Amid
2d Killing of
Peacekeepers,
Ladsous Won't
Answer, on
DRC or Cote
d'Ivoire
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 17 --
After another
UN Peacekeeper
was killed in
Darfur on
Tuesday, UN
Security
Council Gert
Rosenthal of
Guatemala
read out a
press
statement late
Wednesday,
calling for
the
perpetrators
to be caught.
Inner
City Press
asked him for
a follow up on
the killing
of four
Nigerian
UN
peacekeepers
earlier in the
month, and
if the
Security
Council
would be
convening some
meeting to
consider or
act on the
killings,
or just wait
for the next
regularly
scheduled
meeting on the
UNAMID
mission, and
the UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
which
largely runs
it.
Rosenthal,
whose
country has
peacekeepers
in Darfur,
said he is
concerned and
that there had
been a Darfur
meeting of the
Council this
week.
Inner
City Press
asked, wasn't
that about
Sudan and
South Sudan,
capped by
a stakeout
by South Sudan
Ambassador
Francis Deng?
Rosenthal
acknowledged
that had been
the agenda
item, but said
that a part of
the meeting
had touched on
Darfur.
That
would mean
that DPKO
chief Herve
Ladsous, who
gave the Sudan
and
South Sudan
briefing,
raised Darfur
as well. But when he
came out, he
refused to
answer any
Press question,
unlike his
predecessors
Alain
Le Roy and
Jean-Marie
Guehenno.
Le
Roy in
particular
would come to
the stakeout
and speak and
take
questions when
peacekeepers
were killed.
It is part of
the job of
heading DPKO.
But Ladsous
does not do it.
And
so other
attacks on
peacekeepers
go unexplained
and
unexplored.
The
attacks in
North Kivu --
who did them?
Sources in
Eastern Congo
have
M23 denying
it, and say
the Mayi Mayi
are making
attacks. Which
is
it? Ladsous
won't speak.
Even
on attacks on
infrastructure
in former
French colony
Cote d'Ivoire,
of concern to
Ladsous who
was France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
at the UN
during the
Rwanda
genocide, went
unremarked
on at the UN
until Inner
City Press
asked about
them at
Wednesday's
noon briefing.
Shouldn't
Ladsous'
DPKO have at
least had
something
read-out at
the noon
briefing, if
not a stakeout
by Ladsous?
Likewise, no
findings have
been issued
despite
repeated
inquiries
about DPKO's
probe into the
killing of a
Rwandan UN
Police officer
in Haiti.
DPKO is in
decline.
Perhaps
only the troop
contributing
countries,
some
complaining
already about
being
misrepresented,
could turn
this decline
around. Watch
this
site.
, 
