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Comments
on Race
Attributed To
UN-HABITAT
Chief Trigger
Complaint to
Ban
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 16 --
Within the UN
system there
are racial
tensions, some
time at the
fore, often
under the
surface. Now
comes a
complaint
concerning the
head of
UN-HABITAT
Joan Clos,
that at a
staff retreat
at a
restaurant in
Nairobi he
held forth, in
English and
Spanish, about
a good White
man looking
for a poor
'Negro' to
help. See
complaint,
here, and
embedded
below.
Clos appears
to have been
quoting the
title of a
book by author
Gustau Nerin,
Blanco
Bueno, Busca
Negro Pobre.
But Clos'
other reported
comments at
the HABITAT
retreat, held
at the Lord
Errol
Restaurant,
also gave rise
to the
complaint,
including a
reference to
Nairobi, that
there are no
serious people
here who can
think.
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon, the
addressee of
the complaint,
has been asked
to act on
this. In his
UN system, it
is usually
politics and
not the facts
that determine
the outcome.
Ban has
for example
continued the
pattern of
giving the
post position
at UN
Peacekeeping
to France (now
in the person
of Herve
Ladsous, who
as Inner City
Press has
reported and
asked about linked peacekeepers' rapes
in the Central
African
Republic to
R&R,
here).
Ban kept
the UK atop
the Office for
the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs and
the US in
charge of the
Department of
Political
Affairs.
That Ban did
not discipline
Ladsous for
linking rapes
to R&R,
the type of
comment which
would get a
military
figure fired
or demoted in
many
countries, may
be well for
Clos. Or does
Spain have so
much less
political
juice in the
UN system that
the outcome
will be
different?
Reporting
Misconduct
against Mr
Joan
Clos,Executive
Director Un
Habitat by
Boniface
Mwangi
The
complaint was
also addressed
to the UN's
Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services,
which is
currently engaged
in an audit of
NGOs
affiliated
with Macau
based
businessman Ng
Lap Seng,
Frank Lorenzo
and Sheri Yan,
indicted in
the US for
bribery at the
UN.
It was also
sent to UN
human
resources and
the UN Ethics
Office, which
along with
OIOS was implicated
in the cover
up of (French
soldiers')
alleged rapes
in the Central
African
Republic. This
is Ban's UN.
Clos
also reported
criticized the
Japanese
development
agency JICA;
Japan is not
only a large
UN donor, but
current has an
elected seat
on the UN
Security
Council.
Inner City
Press has been
sent multiple
copies of the
complaint,
which was sent
to 37
countries'
missions; we
note that an
image of the
complaint was
Tweeted on
February 11 by
a Kenyan
activist.
Contrary for
example to Reuters,
whose UN
bureau chief
at first
sought to
minimize or
discredit, and
then simply
stole, Inner
City Press
February 12 exclusive
about new UN
rapes in CAR,
we note all
that. The
point now is,
what will the
UN do? Watch
this site.
* * *
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reports
are
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News and on Lexis-Nexis.
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Press at UN
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