On
South Sudan Attacks on Health
Care and Sitting Fees, ICP Asks
UN Spox, Says Not Aware
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
April 23 – When the Watchlist
group held a press conference
about South Sudan and attacks
on health care there on April
23, Inner City Press asked
what the UN Mission UNMISS
should be doing, and about the
practice of government
officials charging "sitting
fees" to meet with them about
humanitarian access. Periscope
video here,
UN video later. The fees were
described as a cost of doing
business. It is striking,
however, how little is said
about such practices in South
Sudan compared at least one
other country on the Security
Council's agenda. And when
Inner City Press at noon on
April 23 asked UN Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric about the
fees, he said he is not aware
that the UN is aware of them.
UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: one other
South Sudan question.
There was a press conference
here at 11 a.m. by the group
Watchlist. Among other
things, they… they… because I
hadn't heard this before, the
idea of a sitting fee, that…
that Government officials are
charging money simply to sit
down with them to discuss
humanitarian access to areas
under their control. And
I'm just… I haven't heard that
from UNMISS. So, I'm
wondering, is the UN… was the
UN aware of that? And,
if so, why haven't they…?
Spokesman: I heard and
had not… I had heard those
things as you have. I'm
not aware of any that we are
aware of these things." That
is a classic UN answer. So
too, Yemen, on which UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres recently accepted
a $930 million check from the
Saudi Crown Prince and gave a
speech, not once mentioning
the Saudi-led Coalition's
continued killing of children
and others with air strikes.
The new Watchlist report is here
- at the April 23
briefing, only one other UN
correspondent asked a
question, this after the UN
evicted and still restricts
Inner City Press while giving
its long time work space and
full access to an Egypt
state media which rarely comes
in and never asks questions.
Back on March 6 when Watchlist
held its annual press
conference on children and
armed conflict
recommendations, Inner City
Press asked about Cameroon
and what Watchlist thinks the
UN should do about abuses by
the AMISOM force in Somalia,
which the UN supports. The
written recommendation is to
"further investigate" in light
of UN reported rapes including
by the Ethiopian Non-AMISOM
Defense Forces. The cogent
answer included a description
of the role of Ethiopia, on
the Security Council, in
reviewing this. Interim video
here.
Before Inner City Press'
questions there was some
intra-correspondent jousting
about questions about Israel,
then a thank you for the UN
Correspondents Association
that ignored what had gone
before. Inner City Press for
the Free
UN Coalition for Access
then said, with so few
journalists in the room, there
was no reason for anyone's
follow up questions be be cut
off. But this is the UN, where
they throw critical Press out
of the briefing room and out
of its office and the
building, then restrict
it to minders while the human
rights groups in "dialogue"
with the UN say nothing, or
actively go along. Here
is Watchlist's report. After
the 10 am briefing, Inner City
Press asked the UN spokesman
if this year's report, after
last year's lobbying it
ascribed to Saudi lobbying,
will be on time. The spokesman
said it will - we'll see.
Nearly exactly a year ago on 1
March 2017 abuses against
children in Yemen, Burundi,
the Central African Republic
and Myanmar were raised to the
Watchlist group, and later to
the UN, by Inner City Press.
Watchlist, one of its two
speakers from Human Rights
Watch, diplomatically declined
to opine when Inner City Press
asked if the Saudi led
Coalition was behind the
non-renewal of Special Adviser
Leila Zerrougui's contract.
But why wasn't she present at
the Saudi foreign minister's
recent meeting on the 38th
floor, and the UN's holdover
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
has refused to say why.
After
Watchlist's press conference
on March 1, at the noon
briefing an hour later Inner
City Press asked the UN's
Dujarric, transcript now here:
Inner City Press:
In this room, at 10:30,
Watchlist, the group about
Children and Armed Conflict,
were pretty critical of the
removal of the Saudi-led
Coalition from the Children
and Armed Conflict list,
basically urging the new
Secretary-General to put them
back on and also urging him to
take up, for the first time,
Burundi as a violator of
children's rights, including
on killing and maiming.
So I wanted to know, are you
aware of these calls?
Spokesman: Well, I'm
aware of it because I was
listening to it as I was…
Inner City Press: So what do
you think of it?
Spokesman: …preparing
for the briefing. I
think it's always important to
hear from NGOs
(non-governmental
organizations) who are heavily
involved in these things, and
the drafting of the report is
under way and should be out
not too long.
Inner City Press: Is
there any consideration of
including the various
peacekeepers in the Central
African Republic, including
the French force and the UN
forces…?
Spokesman: I will urge
you to wait for the
report.
We'll be here - unless
Dujarric has his way with what
he tried to do in 2016, get
Inner City Press kicked
out not only of the UN Press
Briefing Room but the UN
as a whole. (HRW did
nothing - in
fact, its UN lobbyist,
in a prior capacity, twice tried to
get Inner City Press thrown
out, misusing
the US Digital Millennium
Copyright Act to try to
cover up one of the attempts,
here.
See also this,
gotten under FOIA.)
Inner City
Press asked the Watchlist
speaker about Burundi, video
here, and after its
Periscope, about the group's
generally useful report's
failure to specifically
mention the plight of Rohingya
children in Myanmar. On that,
see here
(Arakan Project), and
watch this site.
***
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