By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 1, 2010 -- Hours after the publication of the UN's “watered down” report on war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky refused to disclose who in the UN, particularly in the Secretariat of Ban Ki-moon, was involved in making the changes from the stronger draft version of the Mapping Report.
Ban delayed publication of the report after President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, criticized in the report, threatened to pull Rwandan troops from UN peacekeeping missions including in Darfur. Ban flew to Kigali and discussed -- or negotiated -- with Kagame.
With the report issued in modified and watered down form, Inner City Press asked Nesirky about the involvement of Ban's legal office, beyond the lawyers of High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in watering down the report. Here are three initial examples:
an earlier reference to "damning elements" that could be used by a court to conclude that genocide took place has been changed to "inculpatory elements.” Another section elaborates at length — compared with the earlier draft — on a number of "countervailing factors" that could be used to argue that such a crime didn't take place. A draft section that dismissed mitigating arguments was dropped entirely.
I think you've got it backwards, Nesirky replied.
Inner City Press asked, “it wasn't watered down?” Nesirky never answered this, rather emphasizing that the HCHR has experience lawyers. Yes, but what was the involvement of the legal office of Ban, who negotiated with Kagame?
Nesirky denied that Ban negotiated with Kagame, and then was questioned by BBC and Al Jazeera about Ban's failure to now make any recommendations about prosecution, and by CNN about Ban not making himself available for questions on this long anticipated day of publication.
Ban's only listed appointments of the day are with the Ambassador of Pakistan, and hosting a reception about the MDGs. It should be noted that after Ban named Kagame and Spain's Zapatero as the co-chairs of his MDG Advocacy Group, Zapatero refused to meet with Kagame due to war crimes charges pending against him in the Spanish courts. After this Mapping Report, will things only get worse? Watch this site.
