Senegal: An African General as a military adviser to Ban Ki-Moon

By on August 27, 2010

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, has confidence in the African expertise when he opted for the Senegalese General Babacar Gaye as his new military adviser.

The proposal has been accepted “with pleasure and pride” by the Senegalese President, who has officially released the former head of MONUC in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This appointment comes as the Senegalese officer has completed an extended UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he served from March 2005 to July 2010 as the commanding officer of the U.N mission in DRC. The Indian General, Chander Prakash, succeeded to him in this duty.

MONUC is considered, up to now, as the largest U.N intervention in the world with an annual budget of over one billion dollars. Besides, the country’s current stability, the peace agreement of 2002, the success of the improbable 2006 electoral process and the agreements of Goma in January 2008 are to the credit of the UN mission.

The new Special Adviser to the U.N Secretary General is a career soldier, born January 31, 1951 in Saint-Louis, Senegal. He graduated from the prestigious Special Military School of Saint-Cyr in France. He also participated in the famous U.N Desert Storm operation in 1990-1991 during the invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein. Babacar Gaye has also served as Ambassador of Senegal to Germany where he opened the first Embassy of his country in Berlin.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.