Ban
Wants
“Decisive
Action” in
Syria, Amid UN
Decay in
Peacekeeping
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 24
-- When UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon made
his General
Assembly
speech, the
elephant in
the room was
the
airstrikes on
Syria that
began two days
before. Should
UN Security
Council
approval have
been sought?
As
he has
increasingly
done, Ban
called for
“decisive
action” --
that is,
airstrikes.
While Ban's
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric has
repeatedly
told Inner
City Press
that Ban does
not favor more
arms
flowing into
Syria, he has
not directly
criticized the
US move to arm
and train
Syrian rebels.
In
terms of UN
Peacekeeping,
Ban in his
speech said he
is setting up
a
review. Inner
City Press has
heard from
source that
Louise Arbour
is
slated to head
it -- with
many grumbling
about it,
including
previous
colleagues at
the
International
Crisis Group.
Is she the
right one to
review the
failures of UN
Peacekeeping
under Herve
Ladsous?
Most
recently those
failures
include
ordering
peacekeepers
to surrender
to
the Al Nusra
Front in the
Golan Heights
-- so more for
“decisive
action” -- and
not
implementing
Ban's supposed
Human Rights
Due
Diligence
Policy, by
including the
DR Congo Army,
a UN listed
child
soldier
recruiter, in
the mission in
Central
African
Republic,
after
never
suspending UN
support for
DRC Army units
which
committed 130
rapes in
Minova in
November 2012.
Ladsous
refuses
Press
questions on
all of this, video compilation here, UK
coverage
here. What
would Arbour -
or another -
do about that?
Ban
touted his own
“Rights Up
Front” plan,
without
mention it was
meant to make
up for his
failures on
Sri Lanka in
2009 and
since.
Ban
cited his
Climate
Summit, at
which coal
mining funders
Bank of
America and
Barclays were
celebrated.
While
corporations
use his UN
for
blue-washing,
yesterday the
French
delegation tried to
privatize
the UN's Press
Briefing Room,
ordering all
non-French
journalists to
leave.
Inner City
Press for the
new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
refused this
privatization,
video
here, and
will continue
to work to
make the UN
live up to the
principles it
was supposedly
founded for.
Watch this
site.
, 
