On Haiti Cholera, Ban Ki-moon Has Deputy Eliasson Dodge Accountability in Letter to Alston, Here

On Haiti Cholera, Ban Ki-moon UNaware of Critique, Uses Nabarro to Spin Reuters, Lawless By Matthew Russell Lee UNITED NATIONS, October 25 -- After the UN under Ban Ki-moon killed more than 10,000 people in Haiti by bringing cholera, Ban spent years dodging court papers and the issue. The UN now says it has a new approach to Ban Ki-moon longstanding impunity for bringing cholera to Haiti. But on October 14, the UN of Ban and his Under Secretary General for Public Information Cristina Gallach had Inner City Press thrown out of of the “available” meeting on the new approach. On October 24, Ban Ki-moon gave a grotesque speech about the rule of law, without mentioning his years of dodging legal papers about Haiti cholera, and continued lack of accountability. Now at midnight on October 24-25, Inner City Press is publishing UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston's letter critiquing Ban's approach -- that it is a travesty that the UN is unable to accept accountability -- and Ban's response - not even by himself, but by his deputy Jan Eliasson, embarrassingly, here. This is a repeat of impunity. Meanwhile Ban threw David Nabarro under the bus, having him deny science and accountability and spoon-feed quotes to Reuters and AP. This is shameful, and entirely designed to distance Ban himself from his lawlessness and lack of responsiveness, so he can run for President for South Korea. It is time for accountability. From the UN's October 24 transcript: Inner City Press: about Haiti. I wanted to ask you, first, about this report of the… Philip Alston will be presenting tomorrow to the GA about the new approach. He's quite critical of it. He says, "There's not yet a promise of an apology or acceptance of responsibility. The regret and moral responsibility don't do it and set a terrible"… they say… "this will be the ultimate ongoing travesty of justice." So I wanted to know, one, what… in advance, what the response of the Secretariat is to this critique, two, why Mr. Alston's press release in this room that's set for tomorrow at 1 p.m. wasn't in The Week Ahead and everything else is. Spokesman: I don't… for some reason, I don't have it on my calendar. If he is booked for this room at 1 p.m., I'm sure somebody will bring me a note, but I don't have him on here. ICP Question: What do you make of the critique…? Spokesman: I… first of all, I think we're obviously all looking forward to his briefing in the Third Committee tomorrow. We will take a look at that. We're not going to engage in a tit for tat. Mr. Alston, as all Special Rapporteurs, plays an important role in speaking out freely and independently. The Secretary-General expressed his deep regret and his personal commitment when he was in Haiti at doing whatever he can for the UN system to help the people of Haiti deal with the cholera outbreak. Deputy Secretary-General and others have outlined this two-track approach. The full details of it will be announced before the end of the Secretary-General's term. ICP Question: What I wanted to… I guess… you're saying that you don't want to prejudge it, but I've seen this interview by the Secretary-General or a response by him to Deutsche Welle about… [brief interruption] Spokesman: Is that Margaret Thatcher? [laughter] Correspondent: [inaudible]. Spokesman: And in Sherwin's phone. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds like one of my old English teachers. Scared me there for a second. [laughter] Go ahead. Sorry. ICP Question: Sure. I wanted to ask, I guess, you're saying not to prejudge, but one of the things that he's most critical of is the Secretary-General's repeated assistance that he doesn't know who brought it. And, just recently, I don't know when this answer was given, but published, I think, today by Deutsche Welle is a quote by Ban Ki-moon where he says, "On Haiti, we should have done more irrespective of judicial immunity or who caused the epidem