UN
Lebanon Envoy
Plumbly Dodges
on Drones, Cut
Off by Iran
Focus,
Ladsous
Proceeds
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
14 -- What is
it about the
UN and drones?
On
Thursday Inner
City Press
asked the UN's
Special
Coordinator
for Lebanon
Derek Plumbly
if the Israeli
drones over
Lebanon are
armed or
reconnaissance
drones.
Plumbly
first
said that the
UN's reporting
is “detailed.”
He mentioned
“fixed wing
air-craft” and
helicopters.
When Pressed,
about which
kind of drone,
he said he
couldn't get
into that.
The
underlying
report on
Resolution
1701 refers,
in its
Paragraph 12,
to
attack
helicopters
over Tyre and
to overflights
by “unmanned
aerial
vehicles.” The
Lebanese Army
has been more
specific.
Why should the
UN play hide
the ball?
Perhaps it was
not only
Plumbly's
fault.
Follow up was
cut off by a
media
announcing
itself as
wanting to go
in another
direction. The
other was, as
usual, all
Iran. And that
was
it.
The Security
Council was
briefed by
Plumbly and
the Director
of Asia and
Middle East
Division at
the Department
of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
DPKO.
The
head
of DPKO Herve
Ladsous
has been
pushing for
the UN to
use drones
since at least
March 2012. He
presented the
idea to the
C-34
Committee,
after which
many delegates
criticized
Ladsous and
his
idea to Inner
City Press,
musing that
he'd share the
intelligence
feed with
France.
Ladsous
began
a procurement
for drones in
Central Africa
and West
Africa --
Cote d'Ivoire?
But when he
finally got a
letter of
approval, not
from
the General
Assembly or
140-some
member C-34
but from the
Security
Council, it
was only for
the Democratic
Republic of
Congo.
Inner
City Press has
asked
repeatedly for
DPKO's
safeguards for
the use of
drones, who
will get the
information?
What approvals
are needed?
Like
with questions
about the
supposed Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy,
Ladsous' DPKO
refuses to
answer. But
Plumbly? We
will continue
on
this. Watch
this site.
, 
