At UN, Ban Ki-moon 2014 Press Conference Has No DR Congo, Haiti or Even Latin America or Asia, After Sri Lanka Sanitized: Censors' Circle

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 10 -- As the UN under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gets pushed to the margins of issues like Israel - Palestine, the nuclear "files" on Iran and North Korea, and even on the Central African Republic, out in the world there is mounting criticism of the UN.

  Even in CAR, the UN defers to forces with undue influence on the country for year, notably former colonial power France; the UN's humanitarian response has been slammed by Doctors Without Borders.

  In places where the UN actually is relevant, just for example, many in Haiti remain outraged at the UN bringing cholera then refusing to even accept court papers. 

  The UN's inaction and worse as tens of thousands were slaughtered in 2009, now sanitized into the "Rights Up Front agenda, has not led to any accountability. One of the perpetrators became an adviser to the UN and to Ban -- on Peacekeeping.

  Ban's UN, including in the way it manages the mostly compliant media, manages to keep such questions out, or at least keep them away from Ban Ki-moon.

  On January 10 Ban Ki-moon held his beginning of the year press conference. He brought up "Rights Up Front," twice -- but none of the questions taken were on it. Rather, Ban's acting deputy spokesman automatically gave the first of only eight questions to the United Nations Correspondents Association, a group which became in Ban's time the UN's Censorship Alliance, seeking to get the investigative Press expelled citing its reporting on Sri Lanka and conflict of interest at the UN.

(Haq gave a question to a state media which took the lead in asking for the "review" of Inner City Press' accreditation, click here for that request and e-mail saying Reuters, AFPand, yes, "UNCA" supported it. There have been no reforms since; the Free UN Coalition for Access has been formed.Reuters went on to file a bad faith Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to ban access to a similar communication to the UN from Google's search, click here for that.)

  In Ban's January 10 press conference there followed a series of predictable questions on Syria. Amazingly, the entire continents of Latin America (much less the UN's impunity for bringing cholera to Haiti) and even Asia, did not come up in the questions that Haq selected.

  Haq appears to view his job as making Ban, or perhaps the wider UN, look good. While that's one way to view the spokesperson's role, at least twice Haq has mis- or under-spoken then not gone back to correct it. He told Inner City Press in a briefing that the UN *does* screen deploying peacekeepers for cholera. 

  Haq never corrected it, but when Inner City Press raised it a second time having found that this was false, Haq acknowledged that what he'd said was not, in fact, the case. But the false claim or assurance remains, even on January 10, 2013, online for example here. This is the UN.

  Even this week, after Haq declined to confirm UN layoff letters Inner City Press asked about, having seen, only when Inner City Press asked again the next day did Haq read out a statement about Ban's "digital" UN. Then in yesterday'sclosed door Town Hall meeting, Ban was described as "heartbroken" as he signed the layoff ordered on December 31. Secret heartbreak, apparently.

  While there are many UN staff working hard, the UN will not improve while it shields itself from questions and buys the compliant media. Even this morning, many in the Great Lakes are looking for the UN to explain and take action on the photographed and videoed participation of UN vehicles in Goma celebrations of the false rumor of Rwanda's Paul Kagame's death. 

 The UN should have to answer these question -- but the UN won't even take the questions. Watch this site.

   

On Haiti, NYT and Blooomberg View Let Ban Ki-moon Off Hook, UN Cholera Screening by Ladsous Falsely Claimed, Not Corrected

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 13 -- After the Haiti cholera lawsuit was filed October 9 in US federal court in New York City, there's been another flurry of editorial calling for "the UN" or "the world body" to take responsibility. 

 While welcome, several including that of the New York Times miss the point, or the target.

The NYT editorial reports that "the United Nations’ response — as it has been the last three years — was to claim immunity from litigation." 

  But it nowhere mentions the name or even title of the individual who is responsible for this decision: Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

In most things, it is the Permanent Five members of the Security Council who run the UN. Notably, any one of them could have blocked Ban Ki-moon from becoming Secretary General.

But when Inner City Press this week asked French Permanent Representative Gerard Araud about the lawsuit, he said it was entirely up to Ban Ki-moon.

And then 19 members of the US Congress wrote to the State Department, then US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice demanding accountability for the cholera brought to Haiti, and there was no response, Inner City Press asked the US Mission to the UN about it. 

  The US response was, it's up to the Secretariat of Ban Ki-moon. (The view of Rice's successor Samantha Power on this, if different, is not yet known. Inner City Press got aresponse from Power on accountability, but only with regard to Syria, here.)

  Ban's spokespeople, when pressed, tried to say that the decision to deem the legal claims "not receivable" was made by Ban's then top lawyer Patricia O'Brien. 

  But she has left the UN, as least as an employee: she now represents Ireland at the UN in Geneva. In any event, this is not the type of issue that saying "on advice of counsel" is sufficient.

It was and is Ban Ki-moon's decision, one of the worst in his tenure so far. (Notably he also failed to call even for a ceasefire as 40,000 civilians were killed in Sri Lanka in 2009, then accepted a perpetrator as a UN adviser and tried to withhold an internal UN report until Inner City Press obtained and published it last week, here.)

