By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 23 --
Days after
mass killings
at Bentiu and
Bor in South
Sudan, the UN
Security
Council
belatedly met
on Wednesday
evening.
Afterward UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
chief Herve
Ladsous came
out and took
three
questions,
curtly.
The UN
itself says
that the
Ghanaian
battalion
-- the
shipment of
whose weapons
by land to
Bentiu
triggered an
objection by
South Sudan's
government and
a report by
Ladsous' DPKO
that has yet
to be publicly
released -- was
not in Bentiu
to even try to
stop the April
15-16
killings.
Inner City
Press put this
question to
Ladsous both
on and off
UNTV's camera,
but he refused
to answer it.
Video
here and
embedded
below.
Criticisms of
his DPKO are
spreading, but
Ladsous
refuses to
answer them.
Back
on April
22 Inner
City Press
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric about
the Ghanaian
contingent:
Inner
City
Press: on
South Sudan, I
saw that Mary
Cummins, who
is the acting
Coordinator
for Unity
State, really
sounded the
alarm that
they need more
forces there.
And she said,
“we need the
Ghanaian
battalion to
arrive soon”.
I thought that
was the
battalion
whose weapons
that were
found in the
boxes--
Spokesman
Dujarric:
Let me find
out.
But
more than 24
hours later
Dujarric, or
ultimately
Ladsous' DPKO,
had not
provided any
answer. So
Inner City
Press put the
question to
Ladsous at the
stakeout.
Ladsous
refused to
answer it,
pointedly
calling first
on Reuters,
then Voice
of America,
then on
state-owned
France 24.
Then Ladsous
lumbered from
the stakeout
microphone and
up the stairs,
with a retinue
of DPKO staff,
many of whom
worked under
Alain Le Roy
and even
Jean-Marie
Guehenno but
now enable
this decay
within UN
Peacekeeping.
From
inside the
closed
consultation,
the French
mission's
spokesperson
tweeted that a
film was being
screened of
Bentiu. This
was confirmed
to Inner City
Press by an
actual
ambassador in
the meeting;
at the
stakeout
afterward
Inner City
Press asked
Security
Council
president Joy
Ogwu of
Nigeria if the
film was only
about Bentiu
and not Bor
and she said
Yes, only
about Bentiu.
The
April 15-16
killings in
Bentiu have
been
attributed to
the Sudan
People’s
Liberation
Movement/Army
(SPLM/A) in
Opposition led
by former vice
president Riek
Machar, who
has denied
that his
forces killed
civilians.
Likewise, the
April 18
murders inside
the UN
peacekeeping
camp in Bor
have been
attributed to
supporters
from the Dinka
tribe of
president
Salva Kiir,
and statements
by his
information
minister bear
this out.
The UN
has alleged
that in Bentiu
the victims
were targeted
based not only
on tribe but
nationality.
One response
was that
Darfur rebels
from the
Justice and
Equality
Movement who
were fighting
along with
Kiir's
government
forces were
killed, but
not civilians.
In
this
environment,
for UN
Peacekeeping
to be run by
an official
who can't even
answer basic
questions is a
major problem.
Watch this
site.
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