On Ebola, UNICEF Uses 2/3 National Staff, Equal Treatment and Right to Medevac Questioned, Along with Use of Schools for Quarantine

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 3 -- When UNICEF's Global Ebola Emergency Coordinator Peter Salama took questions at the UN on November 3, he said UNICEF aims to increase its staffing by hundreds in the three most impacted countries.

  Inner City Press asked Salama how many of these will be national versus international staff, and if the two groups will be treated equally in terms of a right to medical evacuation.

  Salama said UNICEF's "mix" is one-third international staff. He said, as others have, the the UN is concerned about adequate care for all staff - including of NGOs and local governments. But he added this requires "transportation and a receiving country." Salama said this is really up to the UN Medical Service and the World Health Organization. So are UN international and national staff treated equally? We'll continue on this.

  Inner City Press also asked Salama about the use of schools for involuntary quarantine. He responded about decentralized treatment, and that five million children now aren't in school.

 Back on October 17, UNICEF's Sarah Crowe upon her return from five weeks in Liberia held a UN press conference. She described people quarantined in a school surrounded by barbed wire.

  Inner City Press asked her about the UNMEER mission -- there was no answer -- and if international and national staff in Liberia have the same right to medical evacuation (she referred the questions to UN Medical; it hasn't been answered.)

  Anecdotally, Crowe said she wasn't checked for Ebola or fever at JFK Airport or in Europe. She said that when she got back to Manhattan and told a bus driver where she'd been, he loudly asked if she should be getting on the bus. (For the MTA's information, it was the M15 First Avenue line - but was it appropriate?)

   On quarantines, Inner City Press asked Crowe what UNICEF's and the UN system's position is, for example on that of the West Point neighborhood in Monrovia. Crowe called the situation in the school "not ideal," saying that the people quarantined inside wanted to leave.

UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous on October 14 said his DPKO officials "are working closely with Liberia's security agencies to plan future security operations conducted in the context of the state of emergency."

  Inner City Press asked, what does that mean -- UN Peacekeeping participation in curfews? Cordon and quarantine? Martial law if it comes to that?

  Early on the morning of October 15, Inner City Press put these questions and others to three spokespeople of the UN Mission in Liberia, UNMIL. See below. By noon, no responses had been received, so Inner City Press posted the UNMIL mandate question, and one about MEDIVAC, to UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq at the day's noon briefing. Video here.

  Despite the fact that Liberian authorities have already engaged in a quarantine, of Monrovia's West Point neighborhood, Haq called the questions hypothetical, and had no direct response to UN staff's demand that the right to medical evacuation be assured.

  Inner City Press had put that question, as well, to UNMIL's spokespeople, along with these, based on whistleblowers' complaints to the Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access:

"This is a Press request for confirmation or denial that SRSG Landgren rents living quarters in Monrovia, (2) from the Swedish government / embassy (or if not, from whom), (3) at a cost of over $8000 a month. Also, please describe the medical evacuation procedures that have been in place for UNMIL staff for the past six months. One further question: it has been said that UNMIL officials 'are working closely with Liberia's security agencies to plan future security operations conducted in the context of the state of emergency.' Please explain, including stating whether UNMIL would take part or assist in quarantining, curfews or even martial law."

  This has been UNMIL response, hours later to these questions:

Dear Matthew, You can attribute these to me:

On the SRSG’s accommodation, the UN does not disclose its staff members’ personal information.

Decisions to medevac are made on a case-by-case basis and depend on factors such as the stage of the disease and the ability of receiving facilities to take patients.

Best regards,

Russell Geekie, Chief of Public Information
United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)

  How the UN spends money, including to house its high officials, is not private - the UN is ostensibly a public organization, and certainly spends the public's money, as FUNCA has pointed out.

  "Case by case" does not sound like the right to medivac that staff are demanding. We'll have more on this.

  As to planning for "security operations" in Liberai, Ladsous should answer - but he has refused Press questions (video compilation here), blocked the Press' camera (Vine here) and more recently his Office demanded that an on the record interview about DPKO bringing cholera to Haiti not be aired.

  But the questions should be answered, as should the impact on this mission in Mali of its chief, Bert Koenders, so quickly leaving to become Dutch foreign minister. Inner City Press wrote about this early on October 14; at the day's noon briefing UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq wouldn't even confirm that Koenders is leaving. This is the Ladsousification of the UN.

