By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 6 -- Amid growing protests over the abuse of an 18 year old Haitian by UN peacekeepers from Uruguay, the UN on Tuesday refused to retract its previous statement August 18 response to Inner City Press that the "allegations could not be substantiated" and "were unfounded."
In mid August, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's now departed deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about cell phone video of sexual abuse in Port Salut, Haiti. Haq denied it, saying that that the "investigation was finalized... these allegations were unfounded."
Now that the video has emerged on the Internet and the UN is being sued, new deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey on September 6 told Inner City Press "that is not being retracted... That video is now part of the court case that the family is bringing against — that the Haitian prosecutor and the family are bringing against the five perpetrators. So, in that sense, the video is something that we would not like to comment on because it is evidence in an ongoing investigation."
But the UN's Haq on August 18 said the "investigation was finalized."
Inner City Press also asked del Buey on September 6 about photos of garbage and sewage dumping by UN peacekeepers in Port Salut, particularly troubling in light of the introduction of cholera into Haiti last year.
Del Buey said "you might want to check with our colleagues in DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operations) on it; they will probably have more information."
After a month with no chief of DPKO, last week France's Herve Ladsous was named as the replacement of fellow Frenchman Alain Le Roy, beating out also French Jerome Bonnafont who bragged to diplomats that he had the job.
Inner City Press asked del Buey on Tuesday, "When does Mr. Ladsous, the new head of DPKO, begin, and can we get a kind of a briefing from, and does he, has any views on this?
The UN's del Buey answered, "I don’t have any dates yet for his commencement, but we’ll try and find out." No answer has yet been given, but one has to wonder about a late-named new head of Peacekeeping not showing up to work, and having nothing to say on this scandal.
In fact, Ladsous has had much to say on Haiti, as the French Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in the 1990s, then as a public face supporting the ouster of elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.
Now with what's called an Abu Ghraib-like scandal for UN DPKO in Haiti, DPKO chief Ladsous is nowhere to be found; the French Mission to the UN where he used to be Deputy Ambassador is left trying to squelch coverage of his absence and their lack of knowledge.