By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/doss1kimia121609.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 16 -- The head of the UN Mission in the Congo Alan Doss, under fire for assisting and covering up war crime by former rebel units of the Congolese Army, tried to defuse the critique on Wednesday by renaming the so-called Kimia II operation. While the UN said its Mission will now only "hold ground" in Eastern Congo, Doss' testimony to the Security Council acknowledged MONUC will still "undertak[e] focused interventions" -- that is, targeted strikes.
MONUC works with units of the Congolese army which the UN's own experts as well as human rights groups say are war criminals. Inner City Press asked Doss, directly, why he has continued to work with Colonel Innocent Zimulinda (a/k/a Zimurinda), accused for murder and rape by UN rapporteur Philip Alston and illegal mining by the UN Experts.
Doss did not answer why he continues to work with Zimurinda. Inner City Press asked about a list of 15 presumptive war criminals in the Congolese Army that MONUC itself drew up and gave to the Joseph Kabila government, but whom MONUC still supports. While saying it is the government's role to discipline, Doss did not explain why he continues to work with the unit commanders on his own list of human rights violators.
Similarly, when asked about the leaked UN Office of Legal Affairs memos, two of which Inner City Press has put online, Doss claimed that the memos offer opinions that MONUC had to put into practice. But the memos say Doss should have had a policy much earlier on, and should suspend support to whole operations with violations, which he has not done.
Doss himself is the subject of a nepotism investigation that will be the subject of a separate article.
But sources in MONUC describe his leadership as compromised, and say that the UN investigation is being drawn out until Doss leaves, perhaps in March. Human rights groups favor new leadership, circulating the names of former peacekeeping chief Jean Marie Guehenno among others.
While the Council is now considering a resolution which would extend MONUC's mandate for only five months, Inner City Press is informed that permanent member China, which now has a large mining and infrastructure deal with Joseph Kabila, was urging a mere "technical roll over." Others blame Doss' support of human rights violators on the push by his native UK, as well as the U.S., to destroy the FDLR rebels at any cost. We will have more on this.
