By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 15 -- Nearly seven months after the Review Panel on Peace Operations began its work, and after breaking scandals about the cover up of sexual abuse in Central African Republic, Haiti and elsewhere under Herve Ladsous, on June 15 Ladsous told a meeting of military officials at the UN the report was on his desk but he hadn't yet read it.
Several attendees expressed surprise at this inattention, and at Ladsous not moving to address the many scandals under his watch.
They said Ladsous used a cliche -- this is not "Daddy's peacekeeping" -- while recounting stopping by Austria for a fatherly duty, while world news was full of the need for DNA tests for his peacekeepers leaving babies worldwide: over 200 cases of sexual abuse in Haiti alone. Daddy, said one, with a shake of the head.
On June 15, with the UN lobby filled with military attired attendees of the Ladsous show, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about DPKO's "DNA testing" and about the abuse in Haiti. On the latter, a statement not by Ladsous but by Atul Khare appears to be the only answer.
Dujarric, meanwhile, unlike his predecessor has directly played censor for Ladsous, not allowing any Press question to be asked even if Ladsous would refuse to answer it.
Ladsous was also called out of touch with the universal nature of the UN when he used the trope, "not the Bible but the basis for a Bible." There are other religions, an attendee pointed out.
On June 12, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the mounting scandals around Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping, and Dujarric said that the Panel would respond. From the transcript:
Inner City Press: what would you say in light of all of this recent sexual abuse and past sexual abuse, to those that would say in this peacekeeping mission in particular and UN peacekeeping more generally is really surrounded by any number of scandals right now? What does Ban Ki-moon intend to do about it?
Spokesman: I think we have the peace operations review panel which will come out next week. And they'll come in and brief you, which is going to be a holistic look at our peace operations or the special political missions, peacekeeping missions...
While respecting chair Ramos Horta and some members of the Panel, Inner City Press has heard from within it that it is a turf fight between Ladsous' DPKO and Feltman's DPA, not an endeavor for the needed clean up of UN Peacekeeping in light of the shooting of unarmed proteests, the cover up of sexual abuse in the Central African Republic (with Ladsous abusing his power), and the OIOS report which Inner City Press put online here. The press conference in June 16. Watch this site.
Back on November 20, 2014, the review of UN Peace Operations chaired by Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste kicked off with a press conference then an interactive dialogue with the Security Council.
In the press conference, Ramos Horta was asked of scandals facing UN Peacekeeping, from cover-ups in Darfur of attacks and now 200 rapes in Thabit, to a lack of accountability for cholera in Haiti to the use of private military contractors and even “eavesdropping.”
Inner City Press asked Ramos Horta about UNAMID's pro-government press release of November 9 denying theThabit rapes, and about Haiti cholera, which Ramos Horta vowed to raise to his fellow panel members.
Some of these members spoke with the Security Council later on November 20, and a smaller subset with Inner City Press after the meeting. From that and what some Council members said, it appears that the Security Council's vision of the panel's mandate is far narrower and more bureaucratic, on such issues of how mandates should be drafted.
That's all well and good for the pen-holding countries in the Security Council, some of which contribute few to no peacekeepers to UN missions. But what about the people ostensibly served by those mission? Those in Haiti, impacted by cholera? Those in Darfur, under-protected, now criticizing UNAMID and the ultimately the Department of Peacekeeping Operations run by Herve Ladsous?
One outgoing Security Council member, Rwanda, said it had raised the cases in which UN Peacekeeping does not live up to its mandate, like letting civilians be attacked and killed mere miles from its bases. Others pointed out that while many Troop Contributing Countries question the mandates now being given, those drafting the mandates come from countries without their own soldiers in the field.
Permanent Five countries are well represented on the panel, including former Ambassadors who served in the Security Council, former diplomats who then served the UN like B. Lynn Pascoe, long time UN-ers like Ian Martin (who, for the record, is interested in Sri Lanka but not working on it at the moment).
Norway's Hilde Johnson, after what some view as a controversial time at the helm of the mission in South Sudan, was present on November 20 but did not speak afterward. Others did, like Wang Xuexian of China, Ameerah Haq of Bangladesh, still the head of the Department of Field Support and Alexander Ilitchev of Russia. Radhika Coomaraswamy, named an “ex officio” member by Ramos Horta, did not appear to be present for this dialogue with the Security Council, at least not in the hallway afterward.
Ramos Horta has vowed to listen to all constituencies, including those impacted by UN Peacekeeping. This could result in needed reforms, or at least a report publicly calling for them. Watch this site.
