By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 14 -- On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, even as the government of Joseph Kabila backtracks on signing an agreement in Kampala, the UN Security Council on Thursday morning agreed to a Presidential Statement.
France, which "has the pen" for the Council on DRC, as on its former colonies Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and the Central African Republic, drafted the statement.
But a diplomat from the Rwanda Mission to the UN told Inner City Press to pay particular attention to Paragraph 5, on the FDLR. Of particular interest to Inner City Press is Paragraph 11, on the mass rapes at Minova on which the UN stonewalled for months.
The Security Council adopted the Presidential Statement without reading it out loud in the chamber, and even a half an hour later it was not online on the Council's website.
The Free UN Coalition for Access tweeted at the French Mission to the UN requesting a copy - but it came first from the UN Spokesperson's office.
Here it is, put online by Inner City Press; here is Paragraphs 5 and the conclusion of Paragraph 11:
The Security Council expresses deep concern regarding the sustained regional threat posed by the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), a group under UN sanctions whose leaders and members include perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and have continued to promote and commit ethnically-based and other killings in Rwanda and the DRC, and stresses the importance of permanently addressing this threat. The Security Council stresses the importance of neutralizing the FDLR and all armed groups, including the ADF, the LRA and various Mayi Mayi groups, in line with resolution 2098 (2013)...
The Security Council urges the Government of DRC to expedite the investigation of the November 2012 mass rapes committed by elements of the FARDC in Minova and bring the perpetrators to justice.
On Minova, the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, who was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN during the Rwanda genocide in 1994, repeatedly refused Press questions about the Minova rapes. Video here; UK coverage here.
Now while still refusing Press questions, Ladsous is set to take and it seems answer questions for dues-payers, near but not in the UN next week. Watch this site.
