UNDP
Censors Wikipedia to Remove Press Link to Ugandan Violent Disarmament
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
August 15 -- The UN Development Program earlier this month removed from the UNDP
entry in Wikipedia a link to a Ugandan press account of its disarmament funding
in that country, related to violence against pastoralists since condemned by
other UN agencies. UNDP, which had refused to respond to questions about the
funding, instead pays its staff to try to censor what coverage it can.
Previously, UNDP has had
interns post pro-UNDP propaganda
(click
here
for that), and
paid over $700,000 for the production of a
book praising UNDP's activities.
Meanwhile, while UNICEF and other agencies provide aid in North Korea in the
wake of destructive floods, UNDP can do nothing, having had to leave the country
due to its previous payment in hard currency to staff selected by the Kim
Jong-il government.
As
stumbled on by a 'Net watcher,
=== Disarmament and controversy ===
In mid-2006, as first reported by
Inner City Press
and then by
The New Vision,
UNDP halted its disarmament programs in the Karamoja region of Uganda in
response to human rights abuses in the parallel forcible disarmament
programs carried out by the Uganda People's Defense Force. -
Link to edit page
Here is a screen shot showing the the original text
that was targeted by UNDP:
Here is a screen shot showing the UNDP IP
Address editing the entry by removing the entire paragraph:
...The issue goes back to the summer of 2006.
This entry was recently deleted on the second of August, 2007 The UNDP is
not alone in editing their own Wikipedia entries. However, this was a valid
issue and this was an attempt by someone in the Organization to bury it.
That is not right, especially for the United Nations. Go read the previous
Inner City Press story
and see what the UNDP was trying to hide.
(Hat-tip and much respect to Mr. Fry).
Meanwhile,
while UNDP has time to censor the 'Net, it has not responded in two weeks to a
single one of the
questions Inner City Press posed, and David Morrison acknowledged receiving,
on July 30. The questions have been sent to
Kemal Dervis, and
to Ad Melkert.
UNDP is an agency out of control -- its staff union has so little confidence in
it that they have had to complain to the UN Secretariat's Ethics Office, rather
than to UNDP's own OAPR. And rather than improve, UNDP has sought, as it did
with other whistleblowers, to retaliate. This is a story we will continue to
follow -- watch this site.
* * *
Click
here
for a
Reuters AlertNet
piece by this correspondent about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's
$200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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Copyright 2006-07 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile
(and weekends): 718-716-3540
