By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, April 20 -- Amid hate speech in Burundi, France which as UN Security Council penholder has accomplished little on the issue has a new proposal, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press: to nominate the former transitional president of Burkina Faso Michel Kafando as a UN envoy specifically on Burundi. While French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre has said little in response to Inner City Press' questions on Burundi other than "We never give up" (and nothing at all about Paul Biya's abuses in Cameroon), Inner City Press' reporting finds that if a Kafando envoyship is presented in terms of a transition in Burundi, it may meet with the same thuggish opposition that nearly each of Inner City Press' stories brings. Even a story about a hate speech governor in a UNICEF shift drew a Morocco-like response from the pro-Nkurunziza set. How will they view a French Kafando transition proposal? Watch this site. The UN has sunk so low that the lead spokesman for Secretary General Antonio Guterres Stephane Dujarric on April 10 refused to even take a Press question about Burundi, where the UN itself says there is a risk of genocide. When Inner City Press said "Can I ask a question about Burundi," where there increased hate speech amid a warning from other parts of the UN of a threat of genocide," Dujarric replied, "No, we're done." Video here, contrasted. Then consider UNICEF, whose logo and shirt is portrayed here on the governor of Makamba province Gad Niyukuri who last week reportedly called on residents to "eliminate" rebels so fuel "won't be wasted by having them transferred to the police." It's a joint shirt with Burundian flag and UNICEF logo. Did UNICEF give it to the governor? Is it an authorized use? If not, what will UNICEF - recently outed for abandoning the victims of peacekeepers' abuse in the Central African Republic, and yet to respond on that - do? Watch this site.
On April 18 another part of the UN system describes some of the events that Inner City Press asked and sought to ask for Guterres' position and action on: " On 1 April this year in the northern province of Kayanza, around 2,500 Imbonerakure reportedly marched from Kayanza football stadium along the main road chanting similar slogans, inciting rape and violence against opponents. Reports suggest that senior officials were present at this rally. Reports also suggest that similar chanting occurs regularly at weekly Imbonerakure meetings in the southern province of Makamba. On 3 April, during a meeting on security, the Governor of Makamba reportedly urged the local population to maintain security, to arrest any suspicious person, to check every bag and suitcase and to 'eliminate immediately' every person presumed to be a rebel. On 7 April, the President of the Senate is alleged to have incited people to violence in Makamba, reportedly calling for all suspected rebels to be 'silently collected.' This is the latest of many such speeches where the President of the Senate has reportedly used coded language, with its roots in the mass violence from Burundi’s past, to incite followers to violence." So what about Guterres' lead spokesman refusing to answer the Press on Burundi? What about the UN's Department of Public Information still requiring Inner City Press to have a minder even to cover its Rwanda genocide commemoration, then requiring Inner City Press to leave mid-way through? What about the continuing failure of all parts of the UN system - including in Geneva Prince Zeid and his spokesman Rupert Colville - on the abuses in Cameroon including the now 91 day Internet cut? On Burundi, is it any surprise that the East African Community's Secretariat, appointed by Burundi's Pierre Nkurunziza, mocks UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' report on Burundi? And that there is no response from the UN? This is how low the UN has sunk. Dujarric is still spokesman after this, and after playing his role in evicting and still restricting the Press, which has been raised. After in Burundi a hate-video of the ruling party's militia calling for the impregnation or rape of opposition women was widely seen, when Inner City Press asked the UN about it on April 5 the UN said it had not been aware, ironically thanked Inner City Press - which it has evicted and still restricts - and said something would be done. What? From the UN transcript:
Inner City Press: on Burundi, but there's a… a… a video has emerged of the ruling party militia talking about impregnating all the women of all people that don't agree with the militia's platform for pro… for Pierre Nkurunziza. So, given things that the UN has said in the past, what's the response to this? And what is the UN doing currently in the last, you know, two weeks or so on the situation in Burundi?
Associate Spokesperson: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We weren't aware of this video. And, if true, that's very highly troubling. And we have, as you know, a team on the ground that I'm sure is looking into this, and hopefully, will take some action.
