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On Gaza, UN Envoy Has No Casualty Figures,
"Not Aware," No Comment on LRA from Congo to CAR
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 2 -- The defensiveness of
the UN knows no bounds. At the end of a week that began with the UN
implying
that all men killed by air strikes in Gaza were combatants, on
Friday UN envoy
Robert Serry told the Press he didn't have any more casualty figures.
Inner
City Press asked if Serry had played any role in the UN's conflation of
"civilians"
with woman and children. "I'm not aware of that," Serry said.
But Inner
City Press' sources describe the phrase over "sixty
civilians" being
dropped from Ban Ki-moon's prepared remarks on December 31, just before
the
Security Council meeting, and being replaced by "over sixty women
and
children." If Serry is in fact "not aware," then he is not in
the loop.
And where is
Tony Blair, envoy of the Quarter of which the UN is a part? How
does his
mandate differ from that of Mr. Serry?
UN's Serry behind John Holmes: one said "62 civilians," the other "not
aware"
Also
defensive is the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
spokesman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Inner City Press followed
up
on a new report citing an OCHA email report about civilians --
including men --
killed in the Congo, reportedly by the Lord's Resistance Army, and
asked why
this email report hadn't been sent our more widely. The response from
Kinshasa:
"Sir -- the
information
attributed to OCHA in the Bloomberg article that you are referring to
is based
on an official OCHA situation report which was distributed nationally
and
internationally via our comprehensive distribution lists. The report
was put on
reliefweb at the same time."
But
OCHA's
distribution list does not seem that comprehensive. A request for UN
comment on
reports
that "remnants of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army are fleeing
towards Central African Republic," including what if anything the
UN
system is doing to try to protect civilians, was not responded to. Moves are afoot to get responses. Watch this
site.
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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