On
Protesters
Shot in Kidal,
Mali Says Wait
for
Ballistics,
FrancAfrique
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 16 --
One of the
UN's too-few
criticisms of
military
action in
north Mail,
the shooting
into a crowd
of protesters
in Kidal on November
28, was
disputed in
the Security
Council on
January 16.
In a statement
prepared like
a defense
attorney,
trying raise
reasonable
doubt, Mali's
Permanent Representative
Sekou Kasse
said that the
UN Mission
MINUSMA elements
closest to the
shooting were
400 meters away,
precluding
them from
"objective"
testimony. The
argument made
was one must
wait for the
ballistic
analysis
ordered by the
Malian
government
itself. Will
that be
credible?
Again,
similarly, can
statements by
the French
Mission to the
UN, about
military
action in its
former colony
Mali and
related
topics, be
believed? If
so, does that
require
disbelieving
the UN
itself, whose
reports are
different?
In
the run-up to
the UN
Security
Council's
January 16
meeting on
Mali,
both France
and the UN
Mission
MINUSMA filed
reports. It's
worth
comparing
their accounts
of the same
incidents, for
example on
October 23,
2013 in
Tessalit.
France
gives
a Polyanna
report emphasizing
its good works
and
downplaying
death:
"On
23 October
2013, in
response to an
attack on a
Chadian post
in
Tessalit by a
commando made
up of three
armed
terrorist
groups using
a
vehicle-borne
improvised
explosive
device, the
Operation
Serval
Liaison and
Support
Detachment
assigned to
the Chadian
battalion
assisted
MINUSMA by
conducting a
patrol with a
Mirage 2000D
jet and
sending a CASA
'Nurse'
medical
evacuation
aircraft. The
end result
was that six
wounded
Chadians were
evacuated and
the remaining
explosives
were
neutralized."
The
UN
by contrast
recounts seven
deaths
including five
civilians (one
child) and two
peacekeepers:
"On
23 October,
four
individuals
drove and
detonated a
vehicle-borne
improvised
explosive
device into a
MINUSMA
checkpoint in
Tessalit.
Seven people
were killed,
including four
adult
civilians, a
six-year-old
boy and two
MINUSMA
peacekeepers."
This
type of
disparities in
reporting -
misleading -
would and
should be
delved into
in legislative
review
sessions. But
the Security
Council, on
which
France uses
its Permanent
Five seat,
confines such
consultations
to
behind closed
doors. How and
where will
these
disparities be
explained?
One
might say, at
the Security
Council
stakeout. But
Herve Ladsous,
the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to head UN
Peacekeeping,
has
said he has a
"policy"
against
answering
Press
questions.
Earlier
this
week, French
Permanent
Representative
Gerard Araud
used the
stakeout to
rail against
publication of
a New York
Police
Department
document
concerning a
French
diplomat
-- contrasting
with the case
of
Indian
diplomat
Khobragade --
an NYPD
document on
which Araud's
French Mission
to the UN had
declined to
comment,
responding
only
with threats
that
publication
would a
"hostile act."
While
continuing to
pursue that,
delving into
the French
report, and
the roles of
UN
Peacekeeping,
MINUSMA and
their
respective
leadership(s),
will be done
elsewhere.
The
French report
makes claims
about the
December 14,
2013 incidents
in
defense of a
"bank
building" in
Kidal, an
incident that
when Inner
City Press asked
Araud about at
the stakeout,
Araud
refused to
answer,
calling it a
mere detail.
Then why is it
in
France's self
serving
report, a
report which
is materially
different
that the UN's?
We'll have
more on this.