Peacekeeping
Debate Misses
Rapes, After
Party Fetes
Censorship
Group UNCA
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 21 --
Monday while
France bombed
Timbuktu in
northern Mali
the UN
Security
Council held a
six hour
"debate on
multi-dimensional
peacekeeping."
Many
of the
controversial
issues in
peacekeeping
did not come
up, at least
not directly.
Russia did
complain about
its helicopter
being shot
down last
month in South
Sudan and four
of its
citizens
killed. The UN
has been slow
with this and
other
investigations.
An
even more
delayed
"investigation"
(or cover-up)
by the
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations has
been of 126
rapes in
Minova by the
Congolese
Army, DPKO's
partners.
Three
times on
camera DPKO
chief Herve
Ladsous has
refused to
answer Press
questions
about the
rapes and the
non-application
to date of the
UN's Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy.
See November 27, 2012 (video), on December 7 & on December
18 (video).
Monday
Ladsous sat in
the Council
without
speaking until
France, the
tenth speaker,
finished. Then
Ladsous
immediately
left. He is
the fourth
Frenchman in a
row to sit
atop DPKO.
Things
heated
up at the end,
with South
Sudan using
its speech to
raise aerial
bombardment by
Sudan. The
speakers' list
included
Sudan, but in
the end they
did not speak.
After the
"debate" was
over, Inner
City Press
went to the
North Lawn
building and
asked a
Sudanese
representative
there about
the lack of
reply. There
perhaps will
be one.
India
and Pakistan
traded short
rights of
reply about
Kashmir; at
the very end,
Benin came in
and spoke. And
then it was
over. But the
controversies
and failings
under Herve
Ladsous have
yet to be
addressed.
Footnotes:
But two hours
after the
debate in a
reception in
the Delegates'
Entrance for
Pakistan's
peacekeepers,
Ladsous was
praised by...
the new
president of
the UN
Correspondents
Association,
an
organization
which demanded
and pursued
action against
the
publication of
a story
truthfully
recounting how
Ladsous was
foisted on
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon by
France.
Ban
himself feted
UNCA, while
his Department
of Public
Information
has yet to
publicly
answer the NY
Civil
Liberties
Union's July
5, 2012 public
request to
know when
journalists
would be
informed of
stealth
complaints
such as those
made
by UNCA on
June
20, 2012,
and by UNCA
First Vice
President
Louis
Charbonneau of
Reuters
earlier that
year.
A group that's
for censorship
being
celebrated in
this way at
the UN? It's
very telling.
And there's
more to tell:
a story of Upstairs,
Downstairs.
Upstairs
in the
floor of
cubicles
occupied by
correspondents,
fliers
summarizing
the issues
raised by the
new Free UN
Correspondents
Association to
the Department
of Public
Information
had been torn
down. They
were replaced,
right next to
the new UNCA
President's
CBS office,
with
counterfeit
fliers. Downstairs
in the
Delegates'
Entrance, this
was
celebrated.
That
the more
substantive
story of
Pakistan's
activities in
peacekeeping
were polluted
by unnecessary
deference to
an
organization
that does not
represent all
journalists at
the UN is a
shame. The
references
to the
decaying UNCA
at the
Pakistan event
with Ban
Ki-moon were
so over the
top that
several
listeners were
quite sure how
they were
procured.
Watch this
site.
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