By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, May 7 -- Embattled UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, beyond being named in a UN Dispute Tribunal ruling as having urged the resignation of the whistleblower who revealed French Army rapes in the Central African Republic (Ladsous denied this, without taking questions), has run afoul of a number of Troop Contributing Countries, not onlyRwanda.
Diplomats from a number of countries in the Americas have exclusively complained to Inner City Press that Ladsous, after the UN bought him an $8000 plane ticket to attend a “Hemispheric” meeting on peacekeeping this week in Uruguay, decided at the last minute not to go, sending a subordinate with, as one diplomat put it, “no information at all.”
Ladsous had already shown a willingness to snub African Troop Contribution Countries like Rwanda. But his error here, as more than one country's diplomat put it, is that the Hemispheric UN Peacekeeping event in Uruguay which he snubbed was a follow-up to the event US Vice President Joe Biden chaired on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last September.
Openly speaking badly of Rwanda is one thing; refusing Press questions about rapes in the DR Congo, Darfur and now Central African Republic is another. But snubbing the United States, which hold much sway at the UN (click herefor Inner City Press' exclusive yesterday about Yemen) is “not smart,” as one diplomat put it, asking, “When is he going to quit, as he tried to make the CAR rape whistleblower quit?”
Since the UN Peacekeeping top post is essentially owned by France since the election of Kofi Annan as Secretary General -- Ladsous was twice rejected as “the Frenchman” to hold it, then got in after the selected one, Jerome Bonnafont, bragged too early while in India, and Ladsous slipped in -- the better question is, why doesn't France ease him out and at least send someone better?
Perhaps this French government's discomfort -- and dodging of questions about -- these French alleged child rapes in CAR, Ladsous being listed in the UNDT rulingand not answering if the alleged rapists remain in the French force his MINUSCA mission supports, will force France's hand. Simple questions have not been answered. Watch this site.