After
Attack on FPI
Supporters,
UN's Koenders
Speaks
of
Investigation
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 26 --
After the UN's
new envoy to
Cote d'Ivoire
Bert
Koenders
briefed the
Security
Council on
Thursday,
Inner City
Press
asked that he
come to the UN
Television
stakeout to
answer several
questions. The
response to
this was
negative, so
Inner City
Press
asked that he
at least
answer a few
questions
outside the
Council, in
an area that
could be
filmed.
Ultimately
Koenders
only stood
directly in
front of the
Council; Inner
City
Press asked
him about his
Mission's
actions when a
rally of
supporters of
former
president
Laurent
Gbagbo's
Ivorian
Popular Front
(FPI) was
attacked with
rocks. Video
here.
Koenders
called on
"those
responsible,
whatever
side," to go
before a
judge.
Most accounts
of the
incident make
clear that
rocks were
thrown at an
FPI rally.
Inner
City Press
asked if ONUCI
has any
oversight or
critiquing
role,
something the
UN
of late seems
to have
abandoned.
Koenders said
he is just
carrying
out his
mandate.
Indeed.
Koenders
said
he'd asked for
an
investigation,
[followed] "by
France and the
US." Inner
City Press
said that
given action
in the
Security
Council such
an
investigation
might not give
the appearance
to all of
objectivity.
Koenders
then
insisted he
and the UN are
calling for an
"independent"
investigation.
But despite
questioning,
he refused to
say by whom.
Could an
investigation
of alleged
government
impropriety,
by the
government, be
considered
independent?
We'll see.
, 
