Ban
Urges
IBK to Extend
Authority To
All Mali,
Tuaregs Banned
Like Tamils?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 5 --
When UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
announced on
November 1 he
was going to
Mali and the
Sahel, Inner
City Press
asked Ban's
spokesperson
if he would be
going to North
Mali, Gao or
Kidal, and if
any of the
money raised
would be
directed
to that area,
which harbors
understandable
support for
autonomy or
separatism.
Neither
question
was directly
answered, click here
for that story.
Now
the UN sends a
read-out of
Ban's meeting
with the
president of
Mali
Ibrahim
Boubacar Keita
in Bamako,
saying Ban
urged "the
extension of
state
authority
throughout the
country." But
what
about the
underlying
grievances of
the Tuaregs?
Ban's
approach is
similar to
that his UN
stood by for
in 2009 in Sri
Lanka,
when the
government
"extended
state
authority" to
the north
and killed
tens of
thousands of
civilians in
the process,
and
militarily
supported in
the Democratic
Republic of
the Congo.
By
contrast in
Syria, on the
UN Security
Council's
agenda
November 5,
this
"extension of
state
authority
throughout the
country"
is not being
called for, to
put it mildly.
Who decides
that the
aspirations in
north Mali, as
in northern
Sri Lanka, are
illegitimate?
And in the
long term,
will either
approach work?
Watch
this site.
Footnote:
In
former French
colony Mali,
Ban was
greeted by
Herve Ladsous,
the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row atop UN
Peacekeeping.
He praised
Ladsous'
man from Cote
d'Ivoire to
Bamako, Bert
Koenders, for
"keeping
MINUSMA up to
the
expectations
of the
international
community."
But
with the lack
of
transparency
on what's
being done on
the alleged
gang
rape by
MINUSMA
peacekeepers,
and on Mauritania's
request to
join MINUSMA
only along
their own
border --
is this the
"expectations
of the
international
community"? Or
only what
we've come to
expect from UN
Peacekeeping
under Ladsous?
Watch this
site.
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