By Matthew Russell Lee, Partial exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, July 10 -- When top UN Peacekeeper Herve Ladsous strutted
out of Conference Room 6 where he met with Syria Troop Contributing
Countries on Tuesday afternoon, some attendees expressed surprise to
Inner City Press.
"He
said the military component will be cut fifty percent in UNSMIS,"
a TCC representative exclusively told Inner City Press, referring to the UN
Mission in Syria. "But how does he know what the Security
Council will do?"
Usually the UN
Secretariat says that they can only propose, not decide. But here,
Ladsous told TCCs what will happened -- just as on June 15 he told
the Security Council that the Mission in Syria HAD already limited
its mobile operations as of 6 pm that day, local time.
As
Inner City Press, which exclusively obtained and published Ladsous'
DPKO notice, later was told by sources staying in the Hotel Dame Rose
in Damascus, General Robert Mood on the night of June 15 didn't talk
about the limitation, and his deputy and personnel went out on patrol
on the morning of June 16.
Now,
at least one Permanent Five member of the Security Council tells
Inner City Press that Mood does not want to continue in a "merely
political mission." Perhaps with fifty percent of the military
retained. Perhaps. Watch this site.
Footnotes:
also exiting with Ladsous was his military adviser, and former
commander in Congo, Babacar Gaye. At the same time back in the
Security Council consultations room, Roger Meece was briefing the
Council about (in) action in North Kivu. Shouldn't Gaye be on that
too?
After the meeting, Department of Field Support chief Amira Haq was on
the North Lawn's second floor with her predecessor and now Ban chief of
staff Susana Malcorra. Some wonder why it was Haq's deputy Tony Banbury
and not Haq herself in the Syria TCC meeting. We are wishing Amira Haq
well; this Syria debate needs more voices, including for the UN's own
credibility. Watch this site.
