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

  One of the UN's other 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? Shouldn't the Council, or less "invested" Council members, inquire into this during the two day visit?

 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 gave 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 into during the two day Council trip. How and where will these disparities be explained?

  One might say, ask at the Security Council stakeout. But in mid January 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, particularly given developments in the Khobragade case, delving into the French report, and the roles of UN Peacekeeping, MINUSMA and their respective leadership(s), should be done - including by the Council during their two days "on the ground." Watch this site.