By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/dpko2forcecomm080609.html
UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- The UN's Mission in the Congo is apparently continuing its efforts to cover itself by self-exonerating on sexual abuse by its peacekeepers, and obtaining a sort of clearance letter from the Congolese government, that indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda is not technically part of the military operations that the UN mission, MONUC, works with.
Inner City Press on August 6 asked MONUC force commander Babacar Gaye about reports that Bosco walks freely around Goma in the Kivus, and about reports that the Pakistani battalion was South Kivu was unwilling to cross the administrative border into North Kivu, manned mostly by Indian peacekeepers. Video here, from Minute 45:56.
Once again, the UN covered itself: the Pakistanis were "never asked" to cross the demarcation, even though they were the closest UN peacekeepers. Rather, General Gaye said, he asked the Uruguayans to respond. Thus was the reported "Kashmir in the Kivus" avoided.
Asked about charges of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers, Gen. Gaye waved around what he said was a report finding not enough evidence for the charges.He said, "I have the results of the fact finding, this is the document that I received... there was nothing on the the ground as evidence that something took place." Video here, from Minute 41:46. Inner City Press requested a copy of the report from UN peacekeeping and has been told, "we won't be able to provide you with the actual document, but will be able to provide a general summary/read-out of it."
On August 5 in the Security Council, the Permanent Representative of India Hardeep Singh Puri complained that in UN peacekeeping, "Mission personnel are forced to ask national contingents to undertake tasks... in a manner which is inconsistent with the legal framework under which they are deployed." Video here, from Minute 48:35.
Inner City Press asked General Gaye to respond to this, and asked Darfur commander Martin Luther Agwai to respond to reports that the fighting between the Sudanese army and the rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement has spread east into Kordofan.
General Agwai said that the UN can't confirm what it doesn't see, and is not well enough resourced to speak to the fighting in Kordofan. Video here, from Minute 51. "They cannot influence anything there," he said. He spoke, as General Gaye did, about the difficulty of boundaries. With time running out, there was no time to ask General Agwai about a separate scandal reported in UN headquarters and its Medical Service, or to ask General Gaye the unanswered questions about MONUC chief Alan Doss, who emailed the UN Development asking to be shown contractual "leeway" and for his daughter to be hired.
General Agwai may be answering additional questions on August 7. With MONUC's Alan Doss, UNDP has still not answered, and the UN Secretariat pretends it doesn't even know what Doss converted to a DKPO contract. Watch this site.
Footnotes: All week, dozens of medal covered generals are in UN headquarters this week, but only Generals Agwai and Gaye were presented to the media for a press conference. Nearly all questions were directed to Darfur commander Martin Luther Agwai. While he spoke, Congo commander Babacar Gaye flipped through his note book, while master of ceremonies Michele Montas pointed from side to side of the briefing room yielding question after question about Darfur.
Then again, despite numerous requests, the commander of UNIFIL in Lebanon General Graziano refused to speak to the media, although on August 5 when the Security Council adjourned for lunch he was seen walking toward the UN Delegates' Dining Room with DPKO chief Alain Le Roy.
Earlier on August 5, Inner City Press asked Le Roy how his Department's "New Horizons" non-paper applied to sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia. Le Roy said that a peacekeeping mission is an accompaniment to a political strategy, not a substitute for one. But what is the UN's strategy in the Congo -- beyond blind support of Joseph Kabila and the Congolese Army -- and, even more so, in Darfur? Watch this site.
Update of August 6, 6:40 p.m. -- in response to Inner City Press' request for a copy of the document General Gaye waved around on-camera, the following arrived:
Sent: 8/6/2009 6:32:01 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: in regard to General Gaye's comments in Room 226 today
Regarding your questions about General Gaye's comments in relation to the fact-finding mission sent to eastern DRC, we've double-checked the video recording and can confirm that General Gaye did not use the word "exonerated."
His exact words were: "Yes, we sent a fact-finding mission in the localities in South Kivu and North Kivu where allegedly there was SEA cases. I have the results of this fact-finding mission. This is the document that I received. Unfortunately, or [do] we say fortunately, most of the time the accusations, the allegations, are not precise enough to see soemthing on ther ground and that is why we have decided to send as soon as possible a fact-finding mission every time there is this kind of accusation. You know that it is up to OIOS to investigate this kind of things. But this fact-finding mission is the way for us to react as promptly as possible in order at least to send evidence and so on and so forth. In both cases, that probably your question is related to, there was nothing on the ground for being evidence that something took place."
In relation to that document which General Gaye referred to, please find below a summary of it:
"The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) dispatched on 23 July a fact-finding mission to eastern Congo to reinforce preventive measures against sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers. This initiative follows the appointment last year of 48 military officers to act as focal points within MONUC’s national troop contingents, to strengthen field training programs on SEA and the reporting of offenses.
"The fact-finding team interviewed internally displaced persons, local leaders and medical staff in the areas of Goma-Sake and Rutshuru but did not record any allegation of SEA committed by peacekeepers, nor did it bring to light new factual elements that would require the opening of a formal investigation.
"The fact-finding team was led by a senior MONUC military officer, supported by an independent military officer and two civilian staff from MONUC’s Conduct and Discipline Unit (CDU) one of them a female. A CDU staff remains based in Goma, the capital of North Kivu to liaise with and alert the UN’s investigative arm of possible offenses."
