Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

On UN CAR Rapes Report, Proposal for Oversight Board, ICP Asks of Ladsous, Retaliation

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 26 -- The UN report on rapes in the Central African Republic, released on December 17, found that UN Peacekeeping's Under Secretary General Herve Ladsous “illustrate[s] the UN's failure to respond to allegations of serious human rights violations in the meaningful way.”

Ladsous has yet to take any questions about the report -- this as Inner City Press exclusively hears from sources of yet more sexual abuse cases in CAR, involving DR Congo AND Republic of Congo, and changes of abuses will in detention.

On January 26, a new proposal on the systemic problem of UN peacekeeper sexual abuse was made by Code Blue: to take the UN’s "oversight of every aspect of peacekeeper sexual exploitation and abuse out of the hands of the UN Secretariat and place it under an external, independent management board," as Stephen Lewis put it.

Inner City Press asked Lewis' co-founder Paula Donovan about retaliation against whistleblowers, and about Ladsous having on camera linked the rapes to "R&R," here. Donovan replied that the board would decide how to have eyes and ears on the ground; she called the linking of rapes to recreation "appalling." It's the type of thing an oversight board would act on, she said.

Following up about the UN merely handing a victim of sexual abuse in one of its camps in South Sudan the contact information of the alleged abuses, Inner City Press asked if that would be coverd by the proposal. Donovan said it would or should cover every single instance where any part of the UN system was implicated in alleged sexual abuse.

Inner City Press then went to the day's UN noon briefing and asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the proposal, and when Ban's response to the Deschamps report will be out. Video here
, transcript here:

Inner City Press: the Code Blue campaign of AIDS-Free World, they say in the run-up to the Secretary-General responding to the [Marie] Deschamps report, that an external independent management board be established to deal with all allegations of sexual abuse concerning any part of the UN system. One, do you have any response to such an idea? And, two, when is the Secretary-General's response to the Deschamps report actually going to come out?

Spokesman: It should be coming out in the not-too-distant future. I think, whether it's us and Code Blue, I think we all have the same aim, and that is to see an end to any abuses committed by peacekeepers, whether they are under UN command or not, and that, if they do occur, if they, unfortunately, are committed, that there is full accountability for the victims of such crimes. I haven't seen the details of what they're proposing, but what is clear is that the fight against sexual abuse by peacekeepers is not one that the Secretariat can do alone. I think we have stressed… the Secretary-General has made it clear that there will be no tolerance for any such acts. He has made this the highest priority for the Secretariat. But the fight demands the full involvement and support of Member States and troop-contributing-countries. The Secretary-General has been delivering that message, I think, very directly and forcefully to those groups. They are also… same as… can be… same is being done by heads of DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operations) and DFS (Department of Field Support). We're engaging with Member States and with troop contributors. It's something that we all need to work through at the same time. And, in the meantime, you know, even… we have continuously been strengthening our procedures to either prevent but also to allow victims to come forward in full confidence.

We'll see.

On January 5, Ladsous mission in CAR issued a press release about yet more allegation of sexual abuse of minors by its peacekeepers, below.

On January 18, Inner City Press managed to ask UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson about the report -- the UN Deputy Spokesperson appeared intent on not allowing the question, but Eliasson to his credit took it. Video here, UN transcript here:

Inner City Press: The UK Ambassador mentioned sexual abuse.

DSG: Yes.

Inner City Press: He did. And so I wanted to know…

DSG: I did also.

Inner City Press: So, since that report came out about the Central African Republic, what has the Secretariat or the 38th floor done to ensure that in the future if a UN staffer becomes aware of child rape, that it goes to the right people?

DSG Eliasson: This is very serious. As you know, the Special Representative in Central African Republic resigned, was asked to resign. One of the others who were named by the Deschamps group, panel, was considered to have abused authority has left the United Nations, retired. And we have a group set up right now, led by the Chef de Cabinet - Edmond Mulet - that is going to work very, very quickly on following up the recommendations of the panel. Mr. Mulet and his group will report to the Secretary-General by the end of this month.

We will look into both issues of individual responsibility, but also primarily on the systemic problems. This reminded me of my reaction to the Sri Lanka tragedy back in 2009. The panel came to the conclusion that it was systemic failure, so we drew the [conclusion] to that – we need to have a systemic response. That was the origin of Human Rights Up Front. This time also the Deschamps report talks about, almost in the same language – systemic reactions. I also expect, or we also expect, Member States again to draw the conclusions from this. In so many cases we have passed on to the Member States very damning reports, but very little sometimes has been done by Troop Contributing or Police Contributing countries. So we need to have nation states following up these [inaudible].

We will have more, too, on DSG Eliasson's reference to the UN's failure in Sri Lanka. At the January 19 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq if Mulet's report at the end of January will be made public. Video here. We'll see.

