By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 14 -- Four UN peacekeepers have been killed since Friday in two separate attacks in Darfur, and as of Monday morning the UN Security Council has not issued even its standard press statement - why not?
Imagine for moment that four, even one, UN individual were killed in Syria as part of the chemical weapons mission with the OPCW. How fast would the Council issue a statement denouncing it? Would it wait from Friday until Monday and counting? It seems unlikely.
So is death of peacekeepers in Africa, in these instances one from Zambia then three from Senegal, simply more accepted? Does UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous treat all such incidents equally and impartially?
In the same time frame in Eastern Congo, not only Ladsous' envoy in Kinshasa Martin Kobler but then Dublin-based Mary Robinson put out statement condemning the firing at -- without hitting -- a MONUSCO helicopter. They said it was from territory held by the M23 rebels.
Meanwhile the deadly attacks in Darfur are attributed to no group; no group is accused. Ladsous met with Sudan's Omar al Bashir in July and has yet to answer what was accomplished.
Ladson refuses to answer Press questions about mass rape by his partners in the Congolese Army (click here video compilation and here for UK coverage).
Ladsous refused to answer and then the UN mis-represented whether his DPKO screens peacekeepers for cholera, after its introduction to Haiti killed 8,300 people and counting.
But what about these four peacekeepers now killed in Darfur, after the eight killed in July? Watch this site.
