For Child Soldier Recruiter Chad, 5 Steps in 4 Months In Mali, Ladsous' Rules Like on Rape, No Zero Tolerance

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 17 -- Children and Armed Conflict was the topic in the UN Security Council on Monday, with more than two dozen countries saying there should be zero tolerance for the recruitment of child soldiers. But is the UN implementing such zero tolerance?

The elephant in the room, or Council Chamber, was the case of Chad and the UN's mission in Mali set to begin on July 1. Chad is on the UN's list of child soldier recruiters, but is itself being recruited to join the UN mission by Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Herve Ladsous. Inner City Press first reported on this issue on June 3, here.

Ladsous has spoken of a four month "grace period." Only in the UN could such a grace period, like Ladsous's three strikes and maybe you're out policy on rape, be considered zero tolerance.

The Security Council members spoke first. France's Gerard Araud praised Chad for steps it is said to be taking. But what of the negative precedent of accepting a country currently listed on the child soldier recruitment list as a Troop Contributing County? Nothing on this.

The UK Mission to the UN, when asked last week by Inner City Press, replied through its spokesperson Iona Thomas:

"The UK takes the listing of the Chadian Army in the Secretary General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict very seriously. We understand there are ongoing discussions between the Chadian government, DPKO and the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict to address Chad’s obligations on the CAAC agenda. It is important that Chad fulfils these obligations as soon as possible and we are monitoring this closely."

  After Monday's Security Council session, Inner City Pressagain asked the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui about Chad and the Mali mission, MINUSMA. 

   She said that there are five short term items Chad must comply with. When? She said, during the "grace period" -- that is, Ladsous' four months.

Even if that could be described as zero tolerance -- it can't -- it must be recalled that even after Ladsous belatedly threatened to withdraw support from two Congolese Army units implicated in the mass rapes at Minova in November 2012, Ladsous never in fact suspended support, despite only three people being arrested. 

  Three perpetrators for 135 rapes? It is not only on the zero in zero tolerance that Ladsous can apparently not do the math.

  Inner City Press has spoken several times with Chad's Permanent Representative Ahmad Allam-mi, who has also expressed frustration with the UN. If it's that the UN should re-inspect more quickly, then do it. 

 But to claim that accepting a country still on the child soldier recruitment list as a troop contributing country is not a precedent against the claimed zero tolerance -- is laughable. Or Ladsous-ian, to coin another phrase. There will be more.

Footnote: In Monday's open debate, contrary to reform requests by the Small Five and now ACT, UK Ambassador Lyall Grant put the Presidential Statement up for decision before non-Council members spoke. The meeting was difficult to cover, again due to the lack of previously existing media workspace at the Council stakeout. Time is ticking on all this. Watch this site.

Before Mali Mission, Chad Complains to ICP It's On Child Soldiers List, But Ladsous Lax Like DRC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 3 -- With the UN mission in Mali set to begin in four weeks' time, Chad's Permanent Representative Ahmad Allam-mi on Monday complained to Inner City Press about his country still being listed among recruiters of child soldiers.

  He said that only "twelve or twenty" people wanted to get their children into the army. It's been addressed, he said, but the UN takes too long to then go out and check every facility.

  His concerned seemed to be with implementation of the UN's claimed human rights due diligence policy. He might relax: the UN's Herve Ladsous covered up 135 rapes by the Congolese Army for four months, then didn't follow through and suspend UN support to the 391st and 41st Battalions.

  Ladsous was seen wandering around Monday afternoon outside the Arms Trade Treaty event, looking lost as he did at Togo's End of Security Council Presidency reception last week. Outside the UNSC, the UN has tried to disallow the media worktable that was there before, and seized a small table brought in the interim by the Free UN Coalition for Access. As Ladsous evades press questions, perhaps he likes there being no table. But who else?

As to the deployment to Mali, Allam-mi said Chad has a "biometric" system to check soldiers before they go. He went on to say that "some NGOs just do the work of their governments." And some NGOs don't work at all. Watch this site.

On Mali, ICG Says Don't Ask Azawad to Surrender, As in DRC, M23 Is Asked Just That

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 22 -- A week after Chad's ambassador Ahmad Allam-mi told Inner City Press his country won't stay in North Mali to “protect the MNLA,” the International Crisis Group's Comfort Ero said, “Kidal is a special case.”

