Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Mali and a divided UN


Albert Gerard "Bert" Koenders has been the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) in Cote d’Ivoire since August 2011. He is now being shifted from Abidjan to Bamako to lead the new peacekeeping mission in Mali ( MINUSMA). He is very new to peacekeeping and to the African realities, as he spent his time in Dutch politics and as Development Co-operation Minister.

And he has a major job ahead of him. Which will be further complicated because there is a very serious rivalry between two UN departments regarding the Malian agenda: the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) believes that the political transition should be the priority objective, whilst DPKO, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is going to take the lead and push for the military operations and internal security to be at the forefront.

Interesting, isn't it? 

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