By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 19 --
When asked
inside the UN
about bringing
cholera to
Haiti,
spokespeople
for UN
Peacekeeper
have for
months been
telling the
Press "we have
nothing more
to say," or
more recently,
"that is not a
yet or no
question."
So on
Tuesday Inner
City Press
went two
blocks from
the UN to a
panel
discussion
with UN
Peacekeeping
and the US
State
Department, to
see if there
might be a
more candid
answer.
The
guest was
supposed to be
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous, who
inside the UN
refuses to
answer Press
questions. (Video here, UK
coverage
here.) But
he was
replaced,
apparently at
the last
minute, by his
deputy Edmond
Mulet, once
the head of
the UN's
mission in
Haiti,
MINUSTAH.
When
Mulet and the
US State
Department's
Victoria Holt
were asked
about cholera
in Haiti, only
Mulet
answered.
(Holt answered
another
question about
zero tolerance
for sexual
abuse, but
said nothing
about the
US-trained
391st
Battalion of
the Congolese
Army being
implicated in
135 rapes in
Minova.)
Mulet
essentially
blamed the
cholera death
on Haiti
itself, noting
the "same
strain" --
that would be,
from Nepal,
brought along
with the
peacekeepers
from there by
the UN --
spread to the
Dominican
Republic but
didn't killed
anyone.
Mulet
said it spread
to Cuba too,
but the
government
there was more
organized. But
no follow-up
was allowed on
the main
point: it was
the UN
peacekeepers'
negligent
santitation
practices that
put their
fecal material
in the river
and introduced
cholera to
Haiti. Have
any
improvements
been made
since?
The
venue was the
Museum of
Tolerance; the
host was
UNA-USA. The
mood was how
to make the UN
attractive to
Americans, or
really, how to
best present
the UN to
Americans.
That's why
Mulet's
blame-the-Haitians
line doesn't
work: nearly
anyone who
hears what
happens thinks
the UN should
apologize, and
try to help
the families
of those
killed. And
that is
something that
UNA-USA is
going to have
to deal with.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
Mulet did tell
some
interesting
stories, about
peacekeepers
in Western
Sahara having
to use powder
to fend off
snakes; he
also said that
the first of
Ladsous'
drones --
he called
them UUAV, unarmed
-- will fly
above
Eastern
Congo in ten
days' time.
Watch this
site.
, 
