In
Cote
d'Ivoire, As UN & France Fire at Gbagbo Home, Ban Claims Not a Party
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 4 -- As UN and French helicopters fire missiles at the
Presidential Palace in Cote d'Ivoire, UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon insisted Monday in a written statement that the UN is not a
party to the conflict.
Inner
City Press
asked Ban's top Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy to explain this, and also
why the UN never used anything near this force when purporting to
protect civilians in Darfur, Sudan and elsewhere.
Le
Roy said that
the UN was targeting only Gbagbo's heavy weapons, and that the French
helicopters were being used because the UN helicopters, from Ukraine,
don't have nighttime capability.
While
not really
explaining the difference in the UN's enforcement of the protection
of civilians in Darfur versus Cote d'Ivoire, Le Roy pointed
repeatedly to Security
Council resolution 1975, passed March 30,
directing UNOCI to shoot at Gbagbo's heavy weapons.
This
language, in
fact, was watered down from the French proposal that UNOCI - and,
apparently, the French Force Licorne -- seize Gbagbo's weapons. But
the precedent is clear: next time the Council is faced with a
protecting of civilians draft that includes shooting at heavy
weapons, the Presidential Palace of the country at issue is fair
game.
Ban & YJ Choi, "destiny" talk not shown
Inner
City Press
asked Le Roy about the reports that forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara
engaged in mass killings in Duekoue, and if that changed the way
UNOCI coordinates or works with the Ouattara forces. We do not
coordinate with them, Le Roy insisted.
Multiple
sources
have told Inner City Press that in the run up to Ouattara's final
assault, on Duekoue and now Abidjan, UN envoy Choi Young-jin was
“chewed out” for not being aggressive enough. The previously
Bangladeshi force commander was changed for a more pro-Ouattara one
from Togo. And so the fix was in.
Inner
City Press
asked Le Roy if Ouattara's forces had yet taken over the Presidential
Palace, as reported. Not as of when I walked into the Council, Le Roy
said. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
After
15-0 Vote on Cote d'Ivoire, Complaints About UNOCI's
Impartiality from India, Brazil, But No Ceasefire
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
31 -- After the UN Security Council voted 15-0 on a
modified version of a Cote
d'Ivoire resolution introduced by France
and Nigeria on March 25, Inner City Press posed questions about the
resolution and military advances by forces supporting Alassane
Ouattara to the Ambassadors of France, Nigeria and Ouattara,
Yousoufou “Joseph” Bamba. (Click
here
for YouTube video of March 25 Q&A with Bamba).
On
March 29 outside the US Misison to the UN, Inner City Press asked
Bamba when he thought it would be over. “This weekend,” Bamba
said smiling. “We'll have coffee.”
On
March 30, Inner
City Press asked Bamba at the Security Council stakeout on UN TV what
the Ouattara forces who do about the call for a ceasefire by Laurent
Gbagbo.
Bamba said
that Ouattara is the president of the country. Some at the stakeout
muttered, so is Gaddafi. But it was lost in the
rush to get US Ambassador Susan Rice to the stakeout microphone.
Inner
City
Press
asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud if France thought the Ouattara
forces should pause in their advances.
Araud said,
“Ouattara is the
president of Cote d’Ivoire and the legitimate forces of the
legitimate president are under his authority.” The same skeptics
wondered as a matter of consistency if France would apply this same
answer to President Omar al Bashir in Sudan, or the new “president”
of Myanmar.
Here
is
the Q&A
as transcribed by the French Mission to the UN, with Inner City
Press
asking about
Inner
City
Press:
What seems to be a criticism from India and Brazil, that
ONUCI should be impartial. There are reports by the UN about firing
at the UN helicopters by the forces of Ouattara and his invisible
commandos. Are you calling for any restraint on that side?
Amb.
Araud:
Of
course. We are calling to stop all violence against the
ONUCI, all violence against the civilian population. I think the
Indian and the Brazilian concerns are pretty legitimate. You have a
civil war, you have violence growing, you have the prospect of maybe
fighting in Abidjan. The Indians, especially because they are a major
troop contributor, and Brazilians simply don’t want the ONUCI to
become part of this fighting, part of the civil war. And again, about
violence against civilians, we are addressing the same message to
both sides.
Inner
City
Press:
Do you think the Ouattara forces should stop their
advances or you’re sort of cheering them on?
Amb.
Araud:
I
think President Ouattara is the president of Côte d’Ivoire
and the legitimate forces of the legitimate president are under his
authority.
That
Bamba
would
answer this way is understandable. It is perhaps more noteworthy from
former colonial power France. But should the
UN to speaking as its
envoy Choi Young-jin does, most recently to Al Jazeera, that by these
military advances by Ouattara's forces Ivorians are seizing their
destiny, without foreign military intervention as in Libya?
India
and
Brazil,
among others, urged UNOCI to be impartial. Later at the Chinese End
of Presidency reception, a diplomat from a Council member with a
population over one billion told Inner City Press it is a “terrible
resolution,” and scoffed that the UN Secretariat briefings are
“just based on Western media reports.”
Then why not
vote “no,”
or at least abstain?
Nigeria's
Permanent
Representative
explained some of the changes to the initial draft,
including the downward modification of a referral of the case of Cote
d'Ivoire to the International Criminal to a passing mention of the
possibility, through another mechanism, of the ICC. Also, she said,
UNOCI is not called on to seize heavy weapons.
Inner
City
Press
is informed that the previous force commander of UNOCI, or perhaps
the entire Bangladeshi battalion, was skeptical of the more
aggressive or “pro Ouattara” stance that some were demanding. The
new force commander, from Togo, is said not to have those qualms.
Because
India
has
complained about the rush to vote on the resolution, without
sufficiently consulting Troop Contributing Countries, Inner City
Press asked major TCC Nigeria about this criticism. Sometimes you
have to move fast, the Nigerian Ambassador said.
Inner
City
Press
asked, Will ECOWAS ask for a Security Council authorization to use
force in Cote d'Ivoire? Nigeria's Ambassador replied that ECOWAS has
not asked for that.
Somewhere
a
skeptic
muttered, “not yet.” Watch this site.
Footnote: at the March 30 UN noon briefing, Inner City
Press started
asking Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq if he understood
the lack of impartiality complaints of "some people"--
Haq cut in and asked Inner City Press, "By 'some
people' you mean yourself?
No -- the criticism exists not only in Cote d'Ivoire
(Inner City Press said at the briefing, "quite a few people in the
Ivory Coast think that the UN is.... reporting only on one side") but
even inside the Security Council, albeit in diplomat form, most
publicly March 30 by India and Brazil.
So what is the UN's
response? Watch this site.
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