UNITED NATIONS, April 13 -- Despite statements of outrage by Security Council Ambassador from the US, France and elsewhere about the Lord's Resistance Army rebels, the Council's shortened trip to Africa next week will now skip Uganda, where the LRA originated, and Congo outside of Kinshasa, where the LRA most recently slaughtered 300 civilians.
Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud, who is leading the mission to Kinshasa, if these omissions and the decision by permanent representatives like the US's Susan Rice means that the LRA issues will not be addressed, and Congo's Joseph Kabila will sense lack of Council commitment.
Araud replied that he and France are disappointed in these Ambassadors' decisions not to come, given the "millions" killed in the Congo. "Of course we would have preferred to have more Permanent Representatives for this visit," Araud said, as transcribed by the French mission.
Regarding the LRA, he said that they are active in an area the size of Spain with only two million inhabitants. He mentioned unmanned aerial vehicles as a possible response to the LRA, but questioned whether the expenditure would be worth it.
One reporter scoffed at the idea of a UAV seeing through the foliage of the Congo. If the US shoots drones in Pakistan, why not at the LRA?
Araud said that only two Permanent Representatives of the P-5 are going, himself and the UK's Mark Lyall Grant. Give other non-permanent members are sending their number one ambassador: henceforth the Committed Five, the C-5.
Inner City Press has asked for the list. Six other countries are sending their Deputy Permanent Representative, and two are merely sending "advisors," Araud said. The US is understood to be among these two. With all due respect to the US State Department, this is newsworthy and worthy of explanation.
It has not been possible to ask US Ambassador Susan Rice or her spokespeople on the record why she is not going, even on the now abbreviated Africa trip. The rationale to skip the week long version of the trip was the greater importance of negotiating Iran sanctions. But it seems clear that with Gerard Araud and the UK's Mark Lyall Grant away, such serious meetings will not take place Monday or Tuesday morning. So what is the reason? We'll wait for an answer.
