Plane of Ethiopia Arms Burns in Somalia, Sanctions Violations Cited, UN
Silent
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 19, 2013 -- When an Ethiopian military plane full of
weapons was burning today on the tarmac of the airport in Mogadishu,
journalists trying to take photographs were refused entry and told to leave.
What does the UN have to say about it?
It must be noted that the UN's own sanctions panel, the Somalia Eritrea
Monitoring Group, in its most recent report at page 319 linked the Ethiopian
National Defense Forces to violations of sanctions in Somalia:
according to data received by the Monitoring Group, the Ethiopian air force
has operated in January and February 2013, three military cargo flights to
Baidoa, without prior notification of the Committee. On 22 April 2013, the
Monitoring Group sent a letter to the Government of Ethiopia requesting
clarification and additional information, for which no reply has yet been
forthcoming.
19. Information obtained by the Monitoring Group from several UN sources
indicates that these flights may be related to supply of military equipment
to Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) operations on Somali territory,
and therefore constitute a potential violation of the arms embargo on
Somalia.
So will the SEMG have access to the plane? And what DOES the UN say?
The SEMG report also has the UN itself violating sanctions. And the UN
Mine Action Service's David Bax, despite spoon-fed attempts to rehabilitate
him <
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas6somalia080713.html> , not only
played a role in the sharing of genetic information from bombs in Somalia
with the US FBI, but ran around Mogadishu, not only on the day of the attack
on the UN compound, with weapons of dubious origin - click for Inner City
Press's first exclusive
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas1somalia062213.html> and now most
recent story <
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas6somalia080713.html> . What
does the UN say? The Free UN Coalition for Access <
http://www.funca.info>
has asked. <
https://twitter.com/FUNCA_info/status/365803826634174464> Watch
this site.
******************************************************
UN's Somalia Scams & Bax Continue, Whistleblower Cites Spoon-Fed
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 19, 2013 -- Two months ago on June 22, Inner City
Press published an exclusive story about UN Mine Action chief in Somalia
David Bax sharing information with US intelligence and running around
Mogadishu with armed guards trying to save a girlfriend after an attack on a
UN compound in Mogadishu, here
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas1somalia062213.html> .
On June 24 <
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130624.doc.htm>
(and June 26 <
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130626.doc.htm>
and July 5 <
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas7somalia080913.html> ), Inner
City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesperson
for an answer from UN Peacekeeeping chief Herve Ladsous and the head of
UNMAS to the story and a detailed complaint from a whistleblower.
The UN told <
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130624.doc.htm>
Inner City Press, "we'll have to check on that for you, Matthew, we
<
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130624.doc.htm> 'll check with
DPKO," the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
But the UN's response was to given to another media, from Ladsous' and
DPKO's spokesperson Kieran Dwyer, for a story that made Bax into something
of a hero <
http://www.innercitypress.com/unmas6somalia080713.html> . Inner
City Press wrote and asked
<
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130809.doc.htm> about this
spoon-feeding and was told Bax as being investigated, nothing would be
answered (again.)
For writing about it, Team Spoon-Fed anonymous used social media to attack
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/unca1ladujtrolls081013.html> Inner City
Press as they have in the past, including predictably and intentionally
triggering death threats.
Now the whistleblower has complained again to Ladsous and UNMAS, saying
the UNOPS "investigation" was a scam and the story that resulted from the
spoon-feeding dropped damning information because "you put pressure on the
journalist about" it.
While we'll have more about the UN's scams and pressure, this is what is
meant by spoon-feeding: the UN gives answers to the critical Press'
questions to hand-picked others seeking, or in exchange for, more UN
positive coverage of the story. As noted this happened on the still unacted
on murder of UN Security staffer Louis Maxwell.
It has also happened on, and been done by Ladsous and Dwyer on, the 135
rapes in Minova <
http://youtu.be/rm1V-cY9u40> by the UN's partners in the
Congolese Army, and even just last week on UN political chief Jeffrey
Feltman's pre-planned trip to Egypt.
On that, Inner City Press exclusively published audio on August 15 that
Feltman would go to Cairo
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/egypt1feltman081513.html> (and that it had
been planned before the August 14 killing of hundreds of unarmed
protesters). Another media asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's office to
confirm Inner City Press' story and was told it's just a rumor.
Then three minutes before the noon briefing at which
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/egypt1unspoonreuters081613.html> Inner City
Press asked for and got confirmation
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/egypt2unspoonreuters081713.html> Reuters ran
a two paragraph type-up of
<
http://mobilebeta.reuters.com/un-political-affairs-chief-intends-to-travel-
to> "the United Nations" announcing the trip.
This Reuters "report
<
http://mobilebeta.reuters.com/un-political-affairs-chief-intends-to-travel-
to> " did not mention that the trip had been planned before the killings
(and therefore does NOT represent a UN response to the killings
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/egypt2feltman081613.html> ) or that Feltman
represented the US State Department in the Middle East, before doing the
same at the UN.
This is how it works at the UN -- this spoon-feeding and then anonymous
attacks and reverse spoon-feeding TO the UN (click here for that
<
http://www.innercitypress.com/dpiunca1collude062413.html> ), and more
generally, covering up wrong-doing including of the kind that puts UN staff
at risk. This, and the UN's mis-direction with information, unacted on by
the UN's Department of Information, is now also being opposed by the new
Free UN Coalition for Access <
http://www.funca.info> (click here for DPI's
reaction <
http://www.innercitypress.com/funca1dpithreat062413.html> .) We'll
have more on this. Watch this site.
Footnote: Tellingly since the UN's spoon-feeding on Somalia, Inner City
Press asked and written about the UN's "hands-off" approach to allegation of
gang rape in Mogadishu by the forces the UN supports there. This too is how
it works with the UN, as with the UN's denial of bringing cholera to Haiti.
Attempts by the UN to cover up misdeeds make it silent and complicit in
others.
Received on Mon Aug 19 2013 - 21:25:25 EDT