Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 23 -- Back in January regarding gang rape charges against UN peacekeepers in Mali the UN told Inner City Press, "the Government of Chad has further advised the Department of Peacekeeping Operations that it has completed the national investigation."

    On April 9, Inner City Press asked DPKO chief Herve Ladsous what the results of the completed investigation had been, but he refused to answer, click here for that.

  And so on April 23 Inner City Press put the question to the UN's Mali envoy Bert Koenders. More than three months after the DPKO told Inner City Press the investigation was completed, Koenders said it will only be finished in "two or three weeks." Video here, from Minute 3:39.

   Even though by his account the investigation is not finished, he said "we have found very little evidence of sexual violence by Chadian troups... at first glance some of the accusations have not bee proven."

   While Koenders unlike Ladsous at least purported to respond to this question, and one about Dutch attack helicopters bound for Mali, there is a lack of clarity. Beyond the "completed" investigation by Chad, is there another, UN investigation? Are there preliminary findings based on which Koenders said what he did? As with the rapes in Minova in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by DPKO's partners in the Congolese Army, we will continue to pursue this issue.

  Inner City Press also asked about the five Dutch helicopter's Mali's foreign minister Abdulaye Diop had told it about earlier in the morning. Koenders said, "We welcome contribution of Dutch government," specifying three Apache attack helicopters in May, and two transport helicopters in September or October.

  Koenders cited all information fusion, being the ears and eyes on extremist groups. Earlier, Inner City Press asked Foreign Minister Diop if such information will be shared with his government, or only within MINUSMA and its troop contributing countries. Diop said he didn't know. So this, too, will require clarification

  As an aside, later on April 23 the UN's envoy to Somalia Nicholas Kay complained of the lack of helicopters from the AMISOM mission. It left one wondering about how the UN is run: did the Netherlands give the copters to Mali because one of its nationals is the UN's envoy there? We hope to have more on this.

  On April 23 when Inner City Press asked Malian foreign minister Diop for an update on dialogue in Kidal, and on the stated investigation of the shooting of civilian demonstrators there, he replied that he is too new in the position to answer on the probe. He said there is a new chief negotiator for the armed groups and what he called, in a Nixonian phrase, the "silent majority." Where did the last ten weeks go?

  Back on January 16 the UN Spokesperson's Office sent Inner City Press this response, which does not answer the question of accountability. But here it is, in full: