By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 17 -- France called an emergency briefing of the UN Security Council for 3 pm on Saturday in New York, not on Gaza but apparently in support of a final push against the M23 mutineers by the DR Congo army assisted by UN "Peacekeeping."
On November 13, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about the public statement by M23 that the DR Congo government had broken a ceasefire in place.
Inner City Press: M-23 group has said that there had been this formal or informal ceasefire in effect with the Government; they claim that it is now, the Government has broken it, they say, by attacking them in Kitagoma, does MONUSCO [United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] know about this attack? Is that the sequence or is it not the sequence, and if, if there was an attack did they play any role in it?
Spokesperson Nesirky: I will come back to you on that. I don’t have anything specific at the moment, but I will come back to you.
But neither Nesirky or the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which is headed by the fourth Frenchman in a row Herve Ladsous and managed MONUSCO, came back with any answer.
Rather, on November 16 Nesirky read out a DPKO statement about attacks in involving the M23. Inner City Press asked about another attack in the same time period by a non-M23 group, the Mai Mai, which killed civilians and emptied the town of Pinga:
Inner City Press: on the DRC, the report of this fighting with the M23, I wanted to just ask you if MONUSCO or if you are aware or have something to say on, there is reportedly fighting in the town of Pinga, also in northern Kivu. Doctors without Borders say it has had to pull its staff out again, and they say that a UN peacekeeper from South Africa was injured by an attack by the Mayi Mayi militia, and I just wonder, do you have anything on that? Are there groups other than M23 attacking this time and… and is there any connection between these attacks?
Spokesperson: Well, there was an incident a couple of days ago and, I believe, in which one or maybe two South African peacekeepers were hurt. Let me check on the details of that. I don’t have any specific details on the location that you mentioned beyond the ones that I have spoken about just now.
But Nesirky and Ladsous' DPKO never came back with any information about this other attack. If it's not M23, it doesn't fit into Ladsous' (and France's) narrative, one notices.
Now Ladsous' DPKO is to brief, after it didn't provide simple answers to simple questions about the DRC all week. After a Security Council meeting this week, when Ladsous came out Inner City Press put a question to him. He looked but refused to answer.
In fact, Ladous has refused to answer any Press questions since May, citing "insulting innuendo."
These apparently include Ladsous role arranging flights for disgraced French foreign minister Aliot-Marie in aircraft of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, and before that as French Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide.
Is this the man who should be briefing on DRC, or heading DPKO? Watch this this site.
Footnote: the set-up here seems similar to the way France used DPKO in Cote d'Ivoire. Should France head DPKO, or do briefings like this? Why not have the UK give a single UNSC briefing on the Malvinas / Falkland Islands? Or another P5 member do the briefing on Gaza? But this last already...
