Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/drc1ruined061409.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 14 -- If you listen to the UN in New York, they'll tell you they're doing the best they can in the Congo. But in speaking with Congolese, whether in Kinshasa, Goma or New York, you get a different story.
Last week, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesperson Michele Montas about reports that the UN's Pakishretani peacekeepers in South Kivu are refusing to cross even an inch over the administrative border into North Kivu to protect civilians from the attacks of FDLR militias, because the UN has put an Indian battalion in charge of the province. It's a little Kashmir in the Kivus, and the UN has apparently done nothing to solve this entirely foreseeable and not new problem.
Ms. Montas said she hadn't heard the report, despite them being on Reuters and elsewhere. She said, "I will check for you what happened there. I was not aware that there was a conflict." An answer was promised, but not received. And so on June 14 Inner City Press asked a panel of Congolese women what they thought of the UN's performance in their country.
Jeanne Kasongo of the Shalupe Foundation, speaking in French, said that the UN peacekeepers do nothing when "the enemy attacks our people." There was an incident last year in which the commander of the Indian battalion in North Kivu openly praised CNDP militia leader and indicted war criminal Laurent Nkunda. The UN would probably have denied the incident, except it was captured on tape.
Ms. Kasongo went on to say that many believe that UN is only there to assume corridors ("couloirs") for the exploitation of the Congo's natural resources. All you have to do to take our coltan, she said, is rape a woman and give her son a gun to go and get it.
Gorethy Nabushosi said that a major effect of UN presence is to drive up housing prices, as the UN overpays, doesn't negotiate, destroys the market. They drive around in their big cars and do nothing, she said, most Congolese wish they would leave.
The panel was set up by Friends of the Congo and followed a performance of the play "Ruined" by Lynn Nottage, set in Bunia, which won this year's Pulitzer Prize.
Marie-Claire Faray, when Inner City Press asked what the UN Security Council should be doing, scoffed that France supported Operation Turquoise which brought the Rwandan genocidaires into the Congo.
She added that the U.S. supports the neighboring governments in Rwanda and Uganda, both of which have sponsored militias in the Congo. How can the Security Council, she asked, solved the problems of the Congo when it had caused so many of them?
There are questions we will pursue.
From the UN transcript:
Inner City Press: In the Congo, there are these reports of civilians unprotected in the southern part of North Kivu, apparently because the Pakistani contingent refuses to cross the line from North to South Kivu due to some India-Pakistan issues within the Mission. Can the UN confirm that, and what’s being done to offer protection to people in this part of the Kivus?
Spokesperson Michele Montas: Okay, I will check for you what happened there. I was not aware that there was a conflict. But I can tell you one thing: that whatever the conflict, it will be resolved because it is the priority of the Mission to provide protection to the civilian population.
But see above. And watch this site.