  Back on September 24 for the UNMEER Ebola response mission, UN official Tony Banbury said “we're moving 470 four by four vehicles” into the impacted zone of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

  Inner City Press asked Banbury if these vehicles are all coming from existing UN Peacekeeping missions. Banbury replied, “some peacekeeping missions are downsizing [so] all of them are coming from peacekeeping missions.”

  As Inner City Press exclusively reported a week ago, as the final point in an otherwise positive profile of this UN mission's lightening speed, the UN is seeking to withdraw vehicles from its mission in Darfur, where it is also accused by whistleblowers of covering up continued killing of civilians.

The UN seems to have no problem pulling its vehicles and forces out of Darfur - the only problem is getting the government in Khartoum to agree to big Western transport planes to fly into Darfur to move the vehicles.

  Banbury continued that “some are very close to the end of their serviceable life for the UN. The requirement in some cases is for burial parties, to transport corpses.”

  Banbury said the UN is told by doctors that “after use for that purpose for a length of time, it should be burned.”

                                                                So the UN is bringing peacekeeping vehicles from Darfur, to transport corpses in and them burn them. Watch this site.

On Ebola, After Reuters Hypes Liberia Progress, UN Nabarro Cautions, Tells ICP of Philippines Quarantine; UN Doesn't Yet Have All Elements for Fair Treatment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 31 -- After Reuters' "editor at large" Sir Harold Evans in Times Square on Friday morning prefaced a question by saying the Ebola crisis is nearly over in Liberia, Inner City Press ran the quote by David Nabarro, UN envoy on Ebola.

  Nabarro said that the World Health Organization data, while most recently showing the rate in Liberia is not continuing to increase may not include all data, and should be treated with caution.

 On treatment, Inner City Press asked if UN national and international staff in West Africa have the same right to medical evacuation, a question on which when Inner City Press has asked the UN has repeatedly dodged or delayed. Nabarro was more honest, saying there is an aspiration to equal and appropriate treatment, but "we don't have all the elements in place." We'll say on this.

  This week UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric declined to comment when Inner City Press asked about the Philippines quarantining all of its peacekeepers returning from Liberia for 21 days. Inner City Press asked Nabarro, who said generally if people are not showing symptoms, this type of quarantine does not equate with the best public health guidance.

   These peacekeepers were serving the UN - how can the UN Secretariat, Herve Ladsous and Ban Ki-moon, not speak up for them? 

  Yesterday morning the International Monetary Fund saidin response to a Press questions that the outlook is worsening in the three most Ebola impacted countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. It's a humanitarian and also a business story.

So where is the big business media, for example Reuters, on this?

 Now we can say: Reuters is advertising itself. In a session dominated by Sir Harold Evans, reference was made to Reuters "great" reporters, piped in by video. Sir Harry prefaced one question by saying the crisis is nearly over in Liberia; he said "we" have strained relations with Cuba. Sir?

  US Ambassador Samantha Power spoke in detail, but seemed to ignore China's announcement commitment to Liberia while thanking all the way down to Air Maroc. In fairness, at the end she mentioned an old Chinese plane -- being unloaded by American soldiers.

  The moderator Stephen J. Adler, who previously refused to provide any Reuters policy on crediting other media's exclusives and ignored Reuters attempts to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, took a few questions, including one about why the US doesn't have a Surgeon General. Planted?

  Then Adler called on Tina Brown -- Sir Harry's significant other -- then Reuters UN censor, who has scammed Google into blocking from its Search his own complaint to the UN to try to get the investigative Press thrown out of the UN, here.  filing, under oath, to Google is here. Both forms of censorship are opposed, at the UN, by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.

  When US Ambassador Samantha Power went to West Africa, she took Reuters along to document each stage. (Here is some alternative coverage, here, here and here.) Upon her return, on October 31 Power will speak at Reuters in Times Square. That event will web-cast, but throughout the week Reuters has been selling its clients first access to quotes from business leaders.

  But there is another side to Reuters. Even when itcelebrated itself for getting a leaked copy of the most recent Somalia Eritrea sanctions report, it neglected to report in any way that one of the report's authors was forced to resign after writing a “regime change” plea on UN letterhead. (Inner City Press coverage here, then hereand ehere.)

