With
UN Peacekeeping Facing the Axe,
Ladsous Farewell in GA Lobby
Contrasted to Zerrougui
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
April 3 – UN Peacekeeping
faces budget cuts, and it is
not unrelated to its descent
into sexual abuse and failure
to protect civilians under
now-gone boss Herve Ladsous.
Having seen video
of Ladsous' "farewell" on
Friday, March 31 Inner City
Press on Monday April 3 asked
the UN's holdover spokesman
Stephane Dujarric about it, video here, UN transcript
here:
Inner City Press: I've seen, I
guess, a video farewell to Mr.
[Hervé] Ladsous in the GA
[General Assembly] lobby with
people saluting. I guess
I just wanted to know, is it
decided department by
department how much fanfare to
give these exits or how is
that…?
Spokesman: Well, each
department organizes its own
farewell. Obviously,
DPKO [Department of
Peacekeeping Operations], with
its strong military and police
tradition, I think, put
together a farewell that was
extremely appropriate for Mr.
Ladsous along the traditions
that they have.
Inner City Press: Right.
But it was in the Visitor's
Lobby...
Spokesman: I don't see
what the problem was with
it. I think it was
completely appropriate for his
service…
Inner City Press: You
said that the farewell to Ms.
Zerrougui is going to be done
in writing after the fact, so
I'm asking about a salute in
the lobby…
Spokesman: Well, that's…
I think it's… I think, first
of all, unless we're all deaf,
I don't think there was a
21-gun salute. Second of
all, I think there's a
difference between what
Abdelhamid was asking about,
which is an official thank
you, and what you were talking
about, which is each
department or division…
Inner City Press: That's
all I was asking, is whether
it's the department…
Spokesman: They were
completely different things.
When
Ladsous held his "farewell"
press conference on March 24,
one would expect the questions
of sexual abuse by
peacekeepers, their spread of
cholera in Haiti and recent
failure to protect even Panel
of Experts member Michael
Sharp and his colleagues would
be asked about. But this is
the UN - those called on by UN
spokesman Farhan Haq didn't
ask anything about those
topics, and when Inner City
Press late in the press
conference did so, Ladsous
refused to answer. Haq tried
to play it off, one last
question in French, so Inner
City Press asked in French.
But that wasn't the point.
Ladsous-friendly scribes urged
a softball question to be
asked over Inner City Press,
after which Ladsous thanked
them for their
"professionalism." If this
happened in today's
Washington, these same media
like Reuters led by hypocrite
in chief Stephen J. Adler
would scream bloody murder.
But at the UN they are part
and parcel with the
censorship. Ladsous has
presided over the decay of UN
Peacekeeping. Will the
successor "picked" by Antonio
Guterres (really, by Francois
Hollande) Jean-Pierre Lacroix
do any better? Watch this
site.
More
generally when facing budget
cuts, even on a delay, how
does today's UN react?
Stealthly, is the answer. And
with a limited and carefully
picked media. When new - well,
80-plus day - Secretary
General Antonio Guterres went
on a trip to Kenya, in New
York the Press was not
informed of any chance to go.
Then a glowing profile
in the Washington Post from a
usually
hard-hitting reporter,
this time quoting the UN's
Ladsous, who has mismanaged
UN Peacekeeping and the
Press
for five years. The article
describes the UN Foundation as
"advocating for UN causes."
But shouldn't issues like
accountability for victims of
UN cholera in Haiti, and
opposing censorship in the UN
and for example in Western
Cameroon, with no
Internet for 53 days, be "UN
causes"? In fact, UN
Foundation lobbies against US
budget cuts to the UN, even if
targeted and designed to bring
about reform. The UN's cause,
it seems, is to perpetuate
itself.
(One of
Guterres' team is quoted that
Guterres' goal is to say out
of Trump's Twitter feed. Is
telling a newspaper that the
best way to make it come
about? And if Trump or Rex
Tillerson eschewed a traveling
press corps for hand-picked
coverage, there would be and
is outcry. The Free
UN Coalition for Access
asks, Is it acceptable by the
UN?)
Recently in the UN basement as
Inner City Press came in late
through a long line of
tourists and students at the
metal detectors Inner City
Press must now use everyday
since the UN evicted
it for covering corruption,
a meeting in a windowless side
conference room was ending.
Outside in the hall it was
labeled, Congressional Group.
But inside
on a TV screen it said,
“UN Foundation: Congressional
Learning Trip.” UN Foundation
was set up, with Ted Turner's
money, to help and now defend
the UN. The UN's point person
on sexual abuse, long a topic
of interest for such
Republicans as Senator Bob
Corker (R-Tennessee), is Jane
Holl Lute, who before that was
a high official of the UN
Foundation and of the Obama
Administration. She was
notably absent this week when
a “new” sexual abuse strategy,
immediately critiqued
by Code Blue and others, was
announced. We'll have more on
that.
Down
in Washington, Democratic
sources on the Hill tell Inner
City Press of a visit by the
Obama administration's
appointee to the UN, Jeffrey
Feltman. Strangely, perhaps,
they list the topic not as
involving only Feltman's
specific UN job, the
Department of Political
Affairs he has been held over
to head until April Fools Day
in 2018, but “budget cuts to
peacekeeping.” The head of
that Department, held by
France for more than 20 years,
should be the one lobbying.
But Herve Ladsous is
unappealing in the best of
times; now he is a lame duck
leaving on March 31, to be
replaced by his fellow
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Lacroix.
Will Lacroix be able to stave
off cuts? Will he continue to
use public funds, more than a
quarter of it from US
taxpayers, to pay peacekeepers
accused of rape such as in the
contingents from Burundi
and Cameroon?
Inner City Press exclusively
reported and followed
up on the extension of
Jeffrey Feltman's UN contract
with regard to his UN (largely
US taxpayer) pension vesting
after the five years which
Feltman recently pointed out
has not yet been reached, but
not until now how those close
to Feltman say it was
accomplished. They exclusively
tell Inner City Press that
among the lobbyists to keep
Feltman on was none other than
Bill Clinton, whom they say
said it on behalf of his
spouse, behind whom Feltman
was famously photographed
while she worked her
Blackberry.
Speaking of photographs, Inner
City Press on March 10, still
under censorship restrictions
imposed without
any hearing or appeal after it
sought to cover the fallout
from the UN bribery indictment
of Macau-based businessman and
former Clinton funder
Ng Lap Seng, was Banned
from a simple photo
opportunity on the UN's 38th
floor. The Ban's by the
Department of Public
Information under ostensibly
outgoing Cristina Gallach, who
did no
due diligence on Ng Lap
Seng. When asked the basis,
the UN's holdover Deputy
Spokesman Farhan Haq gave no
reason or definition being
used; he barely looked up from
his computer, from which he
never did answer Inner City
Press' questions
on Cameroon abuses and the
UN's Cameroon Resident
Coordinator Najat Rochdi blocking
it on Twitter, nor how much
"extra-budgetary" funds the UN
proposes to use on Louise
Arbour's D1 head of office.
The
moves are stealth, like much
in the UN these days - and
have the potential of
backfiring. Watch this site.
***
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