By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- Remembrances of the 1994 Rwanda genocide at the UN have an air of falsity to them, like some other things at the UN.
Take for example the case of UN employee Callixte Mbarushimana. In 1994 he is strongly alleged to have used his UN vehicle and radio and access to assist in the killing of at least three dozen Tutsi, including Florence Ngirumpatse, the director of personnel at UNDP's office in Kigali.
What did the UN do about this? They gave Mbarushimana other UN jobs including in Angola (for which he was not language-qualified) and in Kosovo, as if on an ethnic cleansing road trip. Only when outed did they act; then they ended up paying Mbarushimana an additional $35,000.
The International Criminal Court, charging him in connection with other killings in Eastern Congo in 2009, also failed.
What does this say about the UN? At the UN's French-free genocide memorial on April 7, 2008, Inner City Press asked asked Rwanda's then-Ambassador Nsengimana about Mbarushimana's case. "The UN's awareness came very late," he said, diplomatically.
But it's gotten worse. As we asked yesterday and before, what does it say about the UN that Herve Ladsous, who in 1994 as French deputy permanent representative argued for the evacuation of the genocidaires to refuge in Eastern Congo through Operation Turquoise, is now chief of UN Peacekeeping?
When Ladsous held his first press conference as head of DPKO on October 13, 2011, Inner City Press asked him about his past on Rwanda. Video here, from Minute 22:50.
All Ladsous would say that day was that was history, that was the past. But is it only the past?
Ladsous has refused to answer Inner City Press questions about his previous work; most recently last month Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse, on an management board of which Ladsous used to serve, complained to the UN that Inner City Press asked Ladsous a question, or how it asked the question.
Click here for questions, refused by Ladsous in 2012 on November 27, December 7 and December 18, all about rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army.
Plus ca change, as they say. Never again? Hardly. Watch this site.
