UN Top Peacekeeping Post Given to Herve Ladsous, "The Other Frenchman," Despite or Due to Bonnafont's Bragging

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 2, updated -- After leaving the UN's top peacekeeping job vacant for four weeks, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday as expected named a Frenchman to the post, but not the Frenchman who had been bragging that he had the job, Jerome Bonnafont.

Inner City Press had been the first to name Bonnafont, and quoted Indian diplomats to whom Bonnafont bragged he had the job. Even in front of the Security Council on Friday morning, the departing spokesman for the French Mission to the UN was unaware of dark horse candidate Ladsous.

So were others in the French political world. On August 20, Inner City Press published a card of congratulation directed to Bonnafont at the UN in New York from French Senator Jean-Marie Bockel.

But at Friday's noon briefing, the name read out was Herve Ladsous. Inner City Press asked Ban's new deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey to describe the selection process, and whether any of the finalists had not been French. His answer was general, that all UN selections like the one through which he got his job are transparent.

But the top peacekeeping job, and most Under Secretary General jobs, are different. Kofi Annan "gave" DPKO to France as part of being Secretary General. From Jean-Marie Guehenno the post went to Alain Le Roy and now to the third Frenchman in a row.

Owning UN Peacekeeping is useful to France: just this week in Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy bragged of his country's military action in Cote d'Ivoire as well as Libya. As reflected in documents exclusively obtained and published by Inner City Press, France has no problem using DPKO to advance its economic interests, click here for examples.

Who is Herve Ladsous? He was French ambassador to Indonesia, then a spokesman and diplomat in Paris, then Ambassador to China. He appears in a 2006 Wikileaks cable about Sri Lanka, telling the US that he is angling to get appointed to an Ambassadorship in India -- where Bonnafont went -- or China. He does not appear to have any military experience.

Tellingly, he was France's "deputy ambassador to the United Nations in New York." We'll have more on this.

Here is the referenced Wikileaks cable from 2006:

"French MFA A/S equivalent for Asia, Herve Ladsous. Ladsous said that the GoF had no objections in principle to forming the two working groups, though, he added, France would probably not insert itself into a leadership position. He said that the GoF would support the formation of both working groups and noted that the group charged with examining LTTE financing would be of particular interest to the GoF given France's significant Tamil population... Ladsous mentioned that he was angling to become the next French Ambassador to China or India."

And the rest, as they say, is history. We'll have more -- watch this site.

At UN, Bonnafont Has Kudos of French Pol Bockel - & Peacekeeping Post?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, August 20 -- For the seven weeks after Inner City Press first reported that Jerome Bonnafont, France's ambassador to India, was being tapped to replace fellow Frenchman Alain Le Roy as chief of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the UN has refused to confirm it.

Now with Alain Le Roy already gone from the UN, amid charges of covered up negligence by peacekeepers in Southern Kordofan, and a failure to plan in advance for medical evacuation of Ethiopian UN peacekeepers in Abyei in Sudan, the French political establishment has already started congratulating Bonnafont.

Inner City Press is today putting online a letter of congratulations addressed to Bonnafont at the UN in New York from Jean-Marie Bockel, a former French minister and mayor of Mulhouse, now Senator from Haut-Rhin in northern France.

Bochel wrote, "I am happy to learn that you have been [named] Under Secretary General of the UN, in charge of peacekeeping operations."

Previously, Inner City Press quoted diplomats to whom Bonnafont had already bragged that he had the UN job. Now Bonnafont is receiving letters of congratulations.

There are several questions: why has the UN left the top job in DPKO empty at this time, when they had ample notice that Le Roy would leave on August 10?

Why hasn't the UN been willing to describe their process for selecting a replacement? (One UN-based Permanent Representative said that besides Bonnafont there were two other candidates -- both French.)

Why does the top Peacekeeping slot essentially belong to France? Inner City Press asked Le Roy in his exit press conference if he didn't think it would make sense that his successor come from a major Troop Contributing Country, like Pakistan or Bangladesh or Nepal or India. Le Roy said, "It is up the Secretary General." Is it?

Some joke that in naming Bonnafont, Ban Ki-moon is trying to please two countries: France bien sur, but also India since Bonnafont has been ambassador to India and is known there. Cold comfort.

This is more and more a pattern with Ban Ki-moon. When the top spot at the UN mission in Iraq opened up, when Dutchman Al Merkert said he wanted to leave after two years, there were only three final candidates: all German.

Inner City Press on June 24 reported that Michael von der Schulenburg, the German atop the UN in Sierra Leone, wanted the Iraq post, perhaps due to its antiquities, and that "Dutch politician Bert Koenders is set to replace UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's ally Choi Young-jin" at the UN in Cote d'Ivoire.

As it turned out, Ban for Iraq set up a German troika of candidates, just as he's said to have constructed a phantom French troika for DPKO. Ultimately Ban gave the Iraq job to another German, Martin Kobler.

But for DPKO, Bonnafont is already being congratulated from within the French political establishment, click here and watch this site.