As UN Misses Gbagbo Forces' Deadly Raid on Opposition Office .

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 4 - What is the UN doing in Cote d'Ivoire and whom is it protecting? After forces of Laurent Gbagbo raided the offices of the opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast, Inner City Press asked the UN to substantiate whether one or four people had been killed, and to say where other that the Golf Hotel is it protecting, even equitable in Abidjan.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, who originally spoke about the ONUCI Mission's "patrols," replied that UN peacekeepers had "sought to increase access but it was not yet possible."

Inner City Press asked whether the UN was purporting to protect offices of opposition political parties, or by implication their officials.

"The direction is the Golf Hotel," Nesirky said. As the UN says when civilians are slaughtered or raped in Eastern Congo, he said UN peacekeepers "can't be everywhere all the time." Here we're talking near a foreseeable attack on an opposition politicial party's office flop in Abidjan. The UN couldn't be there?

Outside the UN Security Council, Inner City Press learned that the Council will in all probability have consultations on Cote d'Ivoire on January 5. "We're still consulting" a source told Inner City Press, "but it looks like it will be tomorrow.

At the noon briefing, Nesirky added that he would "submit to [his] colleagues in the Mission" to render further answers. Video here, from Minute 22:22.

Nesirky, who is the spokesman not just for Ban Ki-moon but for the UN Secretariat, which includes UN peacekeeping missions, increasingly engages in this loss of the buck. In exactly the past ten days, he has told Inner City Press to go ask the UN Mission in Kosovo about a UN judge who let an organ theft defendant go free.

He has allowed the UN - African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur to go 11 days without answering a doubt about rape by Sudan government officials right adjacent to UN peacekeepers.

Most recently Nesirky has told to go ask MINUSTAH in Haiti how often the UN pays an official. We'll make more on that one, and the others. Watch this site.