As
UN's Amos
Leaves, From
Denials on CAR
to Standing Up
to Saudi, Aid
in Evolution
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May
14 -- When it
emerged that
Valerie Amos
was leaving
the UN and her
post as Under
Secretary
General for
Humanitarian
Affairs, the
focus turned
to who would
replace her:
David
Cameron's
first choice
Andrew
Lansley, or
one of
Cameron's two
second
choices,
Caroline
Spellman or
Stephen
O'Brien, would
get the (UK)
post.
The shift in
interest
wasn't
entirely fair
to Amos, who
while
sometimes
reliably
following the
line of her
country, which
has now held
the OCHA post
three times in
a row, also
showed
independence,
most
recently by
chiding if
only
implicitly
Saudi Arabia
for trying to
politicize aid
to Yemen,
which it has
bombed.
Inner City
Press was
first to
report
Cameron's
begrudging
submission of
the alternate
candidacies of
Spellman and
O'Brien, and
the victory of
O'Brien, as
credited in the
Telegraph,
UK Channel 4
and
IRIN
(which was
spun off from
OCHA under
Amos' watch).
But
on the eve of
Amos' farewell
reception at
the UN, which
among others
US Assistant
Secretary of
State for
Population,
Refugees and
Migration Anne
Richards will
attend, Inner
City Press
offers this
admitted
partial recap.
After taking
over the OCHA
post in 2010,
following
fellow Brit
John Holmes
(he of passionate
ambivalence
about the
Tamil
Bloodbath on
the Beach
in Sri
Lanka),
Amos started
quietly. In
2011 when
Tony Blair
visited the
UN, it was by
her side.
But she
branched out:
for example
into Blue Nile
and Southern
Kordofan in
Sudan, on
which she
always to her
credit took
questions.
On Syria, Amos
was unwilling
ever before
ISIS' takeover
in Iraq to
talk about
OCHA operation
in Raqaa; she
did however get into
specifics on
aid workers
killed and
kidnapped.
In 2014, she
told Inner
City Press she was
disappointed
by MSF's
criticism of
the UN in
Central
African
Republic.
But given that
in 2015 it is
revealed that
the UN system
-- not OCHA --
helped
cover up rapes
of children in
CAR by the
French
Sangaris
forces,
and that Amos'
fellow USG
Herve Ladsous
pushed
to get the
whistleblower
who revealed
this fired,
according to a
UN Dispute
Tribunal rule
not contested
by OHCHR (only
Ladsous denies
it), we'd bet
MSF was right.
This is the
balance, this
is the dance:
the MSFs and Aids-Free
Worlds of
the world tell
the truth, and
the range of
UN USGs push
back, some as
colleagues,
others like
Ladsous as
unaccountable
drone.
Amos was and
is no drone,
that we can
say. We wish
her well in
future
endeavors. We
will have more
on this.
, 
