On
Rwanda
Genocide,
Survivor's
Tale of French
Truck That
Left, Ladsous
Absent
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, April
7 -- On the
day the UN
held its 21st
Commemoration
of the Rwanda
Genocide, the
French
government of
Francois
Hollande
announced it
would be
declassifying
some documents
from during
and before the
genocide, back
to 1990.
At the
UN ceremony,
this decision
was the buzz
among
attendees. From
the podium,
survivor
Regine King
told how when
in 1994 she
approached a
French truck
in Butare,
“they just
left us
there.”
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon spoke
and did use
the phrase
shame along
with UN; he
did not
mention, for
example, UN
staffer UN
staffer
Callixte
Mbarushimana,
click
here for
Inner City
Press on that.
Many Permanent
Representative
were among the
attendees,
including for
example those
of Italy,
Belgium, the
Netherlands,
Cameroon,
Luxembourg,
Afghanistan
and many
others. The UK
and French
deputies were
in the front
rows; US
Ambassador
Samantha Power
was on the
podium (speech
online here.)
Apparently not
in attendance
was the head
of UN
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous,
who
represented
France in the
UN Security
Council in
1994 (sample
memo published
here by
Inner City
Press.)
More recently,
Ladsous
refused for
the UN to
participate in
action against
the Hutu FDLR
militia,
not granting a
waiver the UN
explicitly
gave to fight
the Lord's
Resistance
Army and under
Ladsous
opaquely gave
for months
after DR Congo
Army rapes in
Minova (video
compilation of
Ladsous non-answers
here.)
And on April
2, Ladsous
essentially
scapegoated
Rwandan
peacekeepers
for his
Department's
deadly
bungling in
Mali, in
Tabankort and
Gao, which
followed a
similar
shooting at
civilians in
Haiti for
which Ladsous
had also
refused to
answer. Video
here, Vine here. We'll have
more on this.
, 