Associate Spokesperson: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We weren't aware of this video. And, if true, that's very highly troubling. And we have, as you know, a team on the ground that I'm sure is looking into this, and hopefully, will take some action.
What action? When the UK held the wrap-up session for its month as President of the UN Security Council on March 31, at first no one on its team volunteered to speak on Burundi. Then the month's weak Council Press Statement was cited, with no mention that of the non-deployment of the 226 Police the Council ostensibly mandated in a resolution. Also on March 31, Inner City Press asked Tanzania's Foreign Minister Augustine Mahiga about the Arusha talks. His response is on video, here. Off camera, he told Inner City Press should be allowed to chose which country's or countries' police it would like deployed.
When the Burundi configuration of the UN Peacekeeping Commission last met, UN Human Rights testified that the country's SNR tortures people based on ethnicity, by making them walk on glass and pouring gasoline into their wounds. Then Burundi's Ambassador Albert Shingiro, who recent placed the UN or at least Ban Ki-moon into the "Axis of Evil," took the floor and denied it all. Periscope video here. The Special Adviser he and Pierre Nkurunziza are seeking to have removed was not on the podium. (We noted that Burundi has Persona Non Grata-ed or recused his predecessors, Abdullah Battily, Carolyn McAskie, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Youssef Mahmoud, Said Djinnit.) The chair, Ambassador Jurg Lauber of Switzerland, is set to visit Burundi from March 27 to March 31, while others in the UN system are banned or delayed.
Also speaking was France, but not through its top Ambassador Francois Delattre or even his deputy Alexis Lamek. It called the mind France's approach in Cameroon, where its ambassador Thibault last week congratulatedPaul Biya for a non-existent dialogue with the Anglophone areas. Why isn't at least UN Peacekeeping working on these areas, where the Internet has been cut off by the government for 56 days and counting? Watch this site.
On March 13, when the UN again refused to answer about Cameroon, Inner City Press asked about its Special Adviser on Conflict Prevention and Burundi, UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: just this morning, the ambassador of Burundi said again that… that they reject and… and… and completely the Special Adviser… seems to be a big standoff between the Government and the Secretariat. What's the status of the letters the President sent, that Mr. [Albert] Shingiro sent, and the Secretary-General, is he trying to speak to the Government to get them to… to… to allow people in or where's it stand?
Spokesman: There's no update to what the Secretary-General reported to the Security Council not too long ago.
Spokesman: There's no update to what the Secretary-General reported to the Security Council not too long ago.
Burundi now wants to change all of the UN staff in the country. Meanwhile, the UN's dysfunction on Burundi has reached the point where its spokesman can refuses to answer three Press questions in a row about the country, then run off the podium, saying "I'm lazy." Video here.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a delayed February 23 report says, of Pierre Nkurunziza, "an attempt by the president to seek a fourth term in office under the current circumstances would risk intensifying the crisis and undermining collective efforts to find a sustainable solution."
Burundi's Ambassador to the UN Albert Shingiro, hitting back at even the use of the term "four term," tweeted: "With the intention of destabilizing #Burundi in 20 the same axis of evil that failed regime change in15,invents another magic word'4th term'."
On February 27, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Dujarric about this quote, and for a second time about the UN training Burundi security forces in CAR on drone usage. Dujarric said he didn't think of the UN as in an axis of evil. He didn't answer on the fourth term, word invention, or the UN providing drone training. We'll have more on this.
Pressed, Shingiro has said he wasn't called Antonio Guterres part of an Axis of Evil, since he wasn't UN Secretary General in 2015. But could hapless, corruption plagued Ban Ki-moon be a part? More like the Axis of Mediocrity.
And did Guterres really "invent" fourth term as a "magic word"? Or wouldn't a Pierre Nkurunziza run for election in 2020 be a run for a fourth term? How will the UN react to this? For now, Guterres spokesman Dujarric - who has previously been the face not only for AoE Ban Ki-moon but also Kofi Annan before that - won't answer the most basic question. Dujarric too is a fourth term man. We'll have more on this
