At
UN,
Bonnafont Has
Kudos of
French Pol
Bockel, &
Peacekeeping
Post?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 20 --
For the seven
weeks after
Inner City
Press
first
reported that
Jerome
Bonnafont,
France's
ambassador to
India, was
being tapped
to replace
fellow
Frenchman
Alain Le Roy
as chief of
the
UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
the UN has
refused to
confirm it.
Now
with Alain Le
Roy already
gone from the
UN, amid charges
of covered up
negligence by
peacekeepers
in Southern
Kordofan,
and a failure
to plan in
advance
for medical
evacuation of
Ethiopian UN
peacekeepers
in Abyei in
Sudan, the
French
political
establishment
has already
started
congratulating
Bonnafont.
Inner
City Press
is today putting
online a
letter of
congratulations
addressed to
Bonnafont at
the UN in New
York from
Jean-Marie
Bockel, a
former
French
minister and
mayor of
Mulhouse, now
Senator from
Haut-Rhin in
northern
France.
Bochel
wrote, "I
am happy to
learn that you
have been
[named] Under
Secretary
General
of the UN, in
charge of
peacekeeping
operations."
Previously,
Inner
City Press quoted
diplomats to
whom Bonnafont
had already
bragged
that he had
the UN job.
Now Bonnafont
is receiving
letters of
congratulations.
There
are several
questions: why
has the UN
left the top
job in DPKO
empty at this
time, when
they had ample
notice that Le
Roy would
leave on
August
10?
Why
hasn't the
UN been
willing to
describe their
process for
selecting a
replacement?
(One UN-based
Permanent
Representative
said that
besides
Bonnafont
there were two
other
candidates --
both French.)
Why
does the top
Peacekeeping
slot
essentially
belong to
France? Inner
City Press
asked
Le Roy in his
exit press
conference if
he didn't
think it would
make sense
that his
successor come
from a major
Troop
Contributing
Country,
like Pakistan
or Bangladesh
or Nepal or
India. Le Roy
said,
"It is up the
Secretary
General." Is
it?
Some
joke that in
naming
Bonnafont, Ban
Ki-moon is
trying to
please two
countries:
France bien
sur, but also
India since
Bonnafont has
been
ambassador
to India and
is known
there. Cold
comfort.
Bonnafont at
Fashion Week
in India,
9/11/09, Bockel
congrats
to come
This
is more and
more a pattern
with Ban
Ki-moon. When
the top spot
at the UN
mission
in Iraq opened
up, when
Dutchman Al
Merkert said
he wanted to
leave
after two
years, there
were only
three final
candidates:
all German.
Inner
City Press
on
June 24
reported that
Michael von
der
Schulenburg,
the German
atop
the UN in
Sierra Leone,
wanted the
Iraq post,
perhaps due to
its
antiquities,
and that
"Dutch
politician
Bert Koenders
is set to
replace UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's ally
Choi
Young-jin"
at the UN in
Cote d'Ivoire.
As
it turned out,
Ban for Iraq
set up a
German troika
of candidates,
just as he's
said
to have
constructed a
phantom French
troika for
DPKO.
Ultimately Ban
gave the Iraq
job to another
German, Martin
Kobler.
But
for DPKO,
Bonnafont is
already being
congratulated
from within
the French
political
establishment,
click here
and watch this
site.
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