By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 14 -- The murky capture of UN Peacekeeping by France through Herve Ladsous is on display this week, from Mali through Eastern Congo and now even to Russia, on Syria.
While refusing to answer Press questions at the UN in New York, including about alleged gang rape by his peacekeepers in Mali and partners in the Congolese Army, UK coverage here, Ladsous today in Moscow let drop that the UN might send peacekeepers to Syria. Click here, and here.
But how? Under what mandate? Back in mid-2012 it wasLadsous who pulled the plug on the UN mission led by Robert Mood. Now he'd go back in for what?
Speaking to Radio France International, where else, on November 4 Ladsous bragged that he was moving attack helicopters from former French colony Cote d'Ivoire over to another former French colony, Mali, while waiting to bring in troops from, where else, Burkina Faso. Ladsous alluded to new copters coming from... Central America.
But he has refused to answer whether Mauritania's demand to only serve in the MISUSMA mission along its own border complies with UN rules. Ladsous has ignored or even destroyed the UN's stated Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, by continuing to support the 41 and 391 Battalions of the Congolese Army implicated in 135 rapes in Minova.
These rapes will belatedly be mentioned in today's Security Council Presidential Statement, as Inner City Press reported yesterday. But the policy has already been defanged by Ladsous.
As noted, while leaving all this murky, Ladsous is slated for a "panel discussion" near but outside of the UN next week, for dues-payers. Watch this site.
