After
Ban's Ladsous
Won't
Reply
on DRC Rapes,
Ban's Spox
Calls It
"Personal"
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May
29 -- When
Herve Ladsous,
the chief of
UN
Peacekeeping,
held a press
conference on
Wednesday,
Inner City
Press asked
him for an
update on the
mass rape of
135 women in
Minova in
Eastern Congo,
committee by
the UN's
partners in
the 41st and
391st
Battalions of
the Congolese
Army. Video
here. And
embedded
below.
Ladsous,
who
covered up the
rapes by
repeatedly
refusing to
answer any
questions or
provide any
information
about them in
response to
Inner City
Press
questions
starting in
November 2012,
on May 29 the
Day of the
Peacekeeper
said to Inner
City Press, on
camera, "You
know I do not
respond to
you."
Inner
City Press
suggested to
Ladsous that
he pretend the
question was
asked by
someone else,
and provided
an update,
since it is an
important
issue for UN
Peacekeeping.
But he did
not. Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey turned to
another
journalist,
who did not
ask about the
mass rapes in
Minova.
At the
noon briefing
after Ladsous
left, Inner
City Press
asked Del Buey
if Ban Ki-moon
finds Ladsous'
refusal to
answer
particular
media's
questions
acceptable.
Del
Buey said he
wouldn't get
involved in
"personal
issues."
But
it's not
personal,
Inner City
Press
responded.
What if
Ladsous openly
refused to
answer any
questions
about, for
example,
Haiti? There,
Inner City
Press also
asked, MSF has
found the UN's
vaunted
cholera
response,
ostensibly
making up for
the lawless
dismissal of
the legal
claim of
victims of the
UN having
brought
cholera to the
island:
what does the
UN say? The UN
believes
itself.
Del
Buey ended the
briefing.
Later when Ban
Ki-moon did a
rare question
and answer
stakeout at
the UN in New
York, he said
he would focus
on Africa. But
the two
questions Del
Buey selected
were about
Syria. Inner
City Press
said, what
about DRC? Ban
to his credit
paused, and
Inner City
PRess managed
to ask about
DRC - watch
this site.
, 
