Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 13 -- Last month Inner City Press reported that the UN is inviting Myanmar to contribute troops to UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous. This was confirmed to Inner City Press on February 27 by the office of then-spokesperson Martin Nesirky.

  On March 13 Nesirky's replacement Stephane Dujarric was asked about Human Rights Watch belatedly opposing the UN's invitation to Myanmar, given the issue of child soldiers. Myanmar is still on the UN's list of child soldier recruiters.

  Dujarric read out a statement, that Myanmar would still have to hold discussions with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, run by Ladsous.

  But Ladsous' DPKO already accepted a UN listed child soldier recruiter, Chad, into the Mali mission. Ladsous refused to answer Press questions about child soldiers (and including the recruiter in the CAR mission) when he last did a UNTV stakeout.

  Did Human Rights Watch speak up when Ladsous included a listed child soldier recruiter in the UN's Mali mission?

    On February 26, Inner City Press asked:

 Twenty four hours later, Nesirky and DPKO had provided no answer. So, even limited to a mere two questions -- no Sri Lanka -- by Nesirky, Inner City Press on February 27 asked again about Myanmar.

   Along with asking again if Nambiar invited Myanmar "peacekeepers," Inner City Press asked about president

   Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Nesirky said he wouldn't comment even this law while it is pending. Next month? After peacekeepers?

  Later on February 27, Nesirky's office sent this to Inner City Press:

   Under Ban and Ladsous, UN Peacekeeping has been advised by controversial Sri Lanka military figure Shavendra Silva; Ladsous has accepted a child soldier recruiter and user into "his" mission in Mali. Myanmar may be next.

   Is the UN still in denial about the exclusionary census it is supporting in Myanmar? Back on January 24, Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Farhan Haq:

Inner City Press: another Myanmar question. There is a census coming up. It seems that the United Nations system is involved in funding and maybe even participating in it. Both Kachin and Rohingya groups have expressed a lot of concerns. One, there is no box in the census thus far to check Rohingya, meaning… implying that they are not citizens. Also, Kachin, they have other complaints. I wanted to know: is UN aware of these? What steps are they taking, and will they fund a census that many groups think makes things worse rather than better?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Well, we will look into what we are doing on that question. We need some details about that.

  It was 19 days later, on February 12, that the UN Spokesperson's Office finally sent this response:

Subject: In response to your question on the Myanmar census.
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 5:02 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is the focal UN agency for providing technical and programmatic assistance to the Government for the census. It says that everyone in Myanmar will be counted in the census. UNFPA is supporting the Government to ensure that the census is fully inclusive and conducted according to international standards. Respondents will be asked to identify their ethnicity, with the option of selecting one of the categories used in the 1983 census or selecting "other" and writing in the name of another group. All of the responses will be coded and tabulated.

  Compare this belated Pollyanna answer by the UN and UNFPA to what the Myanmar government Minister for Immigration and Population U Khin Yi openly says:

"They say that their race is Rohingya. When a person says that his race is “B”, because he doesn’t want to mention his race as “A”, that means that race “A” no longer exists, but the race “B” is a new race. Since race “B” is a new race, there will be questions, such as “how did the race enter (the country)?” or “are they encroaching here?” When things become radical, I worry that it could harm peace and stability...We will record what the person says. If he says “A” then we will fill the form as “A”. The result will be, like I said before, that even if that term “A” is Rohingya, we will not recognize Rohingya as one of the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar."

So this is "fully inclusive and conducted according to international standards"? The UN is at best in denial. Watch this site.