By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Full Text
UNITED NATIONS, June 30 -- There is a lot of talk at the UN against conflict minerals, the exploitation of natural resources for conflict. But does the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous live up to this?
As with Ladsous' non-enforcement of the UN's supposed conditionality and human rights due diligence policies with regard to the Congolese army units implicated in 135 rapes in Minova in November, the UN's stated principles are being systematically undermined.
Pursuing the Minova abuses since last November, in the face of repeated Ladsous refusals to answer, Inner City Press asked the UN for a list of the units of the Congolese army (FARDC) which it supports. The UN, or Ladsous' DPKO, refused.
Now the new UN Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions report, which Inner City Press put exclusively online early yesterday, lists FARDC units involved in conflict gold, even in locked up miners who refuse to pay their “tax” in underground prisons. A sample paragraph:
165. The 10th Military Region of FARDC controls the Mukungwe gold mine, in Walungu territory, South Kivu (see S/2011/738, paras. 528-532). At this site, FARDC soldiers collect illegal taxes weekly from artisanal miners. Miners who fail to pay are arrested and held in an underground prison until payment of the tax is made. The Group obtained an October 2012 letter from the president of one of Mukungwe’s local cooperatives that reminded the local army intelligence officer that the weekly tax of 1000FC (USD 1.11) per miner needs to be split between the ANR, the police and the army (see annex 73). A former FDLR officer in charge of logistics told the Group that the FDLR also collected taxes from miners working in Mukungwe, as well as in Rukatu mine, in Mwenga territory; FDLR accrues USD 2000 per month from both mines.
Inner City Press has previously reported on FARDC support to the FDLR militia -- which Ladsous' MONUSCO denied in a vituperative press release of January 30, 2013. Here's a paragraph about the FARDC-supported FDLR:
According to a former FDLR officer and gold traders in Butembo, the FDLR are involved in gold mining in North Kivu’s Lubero Territory. According to several former FDLR combatants, FDLR commanders are also drawing profits from gold mines in Walikale. In some instances, FDLR combatants search for gold themselves, and in other cases, they tax gold miners, demanding their production one day per week.
So has MONUSCO supported FARDC’s 10th Military Region?
Inner City Press already has specific questions pending at DPKO without yet an substantive response. Inner City Press has asked DPKO chief Herve Ladsous' four top spokespeople to comment on these issues -- and, incidentally, if they have a new position on their MONUSCO's January 30, 2013 press release denouncing the publication (now confirmed by the Report) of links between the FARDC and FDLR, by Inner City Press. Now, DPKO confirmed receipt more than 22 hours before this publication, but so far no substantive response.
On questions ranging from the 135 FARDC rapes in Minova through the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, the introduction of cholera into Haiti and Ladsous and Ban Ki-moon accepting as an adviser of a Sri Lankan military figure depicted in the UN's own report as engaged in war crimes, Ladsous' strategy has been to provide answers to Inner City Press' questions to other, friendlier journalists.
Now evidence has emerged that for at least one of these outlets, Reuters' UN bureau, the flow goes the other way to, with the provision to the UN of information ostensibly only for the UNCA group that the UN should not have, here. This is being pursued by the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.
Ladsous is today in Mali (where as noted he is incorporating a UN listed child soldier recruiting country into DPKO's peackeeping mission MINUSMA to be so launched tomorrow). But Ladsous, ever since Inner City Press asked about his statements during the Rwanda genocide, has refused to answer Inner City Press' questions, video compilation here. Watch this site.
