By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 26 – The 135 rapes at Minova by two battalions of the Congolese army which the UN still supports were effectively covered up for months by UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous. Wednesday, four week after Inner City Press asked Ladsous for an update -- “I do not respond to you,” he replied, video here – the UN finally provided numbers.
At the June 26 noon briefing, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey said that there have been 11 arrests, but only two for rape. He added that 12 commanders have been suspended – but that is not an arrest, much less a conviction.
An hour later Inner City Press asked the new Force Commander for the UN Mission in the Congo, Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, about accountability for the Minova rapes, and about the UN still supporting the two Army units implicated.
Alberto Dos Santos Cruz provided a different number, saying “nine commanders have been removed.” This does not jibe with the two arrests for rape stated an hour earlier. Either way, as even Alberto Dos Santos Cruz himself after the briefing acknowledged, it is too small. So why is Ladsous' DPKO still supporting those Congo Army units?
In the same press conference, Del Buey called first on a Lebanese journalist. But the old UN Correspondents Association cut in to demand the first question, as they did in February with Bolivia's president Evo Morales. With the first question, it was a softball directed at the Lebanon mission commander, as were 75% of the questions in the press conference. One UNCA Executive Committee member, the one most closely aligned with Ladsous, asked if other commanders didn't “envy” Ladsous' UAV – that is, drone – slated for the Congo. Predictably, the answer was yes.
The Golan Heights or UNDOF commander Major Iqbal Singh Singha was allowed to give a speech and then leave without taking questions. Inner City Press and others pursued him into the hall – later there was a reference to journalists being “rude.” But it was rude to not arrange it for Major Iqbal Singh Singha to take questions before he left, as the Free UN Coalition for Access pointed out when given the fourth question. We will have more on this. Watch this site.
