Ladsous to head U.N. ‘peacekeeping’
Editorial Comment. If this “peacekeeping” cancer isn’t removed, it will grow all over the world. Nice piece of work this Herve Ladsous. As the spokesman for the French foreign ministry, Ladsous was the one who called for Aristide to step down in the run-up to the coup in 2004. Ladsous is also the one who announced that France was about to “put together an interim government and an international force to restore order.”
Dady Chery, Editor
Haiti Chery
By Patrick Worsnip
Reuters via SwissInfo
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Veteran French diplomat Herve Ladsous was appointed Friday as the new head of United Nations peacekeeping, preserving France’s leadership of a key department at the world body.
Ladsous, currently chief of staff to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, replaces Alain Le Roy, who held the job for three years and left last month. Le Roy’s predecessor, Jean-Marie Guehenno, was also French.
Under an unofficial but generally accepted practice at the United Nations, major powers lay claim to certain key jobs.
With an annual budget of some $7 billion (4.3 billion pounds), peacekeeping is one of the most high-profile U.N. departments, with about 120,000 personnel around the world, most of them uniformed troops and police and many of them in Africa.
It faces challenges including uncooperative governments, attacks by militias and sporadic allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit trading.
Ladsous, a Chinese-speaking Asia specialist, was French ambassador to Indonesia from 2001 to 2003 and to China from 2006 to 2010. He has also had postings in Australia, Haiti and at the French U.N. missions in Geneva and New York.
A statement announcing the appointment by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Ladsous
“brings to the (U.N.) position an acute political judgement, strong crisis-management capacities, especially in the area of peacekeeping, (and) a profound understanding of the challenges facing the United Nations.”
“His capacity to build consensus is recognized by his peers all over the world,” it added.
Editing by Vicki Allen
Source: Reuters via SwissInfo
Areas with UN armies of occupation
The UN Department of “Peacekeeping” Operations (DPKO) is charged with occupying 17 countries on four continents.
Africa
- United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS)
- United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA)
- UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO)
- African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID)
- UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI)
- UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)
- UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO)
- UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)
Americas
- UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Asia and the Pacific
- UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT)
- UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP)
- UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) — supposedly a political mission
Europe
- UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP)
- UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
Middle East
- UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)
- United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
- UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)