Wall Street. We'll have more on this.
Tellingly, as the UN's Resident Coordinator in Kenya, Ban's son in law Chatterjee has remained silent not only on the targeting of South Sudanese, but on the protests profiled in a study released by Article 19, here.
Ban's son in law ignores Ban's supposed “Rights Up Front,” given his action in Sri Lanka (see below) and because he is entirely unaccountable: he could only be fired by Ban Ki-moon, his father in law. Nepotism is harmful.
On December 3 Inner City Press reported the ever-increasingly likelihood that Ban Ki-moon's son in law Chatterjee was involved in crimes of war in Sri Lanka, which neither Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric nor Chatterjee himself when asked in the UN lobby was willing to answer.
For some time Inner City Press has heard that Chatterjee, as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, was a war criminal. Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Dujarric if Chatterjee was involved in the Jaffna University raid, or the Jaffna hospital massacre, without answer.
In the UN lobby, Chatterjee said he would answer at an “opportune time.” He has not answered. Chatterjee had his commander, Dalvir Singh, write a defense on Huffington Post and elsewhere, identifying himself as the commander of Chatterjee and of the 10th Para commandos.
