In
Addis,
Ban Is Selective
on Mali, Shows
Ladsous
Gun-Jumped on
Drones, War
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 27 --
At the African
Union summit,
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
speech on the
Democratic
Republic of
Congo,
Mali and Cote
d'Ivoire was
tell.
In
French, Ban
said "We are
considering
establishing a
peace
enforcement
capacity
within the
Mission to
address the
threat of
armed groups
in eastern
DRC."
Back
in New York,
as a sort of
pre AU summit
sales pitch
using the
embedded media
(AFP,
Reuters,
BBC),
a UN official
left unnamed
on January 25
was more
specific,
serving up to
friendly media
more details:
three
battalions
of 850
soldiers each,
and tellingly
three drones.
The
head of Ban's
UN
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous,
the fourth
Frenchman in
a row to hold
that post, has
been moving
forward on UN
drones even
before
receiving even
limited
approval.
As
Inner City
Press exposed
on January 25,
Ladsous'
DPKO launched
a
procurement
for drones
back on
November 28
-- the day
after he
refused to
answer Press
questions on
the Congo, and
took
the same
media out into
the hall for a
private
briefing,
video here.
So
did Ladsous'
DPKO similarly
jump the gun
declaring war
in the DRC? In
any
event, it
seems no
matter what
Ladsous does
or doesn't do,
Ban
Ki-moon would
not and could
not replace
him. UN
Peacekeeping
"belongs" to
France. And
that is part
of the
problem.
The
UN read-out of
Ban's meeting
with Alassane
Ouattara of
former French
colony Cote
d'Ivoire had
not a word
about Ouattara
supporters
killing
perceived
Laurent Gbagbo
supporters in
a camp for
Internally
Displaced
People.
While
the UN
peacekeepers
there, who
"work with"
the the French
Force
Licorne,
are accused of
pushing IDPs
off their UN
trucks and
into the mob
to be beaten
to death,
Ban's and
Ladsous' envoy
to Cote
d'Ivoire Bert
Koenders has
twice
self-exonerated
the UN.
On
Mali,
where France
has been
bombing
Timbuktu,
Ban cited the
"bilateral
support"
received by
the Malian
authorities --
without saying
the word
France.
Ban did not
mention that
these Malian
authorities
including coup
leader Amadou
Sanogo, nor
about the
Malian
Army's
executions in
Sevare and
elsewhere.
Even Ban's
description of
the UN's
deployment did
not mention
human rights.
But Ban spoke
in
French.
To
be fair, the
non-enforcement
of the UN's
supposed Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy is not
limited to Ladsous' ongoing cover up (video
here) of 126
rapes in
Minova by
his partners
in the
Congolese
Army, or
looking the
other way
while the
Malian Army
is, well, the
Malian Army.
In
Somalia, with
no French
connection,
the UN and its
Department of
Field Support
have had
little to say
or follow up
with the
recent
killing of
seven
civilians,
five of them
children, by
the AMISOM
forces that
the UN through
DFS supports.
The
UN Security
Council is
supposed to
provide some
oversight on
all
this. But
today they are
belatedly
in Yemen,
where even
motorbike
traffic has
been Banned.
Back in New
York, the UN
Staff Union
last week
adopted by 186
to 45 a
resolution
that they have
"no
confidence" in
Ban. We'll
have more on
all this.
Watch this
site.
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