On
Syria,
UN Calls
Friday Notice
to SC
"Unofficial,"
Patrols Still
Suspended
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 18 -- As
General Robert
Mood was
slated to land
in New
York at noon
on Monday, at
the UN's noon
briefing Inner
City Press
has a simple
question to
ask.
What
explains the
UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations'
notice to
Security
Council
members on
Friday,
obtained and
exclusively
published by
Inner City
Press on
Friday at 10
pm, that in
Syria "mobile
operations"
would be
limited, and
Mood's
Saturday and
Sunday press
statement,
that latter
that his
mission would
witness the
release of
civilians?
UN
Associate
Spokesman
Farhan Haq
said, "I
wouldn't
comment about
the notice
to the
Security
Council, the
announcement
on Saturday
was the
official
announcement."
He turned to
other
questions
before
allowing Inner
City Press to
follow up.
How
is this
notification
to the
Security
Council, on
Friday June
15, not
"official"?
Why pretend it
didn't happen?
Was Mood even
behind it? Or
rather, DPKO
led by its
fourth
Frenchman in a
row,
Herve Ladsous?
Monday
as Inner
City Press
covered the
Security
Council
members as
they met about
Abyei (and had
to step out of
the UN during
what turned
out to be a
false fire
alarm), a
range of
diplomats
commented that
the Friday
notificiation
was strange,
and Mood's
behavior since
stranger
still.
"He
needs to
do his job,"
one Permanent
Representative
told Inner
City Press,
angry at the
notification
that the
UNSMIS
observers
would stay in
their hotels.
At
the noon
briefing, when
Inner City
Press asked
about Mood's
Sunday
announcement
that his
mission "stands
ready to
monitor their
release," Haq
said that "the
patrols remain
suspended."
Moody, we can
call it. Or
schizophrenic.
So, again, why
did
Ban Ki-moon
and his
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to hold
that post,
decide on June
15 to limit
the mobility
of the UN
Mission in
Syria, and to
tell Security
Council
members but
make no public
announcement?
Such
Security
Council
documents
routinely
leak,
predictably to
the wire
services
affiliated
with Western
permanent
members of the
Council. But
that did not
happen in this
case: rather,
Inner City
Press obtained
a copy of the
notification,
confirmed and
published it
before 10 pm
New York time
on June 15.
Eight
hours later,
still seeing
no
announcement
by the UN or
any Council
member, Inner
City Press asked the
spokespeople
for UN - Arab
League Joint
Special Envoy
Kofi Annan
then for Ban
Ki-moon and
Ladsous to
explain the
notification,
what lay
behind it
(i.e. what
supposedly
increased
violence) and
what they
wanted next.
Only Annan's
Ahmad Fawzi
replied, and
only to say
that UNSMIS
and Mood would
now be having
an
announcement.
What
explains the
delay? And who
made the
decision?
One
working theory
is that
Ladsous, the
head of DPKO
whose
notification
it is, made
the decision
on behalf of
his native
France, for
which he was
an operative
in the foreign
ministry as
recently as
arranging
Michele
Aliot-Marie's
flights on
planes owned
by cronies of
Tunisian
dictator Ben
Ali.
In
this theory,
though there
was little
INCREASED
violence to
point to,
Ladsous and
France wanted
to raise the
stakes for
General Robert
Mood's already
scheduled
visit to New
York and the
Security
Council, to
put it in the
context of
UNSMIS being
OVER, no
longer
improvable.
Otherwise,
Mood should
have given his
public
statement when
the decision
to limit his
Mission was
made, to
obviate the
risk of a
Security
Council leak
on Friday.
Such a leak did
take
place, but
not in the
most
predictable
way. Or, some
wonder, did
though
Western-member
aligned wire
services know
of the
decision and
not report it?
And
why, now, has
Mood reversed
course?
Notably,
the UN
representatives
of Reuters,
Agence France
Presse, (US)
Voice of
America and
Bloomberg are
four of five
signers of a
letter seeking
to investigate
and expel
Inner City
Press. We'll
have more
on this.
, 
