By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 1, 2010 -- As the modified Mapping Report on war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was issued today, at the UN in New York Ambassadors of the accused countries as well as the DRC scrambled to make their nations' complaints and addenda heard.
On the eve of the Report's release, Uganda's Permanent Representative Rugunda took congratulations from a stream of other Ambassadors for the alphabetically honor of assuming presidency of the UN Security Council of October. There was little to no mention of the UN's charge of war crimes.
Several well wishers noted that for the first time, a president of the Council would be leading a mission of the 15 members to his country, just as his month began. The phrasing was conditional, as Sudan had yet to issue visas for the second part of the already controversial trip.
There is, however, a connection between the Mapping Report and the Uganda leg of the trip, on which Inner City Press has been told it will be included. Ugandan foreign minister Sam Kutesa has in writing urged that the Mapping Report, which accuses UPDF troops of terrorizing civilians in the Congo, not be published at all, and implied that it may lead to a reversal of Uganda's peacekeeping role in Somalia.
This is a odds with a position taken in the closed door meeting at the UN in New York on Somalia, during which multiple sources tell Inner City Press that President Yoweri Museveni said that if he received funding for 40,000 troops in Somalia, he would clean the place up, “African style.”
After the UN's Somalia mini Summit, from which as Inner City Press exclusively reported Eritrea was at the last minute dis-invited, African Union Commission chief Jean Ping took Press questions. Inner City Press asked about complaints that the Ugandan and Burundian troops in Somalia aren't being paid enough.
Jean Ping said that even with a recent increase, the AU troops in Somalia are compensated at the level of $750 a month, rather than the $1080 the UN pays.
This, Ping said, results in a situation in which “all the peacekeepers want to go to Darfur” to receive the higher pay. Of course, it is the troops' country which decide where they go, and which receives the compensation.
The Council, Ambassador Rugunda told Inner City Press on Thursday night, is slated to meet with President Museveni. How will the issue of the mapping report come up? Will commitments be sought or made about additional payments for Somalia peacekeeping? Watch this site.
Footnote: Not only is the Council trip to Uganda and Sudan, slated to begin October 4, still not confirmed as of 9 am on October 1 -- the terms of reference are not even being negotiated by the whole Council, but only the US and UK, the leaders of the Sudan legs of the trip, Inner City Press is told.
Meanwhile, last minute questions were raised about how many journalists, and even which journalists, should be allowed to cover the trip. These should and must be resolved today -- watch this space.
