By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 27 -- The UN's or at least its Secretariat's lack of seriousness about Africa, for which it receives most of its funds, is exemplified by the lack of answers, even days later, to questions asked about the UN in Africa.
The worst culprit is the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous.
On March 25 Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky why Ladsous' peacekeepers in Darfur had allowed 31 internally displaced people they were ostensibly protecting to be kidnapped. Neskiry said he would check on that with DPKO.
Inner City Press also asked if the UN's refugee agency UNHCR had transported deposed Central African Republic president Bozize's family inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, and if Bozize himself was in Cameroon.
On March 26, Nesirky had no answer back from DPKO about its failure to protect the IDPs, but he did have an answer from UNHCR: that they had not transported Bozize.
It didn't seem to answer the question, but at least unlike DPKO it was a response. Inner City Press has followed up: did Ladsous' MONUSCO fly a Bozize family entourage from Zongo to Kinshasa?
On another of DPKO's major failures, the introduction of cholera to Haiti along with un-screened peacekeepers from Nepal and DPKO dumping raw sewage into the drinking water, Inner City Press asked about a reported training of over 800 troops from 23 countries for UN Peacekeeping missions -- being held in Nepal.
Any safeguards, to not spread deadly cholera again? Nesirky said he would check with DPKO.
But by noon on March 27, there were no answers. Inner City Press reiterated the Darfur and Nepal questions; Nesirky said that he had asked DPKO and when he got something from them, he would pass it on.
But that is the problem. On for example the 126 rapes in Minova, DRC, from November 20 to 22 by the Congolese Army, which Ladsous' DPKO supports, Inner City Press asked again and again. Ladsous refused to answer, directing his spokesman on December 18 to seize the UNTV microphone to avoid the question.Video here.
The Department of Public Information tells Inner City Press it spoke to Ladsous' spokesman, but nothing has been said publicly about it, and Ladsous still refuses Inner City Press' questions about the deadline he supposedly set for suspending support to two unidentified rapist units. But when?
So Inner City Press on March 27 asked Nesirky, when is the deadline, has any support of the units been suspended? Nesirky said he would check with DPKO. Right. Watch this site.
