By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/doss1shooter122309.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 23 -- As the UN's Mission to the Congo had its mandate whittled down to five months on Wednesday, more questions erupted about Mission chief Alan Doss, already under investigation for five months for nepotism.
In mid 2008 when the Security Council members visited Doss and the MONUC mission he heads, they flew in a UN place to Goma in North Kivu. On the tarmac, as Inner City Press reported at the time, the plane suffered a bullet hole in its fuselage. The bullet came from inside, shot by a UN security officer Gery Brasselle.
Mr. Brasselle, a Belgian national then at the "FS-3" staffing level, said he was trying to demonstrate that his handgun had no ammunition in it when it went off. Given volcanic lava then on the Goma airstrip, the larger UN plane in Kinshasa could not land.
The Security Council Ambassadors had to take a UN bus, without any security guards, through the night to Kigali in Rwanda. It was assumed Brasselle would be disciplined.
But, it emerged, Brasselle was the personal guard of Alan Doss. Thus, discipline was slow in coming, according to MONUC and UN headquarters sources.
Finally Doss was ordered to impose discipline. He ostensibly removed Brasselle from his post.
Doss, however, has a history of using his UN postings in any way he pleases. Beyond his written request that the UN Development Program violate applicable rules and give a job to his daughter, despite Doss still for his own reasons being a UNDP staff, beyond bringing his personal chef from the Mission in Liberia as an "engineer," Doss applied the same favoritism for Brasselle, according to well placed sources. (Doss has repeatedly refused to explain or address his nepotism e-mail or other issues raised.)
Rather than discipline, Brasselle got a promotion to FS-4 level, and works even closer to Doss. And so it goes in the UN -- or, at least in MONUC. This does not help the UN's image in the Congo or beyond, particularly given the mounting allegations of MONUC's and Doss' implications in crimes of war. Is there accountability in the UN? For now, no. Watch this site.
