By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- While the UN is supposed to be about transparency and work for the public good, UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row in the position, has repeatedly refused to answer Inner City Press questions about Haiti, Sudan,Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Video compilation here.
What's behind this?
It's a story that can also be told in tweets. Before as exposed by Inner City Press he became a last minute replacement for Jereome Bonnafont, France's first pick to succeed Alain Le Roy, Ladsous' name had only rarely appeared on Twitter.
The earliest was on March 26, 2009 on the French site and feed @ExPatLive.com, linking to a video now disappeared from the Internet.
Ladsous had previously been France's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, during the 1994 Rwanda genocide when he argued for the escape of genocidaires into Easter Congo. More on that as this series progresses: the belated recognition of Ladsous' role and conflict of interest have become more prominent in online mentions of him.
In that capacity, and before Alliot-Marie had to resign for taking flights on aircraft of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, Ladsous was said to dress down Syrian Ambassador Lamia Chakkour, according to the feed @RatTatTata.
The irony or hypocrisy of this, while Ladsous was arranging flights for Alliot-Marie on Air Ben Ali, was later noted by Inner City Press -- Ladsous began to refuse to answer.
The first flurry of tweeting about Ladsous was on September 2, 2011 when the UN named him as head of peacekeeping. The first choice Bonnafont had already started receiving congratulation cards at UN Headquarters, as put online by Inner City Press.
But Bonnafont's bragging in India, where he was France's Ambassador, about getting the post led to him losing it. And Ladsous, already twice rejected when Jean-Marie Guehenno and then Alain Le Roy were selected, was pushed in by Sarkozy.
Even that morning, the French mission was saying it would be Bonnafont. When Inner City Press exposed this, Agence France Presse made a complaint to the UN Correspondents Association, on whose Executive Committee Inner City Press then sat.
This bogus complaint led to a lengthy kangaroo court process, to Inner City Press quitting UNCA and co-founding the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info. But it's worth noting: Ladsous had previously served on a management board of AFP.
From the first day, there were questions that went unanswered. What WAS Ladsous' role in Haiti when Aristide was deposed? This unanswered question, tweeted by Inner City Press, continues to reverberate.
When Ladsous held his first press conference on October 13, 2011, Inner City Press asked him about Haiti, Air Ben Ali and most of all Rwanda, what he did and said during the genocide.
This is when Ladsous began to refuse to answer or even take Inner City Press' questions -- he would make this policy formal in May 2012, just after UNCA began its kangaroo court proceeding against Inner City Press. That's why they call it the UN Censorship Alliance.
But 2011 ended with Ladsous avoiding and canceling question and answer stakeouts of the type Guehenno and Le Roy routinely did. Ladsous refused to say if Sudan flew militias from Darfur to Blue Nile state (later in a study),whether Jau is in Sudan or South Sudan, and was dismissive even then of the claims of those killed by UN Peacekeeping bringing cholera to Haiti. Things would only get worse: this is Part I. Watch this site.
