By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 15 -- The UN Security Council is set for a closed door discussion of the Eastern Congo after its October 16 session about Mali -- Inner City Press has learned and first published. In Kampala the M23 has denounced the UN becoming interwoven with the Congolese Army, which is taking on M23 including in Kanyamahoro, and then complaining about being shot at.
Most explosively, the M23's Rene Abandi is quoted that the MONUSCO mission led by Martin Kobler and ultimately Herve Ladsous
"'continuously allows FARDC to use their planes for espionage activities and dropping DRC soldiers near M23 territory'... one of the planes that recently violated the M23 territory’s airspace was carrying President Joseph Kabila’s spy chiefs... FARDC and UN were mixing their emblems on planes, giving the rebel group difficulty in distinguishing the DRC forces from humanitarian elements."
The UN is often dismissive of such claims. But what WAS its "unarmed" helicopter doing when it was shot at? Do "unarmed" MONUSCO flight share intelligence withe Congolese Army? Has MONUSCO flowing Kabila's intelligence chiefs?
Some still wonder - and have been unable to get an answer - why the Security Council under French leadership chose to attend and legitimize Kabila's "National Dialogue" which the opposition boycotted.
The key question the Security Council, or at least France which is allowed to hold the pen on DRC and to hand-pick which scribes were allowed to cover "its" recent trip to the region, has yet to publicly confront is whether MONUSCO is now a combatant, a party to the armed conflict.
If so, firing on helicopters has a different "legal character," as the French might say, than elsewhere in UN-World.
It appears that Ladsous, the origin of many of these problems and who refuses to answer Press questions about his history in the Great Lakes region (see UK coverage here) will NOT be present on October 16.
He is touring around, back to at least one (other) place he used to be French Ambassador. Who does he work for? Since he refuses to answer the most basic questions -- like if DPKO screens for cholera, which was mis-answered in his stead -- we have to ask. And will continue to ask. Watch this site.
