UNITED
NATIONS, June
13 -- Amid the
slaughter in
Syria, how
does the UN
count the
dead?
Today's
announcement
of at least
93,000 dead,
ascribed to the
Office of the
High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights in
Geneva but
compiled by an
California-based
outside
contractor
(re)
named the
Human Rights
Data Analysis
Group, is
worth looking
at in
terms of
authorship.
The
last report
issued in
January 2013
by the OHCHR
used San
Francisco
based
Benetech.
Inner City
Press looked
into it
and found
Benetech was
funded in part
by the US
National
Endowment for
Democracy.
A
Patrick
Ball of
Benetech
told Inner
City Press
there had been
a
Request for
Proposals:
that is,
competition.
But soon it
emerged that
there was no
RFP "as such." Two
other
organizations
were
approached,
but OHCHR
would not name
them. A
strange
procurement,
to say the
least.
Now,
the day before
the vote at
the Human
Rights Council
on a Syria
resolution
sponsored by
the US, UK,
Qatar, Kuwait
and Turkey,
OHCHR
released a new
report -- this
time, not
"formally" by
Benetech.
But
even a cursory
check based
off the first
page of the
new report
finds that the
same Patrick
Ball who
replied to
Inner City
Press in
January for
Benetech is
the executive
director of
the "new"
contractor
Human Rights
Data Analysis
Group or
HRDAG. He is
one of the
four authors
of the new
report, along
with
Megan Price,
Jeff Klingner
and Anas
Qtiesh.
At
the bottom of
the report is
the new
disclosure:
"Formally,
HRDAG
is a fiscally
sponsored
project of
Community
Partners."
It's
a generic
name,
Community
Partners --
but a quick
visits finds
it to
be a sort of
conduit which
lends its
non-profit
status to
start up.
HRDAG is not
so much a
start up as a
spin off -- it
is being spun
off
from Benetech.
The
report says
"In February
2013, HRDAG
became
an independent
organization."
Is that
because of the
exposure
of Benetech's
funding by the
US National
Endowment for
Democracy? But
what has
changed?
HRDAG
has as one of
three advisers
an official
from Human
Rights Watch.
Under Funding
it portrays
Western
government's
funding to
Benetech as
a thing of the
past. But even
in its present
re-incarnation,
HRDAG
lists
as a funder an
"anonymous
U.S.-based
private
foundation."
On
Community
Partners'
board of
directors are
people from
Ameriprise
Financial,
Mattel and NBC,
among others.
So did the
renamed HRDAG,
spun out of
US-funded
Benetech, get
another
essentially
sole source
contract? Why
is the UN so
sloppy? Why
can it not
issue its own
reports, given
its
budget? Watch
this site.
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