UNITED
NATIONS, April
6 -- Nineteen
years ago
today above
Kigali, a
plane
carrying
Rwandan
president
Juvenal
Habyarimana
was shot down,
setting
off a 100 day
genocide.
Several
events
by the UN this
month will
echo the
“never again”
tagline.
But it
is significant
that the
current head
of UN
Peacekeeping
is
Herve Ladsous,
who as
France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
in
1994 argued to
the UN
Security
Council in
favor of
helping the
genocidaires
escape
into Eastern
Congo.
Now,
after
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon in
2001 accepted
Ladsous as a
last minute
substitute for
Jerome
Bonnafont as
the fourth
Frenchman
in a row to
head DPKO, Ladsous has
lobbied for
drones to
oversee
Eastern Congo;
he has stonewalled
on at least
126 rapes
committed by
the Congolese
Army, his
partners.
When
Ladsous held
his first
press
conference as
head of DPKO
on October
13, 2011,
Inner City
Press asked
him about his
past on
Rwanda. Video
here, from
Minute 22:50.
All
Ladsous would
say that day
was that was
history, that
was the past.
But is it only
the past?
Alongside
Ladsous'
public
dodging, Agence
France Presse
on one of
the
management
boards of
which Ladsous
once served
and which is
41%
funded by the
French
government, began to
seek the
expulsion
of Inner
City Press,
first from the
so-called UN
Correspondents
Association
(more
appropriately,
the UN's
Censorship
Alliance) then
from the UN
as a whole.
In
fact, AFP's
Tim Witcher
has complained
to the UN not
only about
Inner
City Press
calling him,
in response to
his hissing
“lies and
distortion,” a
lapdog for
Ladsous, but
even about
Inner City
Press'
question to
Ladsous about
Eastern Congo.
Is
that
consistent
with AFP's or
any
non-corrupt
media's
policies, to
seek to get
other
journalists
thrown out for
the
substantive
questions they
ask? We aim to
find out.
We
are also
pursuing how
and why Inner
City Press'
office was raided by
the UN on
March 18, and
photos taken
which were
then passed,
just
after Ban's
spokesperson's
office was
asked about
the raid, to
BuzzFeed,
through an
anonymous
“Concerned UN
Reporter”
e-mail
address.
As
to Ladsous,
once UNCA was
conducting a
kangaroo court
proceeding
against Inner
City Press in
May 2012,
Ladsous on May
29 simple
refused to
answer any
Inner City
Press
question. See YouTube video,
here.
He
has continued
that, for
example at the
Security
Council
stakeout on
November
27, December
7 and December 18, which he directed his
spokesman to
seize the UNTV
microphone
to try to
avoid Inner
City
Press'
question on
the 126 rapes
in Minova by
the Congolese
Army.
In
March 2013
after Inner
City Press asked the
question,
without
meaningful
answer, to Ban
Ki-moon,
Ladsous's DPKO
spoon-fed half
an
answer to
AFP's Witcher
and Reuters'
Michelle
Nichols
(who absurdly
but typically
characterizes
such
spoon-feeding
as a Reuters
“scoop”). Is
this, and the
repeated
filing of
false complaints,
consistent
with Reuters'
policy?
Stephen J.
Adler never
answered.
It
was the next
day, March 8,
that Witcher
cut into a
conversation
Inner City
Press was
having with
another
journalist and
hissed, “lies
and
distortion.”
Inner City
Press replied,
Lapdog, and
sarcastically
complimented
Nichols on her
scoop.
Cynically
and
in bad faith,
the two went
that afternoon
and filed
coordinated
complaints,
even claiming
to be afraid
from a verbal
disagreement
with Witcher
instigated.
Reuters more
generally
including its
UN
bureau
chief Louis
Charbonneau
jumped
in. That the
UN has no
rules on false
complaints, or
due process,
has only made
it
worse.
But
Ladsous loves
it -- since
then he's
again tried to
hand “scoops”
to AFP,
finally
falling back
on the UN's
own UN Radio.
And the UN and
its Department
of Public
Information
(and Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson's
office) have
put up with
this.
So
what to make
of their
statements
this month
about “never
again”
and the
Rwandan
genocide? Not
much. Watch
this site.
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