   Reuters reminded silent on this development, clearly relevant to the sanctions story and report, even as it was discussed on camera by the UN spokesman and UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.

  Relevant to this silence by Reuters, and making it more problematic, is that the sanctions monitor who was forced to resign, Dinesh Mahtani, used to be in the employ of Reuters. This is how it works.

  While trumpeting its (compensated) “exclusive” publication of leaked documents, Reuters has petitioned Google to block from its Search an anti-Press complaint it filed with the UN, calling it a personal communication and even copyrighted, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Its filing, under oath, to Google is here. Both forms of censorship are opposed, at the UN, by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.

In Liberia, UNICEF Calls Quarantine in Schools "Not Ideal," But Is the UN Involved?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 17 -- When UNICEF's Sarah Crowe upon her return from five weeks in Liberia held a UN press conference on October 17, she described people quarantined in a school surrounded by barbed wire.

  Inner City Press asked her about the UNMEER mission -- there was no answer -- and if international and national staff in Liberia have the same right to medical evacuation (she referred the questions to UN Medical; it hasn't been answered.)

  Anecdotally, Crowe said she wasn't checked for Ebola or fever at JFK Airport or in Europe. She said that when she got back to Manhattan and told a bus driver where she'd been, he loudly asked if she should be getting on the bus. (For the MTA's information, it was the M15 First Avenue line - but was it appropriate?)

   On quarantines, Inner City Press asked Crowe what UNICEF's and the UN system's position is, for example on that of the West Point neighborhood in Monrovia. Crowe called the situation in the school "not ideal," saying that the people quarantined inside wanted to leave.

UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous on October 14 said his DPKO officials "are working closely with Liberia's security agencies to plan future security operations conducted in the context of the state of emergency."

  Inner City Press asked, what does that mean -- UN Peacekeeping participation in curfews? Cordon and quarantine? Martial law if it comes to that? 

  Early on the morning of October 15, Inner City Press put these questions and others to three spokespeople of the UN Mission in Liberia, UNMIL. See below. By noon, no responses had been received, so Inner City Press posted the UNMIL mandate question, and one about MEDIVAC, to UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq at the day's noon briefing. Video here.

  Despite the fact that Liberian authorities have already engaged in a quarantine, of Monrovia's West Point neighborhood, Haq called the questions hypothetical, and had no direct response to UN staff's demand that the right to medical evacuation be assured.

  Inner City Press had put that question, as well, to UNMIL's spokespeople, along with these, based on whistleblowers' complaints to the Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access:

"This is a Press request for confirmation or denial that SRSG Landgren rents living quarters in Monrovia, (2) from the Swedish government / embassy (or if not, from whom), (3) at a cost of over $8000 a month. Also, please describe the medical evacuation procedures that have been in place for UNMIL staff for the past six months. One further question: it has been said that UNMIL officials 'are working closely with Liberia's security agencies to plan future security operations conducted in the context of the state of emergency.' Please explain, including stating whether UNMIL would take part or assist in quarantining, curfews or even martial law."

  This has been UNMIL response, hours later to these questions:

Dear Matthew, You can attribute these to me:

On the SRSG’s accommodation, the UN does not disclose its staff members’ personal information.

Decisions to medevac are made on a case-by-case basis and depend on factors such as the stage of the disease and the ability of receiving facilities to take patients.

Best regards,

Russell Geekie, Chief of Public Information
United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)

  How the UN spends money, including to house its high officials, is not private - the UN is ostensibly a public organization, and certainly spends the public's money, as FUNCA has pointed out. 

  "Case by case" does not sound like the right to medivac that staff are demanding. We'll have more on this.

  As to planning for "security operations" in Liberai, Ladsous should answer - but he has refused Press questions (video compilation here), blocked the Press' camera (Vine here) and more recently his Officedemanded that an on the record interview about DPKO bringing cholera to Haiti not be aired.

  But the questions should be answered, as should the impact on this mission in Mali of its chief, Bert Koenders, so quickly leaving to become Dutch foreign minister. Inner City Press wrote about this early on October 14; at the day's noon briefing UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq wouldn't even confirm that Koenders is leaving. This is the Ladsousification of the UN.

