UNITED
NATIONS, June
19 -- With UN
Peacekeeping
on the verge
of
incorporating
a listed child
soldier
recruiter,
Chad, into its
mission in
Mali on
July 1, on
Wednesday two
non-governmental
organizations
came out
against it:
WorldVision
and WatchList
on
Children and
Armed
Conflict.
This
resulted in
the UN at the
noon briefing
finally
answering in
some
detail the
questions
Inner City
Press has
been asking
since early
June,
about Herve
Ladsous of UN
Peacekeeping
allowing a
"grace
period."
It
is just this
Ladsous grace
period that
WatchList on
Children and
Armed Conflict
calls a
"harmful,
precedent
setting action
that,
in addition to
issues of
credibility,
could
undermine
efforts to
demobilize
children."
WatchList's
report
also says that
"by mid-April
2013, there
were reports
that Chadian
troops
fighting with
French forces
in Kidal and
other
parts of Mali
were, in a few
cases,
detaining and
questioning
children over
three weeks
before handing
them over to
French
forces."
Inner
City Press at
Wednesday's
noon briefing
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey if DPKO
was aware of
this, and when
it was going
to tell the
public. Del
Buey said he
will
asked DPKO; we will be waiting.
DPKO
being headed
by its fourth
Frenchman in a
row, Ladsous,
while the
allegation
involves
detentions by
Chad "with
French forces"
raises again
the
issue of
conflict of
interest for
Ladsous, a
French
diplomat
who
represented
his country at
the UN during
the 1994
Rwanda
genocide (and
argued for the
escape of the
genocidaires
into Eastern
Congo).
The
European
Union's genial
deputy head of
delegation
Ioannis
Vrailis was
also
on the panel
with the NGOs.
Inner City
Press asked
him for the
EU's
position on
the
incorporation
of a listed
child soldier
recruiter
into a UN
Peacekeeping
mission by
Ladsous.
Vrailis
used
the word
"scourge," but
then seemed to
support the
very grace
period the
NGOs it calls
experts say is
a "harmful,
precedent
setting action
that, in
addition to
issues of
credibility,
could
undermine
efforts to
demobilize
children." In
the name of
convenience...
Or solidarity
with a
European Under
Secretary
General
like Ladsous?
Watch this
site.
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