As Chirac Slams UN in DRC, Ladsous Cited by AFP But Not Held to Account

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 25 -- When former French president Jacques Chiraq was presented on Christmas Day in Le Monde and Agence France-Presse as deeply concerned about the Congolese, Inner City Press returned to Chiraq's memoir "My Life in Politics," recently published in English (though hardly reviewed anywhere).

  Nowhere in the memoir's six page index is there any mention of the Congo. The longest reference to Africa concerns the Bokassa and the Central African Republic, which France left in the terrible shape it finds itself today.

  So when Chirac could have done something for the Congo, he did nothing. Now long out of the limelight, promoting a book, he reappears as an opportunist. calling on the UN Peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to do more.

  Signing with him are, among others, Francophony minister Yamina Benguigui, Rosario Dawson, Muhammad Ali, Eve Ensler, Jonathan Demme, Angelique Kidjo and Valerie Trierweiler of the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation.

  AFP's Christmas story, emphasizing Chirac's call for the UN to fulfill its mandate, adds a quote from UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous last week that MONUSCO is on alert and reinforcements would be sent if necessary. 

  The AFP story does not note that Ladsous served on one of AFP's boards; click here for a recent French-language profile of Ladsous.

   But at the UN last week, as the weeks before, Ladsous refused to answer Press questions about the Congo, specifically about 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese army which Ladsous' DPKO supports. 

  Click here for Ladsous' December 18 "seize the microphone" video; click here for his November 27 "hallway service" video, including Ladsous retreating to the hallway to brief a reporter from AFP and two others whom he has collaborated with.

   Despite the belated grandstanding, some feel, if France really wanted to do something for the Congolese people it would replace Ladsous as head of UN Peacekeeping. 

  Not only does he refuse Press questions - in the past week there have been two separate killings of four peacekeepers each time, and Ladsous has not come forward.

  His predecessor Alain Le Roy, also French, would invariable come and speak after such incidents. Ou est Herve Ladsous? And where should he be? Watch this site.

REVIEW: Kofi Annan Memoir Downplays Oil for Food, Congo and Corruption, Ignores Western Sahara

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 22 -- There is a telling omission, among many, in Kofi Annan's 2012 memoir "Interventions." 

  The Oil for Food scandal is addressed, how ever self-servingly, in five page -- Benon Sevan, who is still on the lam, is not mentioned. Western Sahara, where the UN has had a peacekeeping if not referendum mission since before Annan came to head the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, is not mentioned at all.

   The Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which the UN has had its largest and longest running peacekeeping operation, barely figure in the book, except when Annan praises Jacques Chirac to sending French soldiers into Ituri as Operation Artemis. All four UN Peacekeeping chiefs since Annan have been from France, with the current boss Herve Ladsous refusing to answer any Press questions. On this, Annan was better than his successor(s).

   Virtually nowhere in Annan's book are UN scandals or the need to reform mentioned. Annan mentions and thanks his top lawyer Nicolas Michel -- without any mention that he violated Article 100 of the UN Charter by having the Swiss government pay for his palatial Manhattan apartment while ostensibly working only for the UN.

   Annan mentions Martin Griffiths helping him, without noting that he left his employment in Geneva after money went missing under his watch. Alan Doss, who pushed UNDP to hire his daughter -- and did nothing while the person whose job was taken for this nepotism was prosecuted in US courts -- does not appear in the book (butdid appear, at least until noted, on Annan's Syria "dream team").  UN official Angela Kane is thanked -- as "Angela King" (Page xiii).

  There is something regal in Annan's retelling of events. Even of the Rwandan genocide, he quotes President Paul Kagame that "he did not trust Daillaire's [sic] ability to protect him when he made official visits to the UN field headquarters" (Page 53).

   Annan claims that he established with the International Monetary Fund "an unprecedented level of cooperation" (Page 221). But even now, the UN's ECOSOC and other bodies are subservient to and sometimes ignored by the IMF.

   The failure to reform the UN he blames on developing world ambassadors like Munir Akram of Pakistan, writing that Akram was "typical" in that he "routinely claimed to have 'very strong instructions' but could then change those instructions if needed" (Pages 146-7).

   Amid all this some good work is quietly done: by Department of Political Affairs officials like Craig Jenness (page 196) and Anna Tibaijuka.

   Ban Ki-moon appears only twice in the book: asking Annan to deal with post-election violence in Kenya, then in connection with Annan's failed Syria mediation which is now a selling point for the book.

   Ironically, despite Ban's spokesperson's office's denials orstonewalling when Inner City Press first asked about it, having heard bragging at Singapore's mission to the UN, Ban has already collaborated on a book -- watch this site.