By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- When a UN Peacekeeper from Spain was killed in Lebanon, the spokesperson for the UN's UNIFIL meeting stopped responding to media questions. The report was that Israeli Defense Forces killed the peacekeeper. This raised the stakes for, and some questions about, the United Nations.
Recently when UN peacekeepers in northern Mali were fired at -- none killed in the incident -- UN Peacekeeping responded with air strikes from attack helicopters, killing five. Is this only how UN Peacekeeping respond to its personnel being fired at in Africa, or only in Mali?
Inner City Press asked the Spanish Mission to the UN if there is any UN Security Council statement being worked on. They responded, it is being worked on right now.
How will it address who is responsible for the killing? Killing a UN peacekeeper, the Security Council has often said, can be a war crime.
Footnote: While awaiting response to written questions Inner City Press put to the UNIFIL's top four spokespeople, for now they still compare favorably to the UN's mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, whose spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe has put many UN Headquarters-based media on the mission's press e-mail list, but has refused as to Inner City Press, which closelycovers not only cholera in Haiti but also the UN peacekeepers there, as in Mali, firing at protesters.
The Mali mission at least sends out statements; from MINUSTAH we have only silence. This is the Ladsousification of the UN -- see most recent footage of Ladsous, refusing Press questions about the DR Congo, here. We'll have more on all of this.
