At the
UN, No Answers on Sudan's Kalma Camp and UNDP's Rogue Res-Rep in Philippines
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Muse
UNITED NATIONS,
August 27 -- At the UN these days, many questions are asked and few are
answered. Monday for example a
raid on a refugee camp in Darfur
drew no comment. Nor did a growing
call in the Philippines for the UN to pull
out its resident coordinator,
Nileema Noble of the UN Development Program.
UNDP has already refused to comment on 13
of its staff members' letter to Administrator Kemal Dervis about
Ms. Noble. Now a petition to the wider UN draws no comment. From
Monday's transcript:
Inner City Press: There's a report that
the
Sudanese Liberation Movement had written
to Ban Ki-moon asking for an investigation of
Sudan's raid on the Kalma Camp. Have you gotten that request and what is the UN
going to do about it?
Spokesperson: No, I don't have the letter
yet. I'll let you know when it is received.
Inner City Press: Also, and I'm less sure
of whether it went to Ban Ki-moon or not, but there's supposedly a petition from
the Philippines to seek the removal from the country of the UN's Resident
Coordinator, Neilman [sic - it's Nileema] Noble. It was
reported in the Philippine press.
It was petitioned by many NGO’s and ex-legislators.
Spokesperson: No, we're not aware of
this.
Inner City Press: One last thing, sorry,
to make it three strikes and you're out.
Who's
out? Not yet Michael C. Williams. Despite having given notice that he is leaving
the UN to become the UK's envoy to the Middle East, still on Monday questions
about the Shebaa Farms were referred to Michael Williams.
From
right, Williams, Ban and Kim Won-soo,
described as
Special Advisor (what happened to Deputy chef de cabinet?)
Meanwhile, even a
question that was answered in the
transcript remains
unclear:
Question: We heard a report that the UN
may be considering sending a human rights team to the Ogaden region of Ethiopia
to investigate allegations of human rights abuses there. Do you know anything
about that?
[The Spokesperson later confirmed that the
Secretary-General had received this letter.]
Inner City Press subsequent annotation: the question wasn't about a
letter, but whether in fact the UN will be sending a team to Ogadan.
Inner City Press asked:
Inner City Press: A follow-up question on
that. There was that New York Times report about a month ago, saying that WHO
and UNICEF were going to investigate claims that their polio vaccine program was
diverted to military use. I've
tried to ask each of them,
what’s the upshot? If we could just get some kind of update, if they looked
into it and what their findings were?
Spokesperson: Okay.
But
when, oh when? Watch this site.
* * *
Clck
here for a
Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army.
Click
here
for an earlier
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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UN Office: S-453A,
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Reporter's mobile
(and weekends): 718-716-3540
