UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- With new violence starting up and being discovered throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 15 countries on the UN Security Council arranged to travel to the DRC starting April 13. One goal is to negotiate with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has asked for the UN Peacekeeping mission MONUC to begin to pack up and leave.
While Security Council members, particularly the United States, say that the issues in the Congo -- systematic rape of women as a weapon of war, exploitation of conflict minerals by rebels and rogue Congolese Army units -- are of much concern to them, on April 7 it emerged that only half of the Council member states are sending their Permanent Representative or lead Ambassador on the trip.
US Permanent Representative Susan Rice, another Council Ambassador complained to Inner City Press on Wednesday, has dropped her initial plan to travel to the Congo, and will stay in New York for the beginnings of negotiations on a resolution to impose more sanctions on Iran.
"She wants credit for cracking down on Iran," a source said, analogizing her calculus to that of her predecessors Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke when they wanted promotions from US Ambassador to Secretary of State.
The UN's top envoy to the Congo Alan Doss, already the subject of a nepotism investigation by the UN for urging the UN Development Program to show him "leeway" and give his daughter a job, is said to definitely be out in June.
To replace Doss several French names are being circulated, among them former UN Peacekeeping chief Jean Marie Guehenno and even former French Permanent Representative Jean Maurice Ripert, who while titularly employed as envoy on development to Pakistan is said to be in an office in the UN's nearly empty headquarters tower.
There is also an American, the former U.S. Ambassador to Kinshasa, and current UN envoy to Cote d'Ivoire Choi, both of whom speak French.
While the UN and its Security Council may show the Congo this idiomatic respect, sending lower level representatives on the upcoming trip at this time of crossroads is a bad sign. Watch this site.
