By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 17 -- After the coup in Fiji, the UN said it would not use Fijian peacekeepers, post-coup. Later when Inner City Press inquired how Fijians were reportedly traveling to the UNAMI mission in Iraq, UN Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq told Inner City Press that was not a new deployment, only a "rotation."
Now the UN has recruited peacekeepers from Fiji, still under Josaia Bainimarama, for its decaying mission in Golan, UNDOF. On June 17 Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey if Ban had changed the policy, or determined (contrary to, for example, the Commonwealth) that democracy has been restored in Fiji.
Del Buey replied that he thought the policy was only that Fijian peacekeepers would be vetted. (That was not the policy, see "rotation" comments here.)
Inner City Press asked if these 170 Fijian have been vetted. Del Buey said to "ask DPKO" - the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. But DPKO chief Herve Ladsous has repeatedly on camera refused to answer Inner City Press questions, including about the 135 rapes in Minova by his partners in the Congolese Army, and his spokesman Kieran Dwyer has justified it, video here.
Most recently, Dwyer and DPKO (and Reuters) co-blamed South Sudan for yet another peacekeeper death, in Kadugli in Sudan -- then still without explanation substituted the SPLM-North rebels for South Sudan. So on the question of the UN accepting Golan peacekeepers post-coup, we'll have to seek a more credible answer. Watch this site.