Earlier in the month, Inner City Press asked the Permanent Representative of New Zealand and of Uruguay, President of the Security Council for January, about the report(s). Video here.

Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen of New Zealand expressed concern. Ambassador Rosselli of Uruguay said in his national capacity that allegations should be dealt with has his country had, apparently a reference to Haiti. It appears the Security Council will take up this matter.

Earlier at the January 5 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric if now Ladsous, in the Security Council right then on CAR, would belatedly answer questions, since the firing / scapegoating of former mission chief Babacar Gaye clearly didn't end the rapes. From the transcript:

I wanted to ask but CAR, since you have this new report. One, I guess I’d like to… since Mr. [Hervé] Ladsous is briefing the Security Council today about CAR and has yet to answer any questions on the CAR sexual abuse allegations report… I guess it’s a timely request… can he do a stakeout, take questions on it? Because it seems like Babacar Gaye was fired, but the problems go on. So this is a request. It seems like a reasonable one

But as noted (and Vined, here), Ladsous did not answer.

Back in December, once the report came out from under embargo at the noon briefing Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric what Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will do about the findings against Ladsous, and that he escaped the “abuse of authority” moniker only because “the mandate of the Panel is to assess whether an abuse of authority has occurred in connection with the Allegations.”

Since the abusers Ladsous let into MINUSCA were not the French troops who are accused of rape -- these troops are not in MINUSCA -- Ladsous' malfeasance is not “in connection” with the Allegations. But is it acceptable?

Dujarric seems unfamiliar with the report; he implied that the third person found to have abused authority was the Ethics Officer, when it was a lower level official in CAR. Inner City Press asked what this all says about Ban Ki-moon's management, along with the John Ashe / Ng Lap Seng and Bernardino Leon scandal, a question Dujarric did not allow Inner City Press to asked Ban himself on December 16. “Those are your words,” Dujarric replied. Yes, they are.

When the Panel's three members held their press conference, Inner City Press asked about Ladsous' failure to vet and his linking of rapes to “R&R.” Video here. Marie Deschamps said pointedly she wouldn't comment on Ladsous' remarks; Yasmin Sooka said these are crimes for punishment, not recreation.

As the last question, Inner City Press asked what it had wanted to ask Ban, and tried to ask Dujarric: what does this say about Ban's management? Video of Q&A here. Didn't Ban's chief of staff Malcorra, criticized in the report, do it for Ban? Didn't the “senior official” who ostensibly let the rape information die on the vine in the 38th floor work in an atmosphere created by Ban's nine years? We will pursue this.

And this: if OIOS' Lapointe was wrong, isn't James Finness, who continues the OIOS campaign? While the UK has spoken, where is France, given Sangaris and Ladsous?

As to Ladsous, the finding was made even though the three authors of the report do not mention, and apparently have not yet seen, the notes from Ladsous' October 1, 2015 meeting about the CAR mission with Burundi's Vice President, in which Ladsous said he is “pragmatic” on human rights, in Burundi and by extension elsewhere, nor Ladsous' September 11, 2015 on-camera comments linking the rapes to “R&R,” video here.

But Ladsous still as of December 17 holds the senior UN position into which France, which has chosen the last four heads of UN Peacekeeping, put him in September 2011. How much longer?

By contrast, the former head of OIOS Carman Lapointe, of whom the panel finds an abuse of authority, is conveniently gone, as is Babacar Gaye, who worked for Ladsous at the CAR mission.

Perhaps it was easier for the panel to make the formal finding against people who had already left the UN by the time the report was released.

One wonders: if responses like Ladsous' legalistic (and largely false) November 2 letter were received so long ago by the panel, why did they withhold the report all the way until December 17, the day AFTER Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's rare (and last of the year) press conference?

High Commission Zeid, of whom it is said he was slammed in the report, in fact gets the same treatment -- critical, but no formal abuse of authority -- as Ladsous, who is airbrushed out and conditions access to information and answers about Peacekeeping on positive / false coverage.

The same finding is made with regard to former Chief of Staff Susana Malcorra. Will the critical language hurt what chance she has, as a non Eastern European, to try to follow Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General?

More generally, how does all this criticism reflect on the tenure of Ban Ki-moon? The report does not mention the concurrent scandals regarding UN Secretariat documents purchased by now indicted Ng Lap Seng through former President of the General Assembly John Ashe, nor Ban Libya envoy taking instruction and a cushy job with the UAE while representing Ban on and in Libya.

In December 2015, Ban allowed those who cover him, at least the UN Correspondents Association, to sell seats with him for $6,000. And it is these same who have airbrushed out Ladsous and others.

The Panelists -- Marie Deschamps, Hassan Jallow and Yasmin Sooka -- leave unnamed a senior officer in Ban Ki-moon's office (finding that he misspoke when he said he had informed Deputy Jan Eliasson), without saying if the officer remains in the same position. We'll have more on this.

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