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

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 -- With Mali the topic in the UN Security Council on June 18, UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous claimed among other things that his support of the Malian military is subject to the UN's Human Rights Due Diligence Policy.

  But Ladsous has refused not only to enforce but even to explain this supposed policy, for example on May 29, video here.

  That day, Ladsous also refused to answer why he has run a procurement for drones to be based in Northern Mali, before receiving any approval for this.

  As Ladsous read his speech, next to him sat his man in Mali, as in Cote d'Ivoire before: Bert Koenders. To his credit, Koenders indicated that he will answer questions after the Council's closed-door consultations. As long as it is not scheduled to overlap with other press briefings in and near the UN, the questions will include the Human Rights Due Diligence Policy and the below.

Background: what does UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous do when photographs of its peacekeepers draped in the flag of breakaway Azawad in northern Mali come out?

  Ladsous himself outright refuses Press questions, including on Mali, here.

  His mission in Mali, instead of trying to explain the Azawad blue helmet photographs, issues a statement on Facebook that any allegation or question based on the photographs are "unfounded and absurd." This is pure Ladsous

  Ladsous was a French diplomat for years, including in the UN Security Council during the Rwanda genocide, arguing for the escape of Hutu genocidaires into Eastern Congo -- where his MONUSCO on May 30 praised a scam surrender by the Hutu FDLR which was later called "insignificant."

   Is it a problem for UN Peacekeeping to be headed by a national of Permanent Five member of the Security Council, with a long history of colonialism in Africa? One which refuses to answer questions about it? Yes.

Those who claimed or actually through colonialism was dead, at least in the UN, take note: after fighting in Kidal in northern Mali, former colonial power France convened a UN Security Council meeting on the afternoon of May 20.

  French Ambassador Gerard Araud skipped the earlier meetings about North Korea and Sudan, but arrived just before 5 pm to circulate a draft press statement of France's position, for the Council to adopt.

   It wasn't immediately accepted, if nothing else to keep up appearances. While a few cosmetic changes were being made, Araud came to a very controlled stakeout: he did not take Press questions about Mali calling the MNLA the sole aggressors, and "narco-terrorists."

   Now Inner City Press will go further: France is accused by many in southern Mali of having paradoxically sided with the MNLA, if only to oppose Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which France calls AQMI, and affiliates.

  And that, sources say, is mostly about defending French Areva's uranium interests in Niger. That is, France's colonialism is not even to the benefit of its proxies in Bamako -- it is purely economic. And in Niger, Areva pays cheap with the government. So it doesn't benefit Africa at all. It is, after all, FrancAfrique.

  This is part of why Araud will not take Press questions. During his last Council presidency in December, he grew progressively more shrill, notably when asked about France angling to get paid by other UN member states to run airfields in northern Mali.

  Later he threatened to sue Inner City Press, for reporting an incident fully documented by the New York Police Department, on which Inner City Press had given Araud's mission the chance to comment before public. But under Araud, France's Mission to the UN did not want to comment -- it wanted to censor. So Araud, not having commented, threatened to sue.

  Since then, Araud and his spokesman Frederic Jung have taken on the habit of Herve Ladsous, French deputy ambassador during the Rwanda genocide in 1994 -- try to keep the UN microphone away from the Press.

   Araud's previous spokesman told Inner City Press to be sure to distinguish Ladsous, who wouldn't answer, from Araud who would. But now they are indistinguishable. And if only in light of the French government's claims about freedom of the press, they should both go. And not only to DC.

  As the Free UN Coalition for Access has noted, later on May 20 like here, as Araud enters his final days as France's Ambassador to the UN he has, on April 15 for example, attacked a longtime Lebanese correspondent telling him, "You are not a journalist, you are an agent." Click here for that.

  With that hanging in the air, Araud found it easier to deal with "interlocutors" on Twitter, for example on Mali, here. But May 20 at the UN, he did not address or follow the International Monetary Fund in questioning Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's purchase of a new Boeing 737 jet for $40 million. So what did the UN peacekeeping mission, Bert Koenders and Herve Ladous, know and when did they know it?

   As Inner City Press has reported, despite not having required Security Council approval, Ladsous has been soliciting drones or "unarmed unmanned aerial vehicles" for Mali. Inner City Press has twice asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric to explain the solicitation without approval, but no answer has been given.

  Despite speeches by Annick Girardin, the French secretary of state for development, what did France's outgoing ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud do or say about these issues during the Security Council trip to Mali that he led?

  Actually, France has stealthily lined up to get paid by other UN member states for "air field services" in northern Mali through a letter of assist regarding which Araud refused to answer Press questions in December (then stopped answering Press questions altogether). So as one wag put it, France could get paid to service Air IBK -- if IBK ever visited and negotiated in northern Mali.

   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: