By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 22 -- Syria has today submitted to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations information about the kidnapping of a peacekeeper, Inner City Press has learned. See photo of cover letter, here.
In this last kidnapping, DPKO chief Herve Ladsous did not make an announcement in the usual fashion of his predecessors, also French, Alain Le Roy, Jean-Marie Guehenno and Bernard Miyet.
Rather Ladsous confined the news to a "conversation" with scribes friendly to him, who did not ask or write about the charge, made in the General Assembly on May 14, that senior UN Secretariat officials know of involvement from Qatar in the kidnapping.
Now, Ladsous' DPKO have been provided with more information, and for now the cover letter is public. Inner City Press on the morning of May 22 asked DPKO spokespeople about what Syria's Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari had informed DPKO of.
The response was one of unawareness of any incident since May 15, and we appreciate it. But of the May 15 incident, which Ladsous confined to friendly scribes, what now?
What now that Austrian defense minister Gerald Klug says his country with withdraw its 380 peacekeepers from the Golan if the EU arms embargo is left to provide weapons to rebels?
Have the Fijians finished their "recce"? These are questions that Ladsous should be answering: publicly, not only in conversations friendly scribes. Watch this site.