  Inner City Press asked Ero to assess the performance of the UN's Sahel envoy Romano Prodi, and what ICG thinks should or will be done with the wannabe breakaway Azawad.

  On Prodi, Ero said “we're disappointed it's been slow.” Perhaps relatedly, as Inner City Press has reported, Prodi while ostensibly a full time UN employee put his name in competition to become president of Italy. It that because the Sahel is slow? Or do Prodi and his distraction, even conflict of interest, MAKE the UN slow?

  Ero's answer on Azawad was that “there must be a willingness to include all armed groups at table if they are willing to end armed struggle." She said that France's “initial draft demanded preconditions that amounted to surrender.”

  It's a good point. But isn't this what is  simultaneously being demanded of the M23 in Eastern Congo? There, the DRC government has said the Security Council resolution means M23 must “cease to exist” as a military “and political” entity. If that's not surrender, what is?

  The caution ICG expressed about the dangers of UN peacekeepers in Mali seems to also apply to Eastern Congo in light of the intervention brigade.

  Ero said repeatedly that ICG met with people “in this building,” seeming to refer not only to country's diplomats but also to Secretariat officials. What was the role of these officials, like Herve Ladsous, in drafting France's resolution? What will it be in implementing it - for whom?

  Did ICG not have similar access or interest on the Eastern Congo resolution? One wanted to ask their views, but the press conference was over.

Footnote: The presser began with Inner City Press thanking the panelists including the Swiss Mission and Scott Malcomson, Director of Communications of ICG, on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access; UNCA then did the same. One also wonders what ICG thinks of the withholding from the public of UN reports, for 48 hours or more, and on big media colluding to ask the UN to throw out smaller, more investigative media: because that's what UNCA, at least its Executive Committee, has come to represent. We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

Exclusive: On Mali, Churkin Tells ICP Araud "Went Too Far," Chad Doubts ECOWAS, UN Does Not Count the Dead

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, January 15 -- As French bombing of Mali expands, Inner City Press on Tuesday asked the UN if it has any plans to track and report on the killing of civilians, as they do in other conflicts.

  Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said he'll see if any UN "formal mechanism." He would not or could not confirm the figure of 11 civilians killed so far, nor the difficulty in evacuating the injured in Douentza reported by Rosa Crestani of Medecins Sans Frontieres.

  Earlier, Inner City Press asked the head of Ban's Department of Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman about the requirement in Security Council Resolution 2085 that Ban "confirm in advance the Council's satisfaction" with the planned military action.

  Feltman said that "satisfaction" would be conveyed in one of the Secretary General's reports, which are public.

  But they are public only on a delay. Meanwhile, in terms of satisfaction, Inner City Press was approach Tuesday outside the Security Council by an African diplomat who was critical of a wire service headline that "yesterday the Security Council approved France's bombing."

 Inner City Press then asked Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin if that was an accurate account. No, he said, there was no outcome of the meeting.

What about what French Permanent Representative Gerard Araud said at the stakeout, that all members of the Security Council supported France's action?

  "He went too far," Churkin said of Araud.

  Another African diplomat, of a member of the West African group ECOWAS / CEDAO, predicted to Inner City Press that France would just "do its thing like in Chad, and then leave."

  The Permanent Representative of Chad, Ahmad Allam-mi, exclusively told Inner City Press that he county would be ready to send troops, with the correct "format and mandate."

  He said it shouldn't "just be a CEDAO force," questioning in particular the naming of a Nigerian general as force commander, chosen entirely by the CEDAO.

   Meanwhile ECOWAS chair Cote d'Ivoire may have sent its army chief of staff Bakayoko to Bamako, but Ivorian Permanent Representative Bamba told Inner City Press his country will not be contributing troops, as they are "still in SSR" (security sector reform). And so it goes. Watch this site.

UN Will Not Act on Chad's Assault on Shadowy Rebels, Some Peacekeeping

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/chad1pfnr050410.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- When Chad claimed to have killed 105 rebels in a fight last week, human rights groups were quick to point to the incident as another reason the UN peacekeeping mission MINURCAT should be allowed to stay.