  So why does the "Paper of Record" leave the decision-maker out of the picture? Bloomberg View, which also doesn't use Ban's name, at least notes that "the secretary-general’s office replied that the complaint was “not receivable” because it would require “a review of political and policy matters."

  Of course, it's hard to an "office" responsible. And this Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General, through associate spokesperson Farhan Haq, last week told Inner City Press that as a lesson learned from Haiti, UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous now screens peacekeepers for cholera.

  Inner City Press knew this to be false, and said it. When it asked the next day -- no correction was offered in 24 hours -- Haq acknowledge that no screening is being done, blaming WHO. But publications like Caribbean Journal still have online uncorrected stories like this: "UN: Lesson Learned From Haiti Is to 'Screen Peacekeepers For Cholera.'"

  That story even links to the UN's transcript of its October 11 noon briefing, where Haq told Inner City Press, "part of our lessons learned from this has been to screen peacekeepers for cholera."

  The UN never added a correction to that -- no screening is taking place -- nor apparently has it sought to tell the Caribbean Journal and others to stop spreading the "good" (but false) news.

  This UN will only improve, if then, if those responsible are named and asked to be accountable. The structure of the UN makes anonymity and impunity more likely than elsewhere. To counter this, and open the UN, the Free UN Coalition for Access has begun, despite UN threats. Watch this site.

   

As France Calls "Vague" UN "Moral Responsibility" for Cholera in Haiti, PM Lamothe Tweets ICP, No Screening of Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 10 -- The day after the UN was sued for bringing cholera to Haiti, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud about the case, and how the UN should respond since it is "pretty clear the UN brought cholera to Haiti." Video here, from Minute 9:04.

Araud replied, "that's your judgment, that the UN brought cholera, that's your assessment, you can make it."

But even those who wrote the UN's first cover-up report have recanted it and admitted that a strain identical to that from Nepal where the UN brought peacekeepers from caused cholera in Haiti.

  On the class action lawsuit, a copy of which Inner City Press put online yesterday morning here, Araud said "that for UN to answer, the UN has made an answer, the assessment of the Secretariat" -- apparently referring to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's pre-lawsuit ruling that the claims were "not receivable."

  Araud continued, about the "state of law," that "it will be to the court to decide... I'm sure that the UN will accept the decision."

  Actually, even in the UN's dubious in-house legal system,Ban Ki-moon appeals nearly every decision against him, including for lack promised of whistleblower protection.

  Inner City Press then asked Araud about what Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said in the General Debate last month, that the UN has a "moral responsibility" for cholera in Haiti.

Araud scoffed and said, "moral responsibility is a very vague term." Video here, from Minute 10:22.

Inner City Press tweeted this, and minutes later Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe wrote to Inner City Press by Twitter: "@innercitypress do you have a question? #haiti #cholera #UN #UNSC #UNSG"

Yes, Inner City Press had and has questions, and has now sent three to Lamothe's office, including about testimony yesterday on Capitol Hill about Haiti. Watch this site.

Footnote: Yesterday Ban Ki-moon's Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq answered Inner City Press that UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous now screened peacekeepers for cholera, he thought: "I believe that part of our lessons learned from this has been to screen peacekeepers for cholera." Inner City Press asked him to check, saying "I haven't heard that they are."

  Having no response 24 hours later, Inner City Press asked Haq at Thursday's noon briefing and he said -- only when asked a second time -- that Ladsous' DPKO does NOT screen for cholera. When was that answer going to be provided?

   Inner City Press asked Ladsous a simple question in front of the Security Council on Thursday, which he refused to answer. This "farce" was reported earlier this week in the UK New Statesman, here. We will pursue all of this. Watch this site.

   

On Haiti Cholera Class Action Lawsuit, ICP Asks UN of Its "Strong" Finances & Any Screening Reforms, Ladsous Won't Answer

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 9 -- Last night Inner City Press reported that a class action lawsuit would be filed this morning in the Southern District of New York -- and today it was.

  But the UN's response has been even more lame than might have been expected.

  Inner City Press asked UN Controller Yukio Takasu, who had just finished saying that the financial position of the UN is strong, how that related with the UN's decision to dismiss all claims for the death of 8,300 people and country from cholera it brought to Haiti.

  Takasu replied that the Secretary General can't spend a penny without approval of the General Assembly. One might then thing: take a vote. But it is Ban's and his then top lawyer Patricia O'Brien, and the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, who are responsible for the decision.

  Also, Ban in a letter to week to the Security Council about chemical weapons in Syria says that he is funding the operation from a slush fund for unexpected events. This fund exists -- does to not even consider using it mean that cholera deaths in Haiti WERE expected?

  Since Ban's associate spokesperson Farhan Haq refused to comment on the claims (while saying the UN has commented a lot in recent months -- in reality, by saying "we have nothing further to say"), Inner City Press asked about UN Peacekeeping's statements that the peacekeepers had been screened (which the lawsuit calls "false"), and if UN Peacekeeping under Ladsous now screens those it deploys, at least from cholera hotspot countries.

  Haq said he thinks they do screen. Inner City Press asked him to get a statement from DPKO -- because Ladsous has repeatedly refused to answer this question and others from the Press, a "farce" which was covered yesterday in the UK's New Statesman, here.

For now, we are putting the lawsuit online, here. Watch this site.