UN
Now Says Ready
to Monitor in
Syria, After
Memo, Mood is
Schizo?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 17 -- Two
days after the
UN Security
Council was
secretly told
by the
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
that its
Mission in
Syria was
limiting its
mobile
activities,
now Mission
Head Robert
Mood says he's
ready to
monitor the
release of
trapped
civilians in
Homs and
elsewhere.
Which
is it?
The
DPKO
memo to
the Security
Council,
reported and
published
by Inner City
Press ten
hours
before any
other media, was
followed by a
YouTube press
statement by
Mood. Now,
Mood seems to
have reversed
course (or
gone
schizophrenic,
as one wag put
it). This was
released,
minutes ago:
From:
UN
Spokesperson -
Do Not Reply
[at] un.org
Subject:
Statement by
Gen. Robert
Mood, head of
the UN
Supervision
Mission in
Syria
(UNSMIS)
To: Matthew
Russell Lee
[at]
InnerCityPress.com
Date:
Sun, Jun 17,
2012 at 2:13
PM
Statement
attributable
to the Head of
the UN
Supervision
Mission in
Syria,
General Robert
Mood
Civilians
continue
to be trapped
by the
escalating
violence in
Syria. In
Homs,
attempts to
extract
civilians from
the line of
fire over the
past
week have been
unsuccessful.
The
Parties
must
reconsider
their position
and allow
women,
children, the
elderly and
the injured to
leave conflict
zones, without
any
preconditions
and ensure
their safety.
This requires
willingness on
both sides to
respect and
protect the
human life of
the Syrian
people.
I
call on the
Parties to
take immediate
action to ease
the pain of
Syrians
trapped in the
violence and
the UN
Supervision
Mission in
Syria stands
ready to
monitor their
release, once
the decision
is
taken by the
Parties.
Sausan
Ghosheh
Spokesperson,
UNSMIS
So, again, why
did
Ban Ki-moon
and his
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to hold
that post,
decide on June
15 to limit
the mobility
of the UN
Mission in
Syria, and to
tell Security
Council
members but
make no public
announcement?
Such
Security
Council
documents
routinely
leak,
predictably to
the wire
services
affiliated
with Western
permanent
members of the
Council. But
that did not
happen in this
case: rather,
Inner City
Press obtained
a copy of the
notification,
confirmed and
published it
before 10 pm
New York time
on June 15.
Eight
hours later,
still seeing
no
announcement
by the UN or
any Council
member, Inner
City Press asked the
spokespeople
for UN - Arab
League Joint
Special Envoy
Kofi Annan
then for Ban
Ki-moon and
Ladsous to
explain the
notification,
what lay
behind it
(i.e. what
supposedly
increased
violence) and
what they
wanted next.
Only Annan's
Ahmad Fawzi
replied, and
only to say
that UNSMIS
and Mood would
now be having
an
announcement.
What
explains the
delay? And who
made the
decision?
One
working theory
is that
Ladsous, the
head of DPKO
whose
notification
it is, made
the decision
on behalf of
his native
France, for
which he was
an operative
in the foreign
ministry as
recently as
arranging
Michele
Aliot-Marie's
flights on
planes owned
by cronies of
Tunisian
dictator Ben
Ali.
In
this theory,
though there
was little
INCREASED
violence to
point to,
Ladsous and
France wanted
to raise the
stakes for
General Robert
Mood's already
scheduled
visit to New
York and the
Security
Council, to
put it in the
context of
UNSMIS being
OVER, no
longer
improvable.
Otherwise,
Mood should
have given his
public
statement when
the decision
to limit his
Mission was
made, to
obviate the
risk of a
Security
Council leak
on Friday.
Such a leak did
take
place, but
not in the
most
predictable
way. Or, some
wonder, did
though
Western-member
aligned wire
services know
of the
decision and
not report it?
And
why, now, has
Mood reversed
course?
Notably,
the UN
representatives
of Reuters,
Agence France
Presse, (US)
Voice of
America and
Bloomberg are
four of five
signers of a
letter seeking
to investigate
and expel
Inner City
Press. We'll
have more
on this.
, 