But after speaking with Chad's Ambassador Ahmad Allam-mi, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky what MINURCAT was going to do. "The closest the MINURCAT is to that location where the reported clash has taken place is about 150 kilomters. It's not related, clearly, to the discussions abou the future of MINURCAT."

So while human rights groups seem to believe that the UN peacekeeping mission could be or even is doing something about this, it is not.

Ambassador Allam-mi described the rebel group at issue, the Popular Front for National Renaissance, as little more than gangsters, living in a heavily mined area that the government barely controls. They work with the Lord's Resistance Army, he told Inner City Press. They worked with the forces of Bemba [now on trial for war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.)

Allam-mi described in novelistic fashion the career of PFNR leader Adoum Yacoub: he was in London, he fought in South Sudan, he got a bullet in his stomach. But where is the UN?

From the UN's April 30, 2010 transcript, Inner City Press' questions

Inner City Press: There are these reports in Chad. The Chadian Government claims to have killed 105 rebels near the Sudan border. I wonder what the UN knows about this, and how it may or may not relate to MINURCAT [United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad] or other UN missions in the area, or has any comment on this reported large killing?

Spokesperson Nesirky: We can’t confirm the death toll in that fighting. And the closest that MINURCAT is to that location where the reported clash has taken place is about 150 kilometres away. It’s not related, clearly, to the discussions about the future of MINURCAT.

Question: I guess that, since MINURCAT does have this mandate of to some degree protection of civilians, is it that it is geographically out of MINURCAT’s zone or that it is viewed as being a military conflict not affecting civilians?

Spokesperson: I think it is simply geography and logistics rather than mandate here. It’s just where they are located at the moment. It doesn’t mean that they’re not trying to find out. They are trying to find out what is going on. But at the moment they can’t confirm the figure that you are saying now. We have seen the same reports. We can’t confirm that. We have also seen the denial from the other side. What we can say is that, clearly, the Mission would like to know what is going on and is trying to do precisely that: to find out.

Question: Just one follow-up on this. The Chadian ambassador was just telling me that the area in which this took place is, has been for a long time, heavily landmined by what he called this rebel group which he alleges works with the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] and with the forces that Mr. [Jean-Pierre] Bemba used to command in the Central African Republic. So what I wonder is, given the UN’s overarching … has the UN ever, maybe you’ll know this so you could, have they ever done mine removal or mine action? What is the UN’s degree of access to the geographical area that this is in? I wouldn’t expect, if you can look into that …

Spokesperson: Sure. Happy to do so.

But four days later, there has been no additional information provided. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/chad1pfnr050410.html

Chad Shut Down Radio Station FM Liberte, Used Swiss Plane for Reconnaissance, While Zoe's Ark Pardon Is Being Considered, Quid Pro Quo?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2chad022608.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 26 -- Chad's President Deby, who so recently survived a coup attempt with the support of France, will now consider pardoning the French staff of Zoe's Ark, Chad's Foreign Minister Ahmad Allam-Mi told Inner City Press on Tuesday, while denying any quid pro quo. They were convicted of kidnapping children from Chad under the false claim that they were orphans, and are now serving eight year prison terms not in Chad but in France. Chad sentenced them to hard labor but, Minister Allam-Mi said, that is just a matter of an "old code" that has not been amended to conform with Chad's signature of international agreements. Deby has been busy fending off a coup. Allam-Mi joked, "I trust we find in the archives the file" of Zoe's Ark. Video here, from Minute 35:47 until cut off at 38:55 after reference to French president Sarkozy.

Inner City Press asked about Chad's use a Swiss plane in its fight with Sudan, and about a human rights worker and radio station manager on the run. The Chadian radio station FM Liberte "was shut down, that is true," Allam-Mi said. But, he pointed out, that was before the coup attempt -- not after. Inner City Press asked if the station will be allowed to re-open. The answer was a reference to a case of defamation. Video here, from Minute 17:27.

Regarding Swiss government accusations from that Chad used a Pilatus PC-9 plane it imported from Switzerland as part of its military campaign in The Sudan, Allam-Mi called this "propaganda," an internal fight in Switzerland between majority and opposition. He said that the plane is only used for reconnaissance and "transporting the wounded." Of Switzerland he said, "they can come and verify." We'll see.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2chad022608.html