  Back on September 24 for the UNMEER Ebola response mission, UN official Tony Banbury said “we're moving 470 four by four vehicles” into the impacted zone of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

  Inner City Press asked Banbury if these vehicles are all coming from existing UN Peacekeeping missions. Banbury replied, “some peacekeeping missions are downsizing [so] all of them are coming from peacekeeping missions.”

  As Inner City Press exclusively reported a week ago, as the final point in an otherwise positive profile of this UN mission's lightening speed, the UN is seeking to withdraw vehicles from its mission in Darfur, where it is also accused by whistleblowers of covering up continued killing of civilians.

The UN seems to have no problem pulling its vehicles and forces out of Darfur - the only problem is getting the government in Khartoum to agree to big Western transport planes to fly into Darfur to move the vehicles.

  Banbury continued that “some are very close to the end of their serviceable life for the UN. The requirement in some cases is for burial parties, to transport corpses.”

  Banbury said the UN is told by doctors that “after use for that purpose for a length of time, it should be burned.”

  So the UN is bringing peacekeeping vehicles from Darfur, to transport corpses in and them burn them. Watch this site.

As UNISFA Extended, Disputes of Borders & Bombs, No SOFA Promised by Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 17 -- After the UN Security Council Thursday renewed the mandate of the "interim" peacekeeping mission in Abyei for six more months, representatives of South Sudan and Sudan came to take questions from the press.

  Inner City Press asked South Sudan's Ambassador Francis Nazario if his government would like to see UNISFA expanded to cover Heglig. He said "for the time being, we are quite pleased to see the extension for another six months... the presence should be legal." He called for human rights monitoring.

  After Sudanese diplomats on May 16 told Inner City Press that South Sudan had not pulled back behind the 1/1/1956 border, Inner City Press asked Nazario to respond. He said that the parties agree where that border is. But that is not at all clear. Inner City Press asked the Sudanese representative who followed about aerial bombing, and he insisted it is all within the borders of Sudan and thus legal and "legitimate."

  Inner City Press asked the representatives of both Sudan and South Sudan why there is still no Status of Forces Agreement for the mission, which for example would specify how med-evac of injured peacekeepers can take place. Already, four Ethiopian peacekeepers have died after landmine injuries and delays in med-evac due to the lack of a SOFA.

  Back in November 2011, one of the last press availabilities by the French chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous, Inner City Press asked Ladsous about the continuing lack of a Status of Forces Agreement in Abyei. Ladsous said it was not problem, the SOFA was nearly done.

  That was six months ago, but still there is no SOFA, which puts UN peacekeepers at risk. When after a long period of invisibility Ladsous held a press conference this month, he insisted that it be limited to questions about Syria. 

  Inner City Press said, you should take questions on Sudan, and Haiti. But he did not. There is more to say, but Ladsous' DPKO has descended to seeking to censor articles and demand to know their sourcing. We will have more on this.

As UN Admits Abyei Medevac Delay Was For Copter from Wau in South Sudan, What Safeguards Are In Place?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 5,updated -- As the delay associated with the death of three peacekeepers in Abyei garners more interest, the UN on Friday afternoon reversed its position of hours earlier, and admitted that it asked Sudan if it could medevac the injured peacekeepers using a helicopter from Wau in South Sudan, and that Sudan said no, "that is a different country."

This is what UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant told Inner City Press on Thursday evening, but which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky denied Friday at noon, saying that the request had been to fly the helicopter from Kadugli in Sudan.

If Khartoum blocked a medical flight entirely within Sudan it would be one thing; for them to deny access to a helicopter from a country which just broken away, while heartless, is not unexpected.

So the question is, why did the UN not plan for it, not admit it when it happened, and try to dissemble about it even after the cat was out of the bag, due to the UK Ambassador's commendable candor?

And what ensures that if a UN peacekeeper is injured today in Abyei, they too might not bleed out due to a lack of planning? Watch this site.

Note: The Council meetings on August 11 about Sudan -- but outgoing DPKO chief Alain Le Roy's last day is August 10. So once again at the UN: no accountability?

Footnote: Earlier this year when the Security Council traveled to Sudan, they intended to go to Abyei. But even before fighting flared up, there was controversy about whether they would fly in via Wau in the South, which has a shorter runway, or Kadugli, where ICC-indicted Southern Kordofan government Ahmed Haroun might greet them on the tarmac. Ultimately they didn't go: but they were on notice of the problems of air travel to and from Abyei. We will continue on this.