As Congolese Minister Cites "Genetic Signature" of Rebellions, Of Hate Speech, Inner City Press Asks UN & US Mission, including of Kerry on Palestine

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 -- In the UN Security Council Thursday morning, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda said that rebellions in the Great Lakes region for years have "all bear the same genetic signature" (la meme signature genetique). 

 Inner City Press has put the speech online here.

  Given the mass killing of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and events since, this line was quickly seen -- mostly by people outside of the UN -- as hate speech or worse.

  Inner City Press wrote to the top three spokespeople of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was present during the remarks, and asked if Ban (or his envoy Mary Robinson, also present) "have any comment on the DRC foreign minister having said in the Security Council that all Great Lakes rebellions 'bear the same genetic signature'? "

Ban's spokesperson's office chose to hold its noon briefing precisely while Rwanda's foreign minister was given a speech which, among other things, criticized the UN mission MONUSCO. While after advocacy by the Free UN Coalition for Access they answered some questions off-camera in their office, they had no answer to yesterday's Inner City Pressquestions about Congolese Army bombing of and killing of civilians in Rumangabo and Kavodo.

  Did UN Peacekeeping, led by its fourth Frenchman in a rowHerve Ladsous, even go to the site? There was no answer. It is noted that Ladsous, while France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, argued for the escape of genocidaires from Rwanda into Eastern Congo. This is the context, and location, of the "genetic signature" remark.

  Inner City Press wrote to two spokespeople for the US Mission to the UN, where John Kerry will meet with Syrian rebels later on Thursday, asking if Kerry or new US Great Lakes envoy Russ Feingold or Acting Permanent Representative DiCarlo, all present in the Security Council Thursday, have any comment on the DRC foreign minister having said in the Security Council that all Great Lakes rebellions 'bear the same genetic signature'?"

  Kerry made what some described as a slip of the tongue at Thursday's photo op with Ban Ki-moon, saying (as transcribed by the US Mission) that "both leaders in the region, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas, have made a courageous decision to try to return to final status talks. And it's my hope that that will be able to happen as procedures are put in place by both countries in order to empower that."

  Some were surprised Kerry referred to Palestine as a country (it is, we note, an Observer STATE at the UN.) But Kerry's remarks were off the cuff. Tshibanda's "genetic signature" statement was in a prepared speech, which Inner City Press is putting online here. Watch this site.

   

At UN on Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous Omits Abyei & Golan, DRC Questions UNanswered

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 29 -- It was a solemn ceremony Wednesday at the UN, with Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Herve Ladsous citing three examples of the least measure of sacrifice: the killing of Indian peacekeepers in Jonglei, those from Niger in western Cote d'Ivoire, and from Pakistan in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  Particularly because this is serious, there are question that must be answered about each of these three, and others not mentioned by Ladsous, including recent killing in Abyei and kidnapping in the Golan. But Ladsous, for now, refuses to answer Press questions. See May 29 video, here and embedded below.

In Jonglei the question arose: why didn't the peacekeepers have a sufficient Armored Personnel Carrier?

In Cote d'Ivoire DPKO (of which Ladsous is the fourth French chief in a row) openly sided with French ally Ouattara, essentially covering up the killing of perceived Gbagbo supports in the Nahibly camp according to no less than Amnesty International.

In the Congo, Ladsous' own history as French Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in 1994, rebutting others to support the escape of genocidaires into the Eastern Congo, raises questions about his Mission's objectivity.

  But if like Inner City Press you ask that question, Ladsous calls it "insinuation" and refuses any more. This has happened since last May -- one year now. He has refused questions on the introducing of cholera into Haiti, taking advice from an alleged war criminal, doing little to protect IDPs in Darfur.

  Now on the Golan, he stands accused of knowing of involvement from Qatar in the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers. Will he answer? Watch this site.

On Rwanda at UN, Herve Ladsous in 1994 Protected Genocidaires, Now Seeks Drones & Lapdogs, AFP & Reuters

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 6 -- Nineteen years ago today above Kigali, a plane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down, setting off a 100 day genocide.

Several events by the UN this month will echo the “never again” tagline. 

  But it is significant that the current head of UN Peacekeeping is Herve Ladsous, who as France's Deputy Permanent Representative in 1994 argued to the UN Security Council in favor of helping the genocidaires escape into Eastern Congo.

  Now, after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2001 accepted Ladsous as a last minute substitute for Jerome Bonnafont as the fourth Frenchman in a row to head DPKO, Ladsous has lobbied for drones to oversee Eastern Congo; he has stonewalled on at least 126 rapes committed by the Congolese Army, his partners.

  When Ladsous held his first press conference as head of DPKO on October 13, 2011, Inner City Press asked him about his past on Rwanda. Video here, from Minute 22:50.

  All Ladsous would say that day was that was history, that was the past. But is it only the past?

  Alongside Ladsous' public dodging, Agence France Presse on one of the management boards of which Ladsous once served and which is 41% funded by the French government,began to seek the expulsion of Inner City Press, first from the so-called UN Correspondents Association (more appropriately, the UN's Censorship Alliance) then from the UN as a whole.

  In fact, AFP's Tim Witcher has complained to the UN not only about Inner City Press calling him, in response to his hissing “lies and distortion,” a lapdog for Ladsous, but even about Inner City Press' question to Ladsous about Eastern Congo.

  Is that consistent with AFP's or any non-corrupt media's policies, to seek to get other journalists thrown out for the substantive questions they ask? We aim to find out.

We are also pursuing how and why Inner City Press' office was raided by the UN on March 18, and photos taken which were then passed, just after Ban's spokesperson's office was asked about the raid, to BuzzFeed, through an anonymous “Concerned UN Reporter” e-mail address.

As to Ladsous, once UNCA was conducting a kangaroo court proceeding against Inner City Press in May 2012, Ladsous on May 29 simple refused to answer any Inner City Press question. See YouTube video, here.

He has continued that, for example at the Security Council stakeout on November 27, December 7 and December 18, which he directed his spokesman to seize the UNTV microphone to try to avoid Inner City Press' question on the 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army.

  In March 2013 after Inner City Press asked the question, without meaningful answer, to Ban Ki-moon, Ladsous's DPKO spoon-fed half an answer to AFP's Witcher andReuters' Michelle Nichols (who absurdly but typically characterizes such spoon-feeding as a Reuters “scoop”). Is this, and the repeated filing of false complaints, consistent with Reuters' policy? Stephen J. Adler never answered.

  It was the next day, March 8, that Witcher cut into a conversation Inner City Press was having with another journalist and hissed, “lies and distortion.” Inner City Press replied, Lapdog, and sarcastically complimented Nichols on her scoop.

Cynically and in bad faith, the two went that afternoon and filed coordinated complaints, even claiming to be afraid from a verbal disagreement with Witcher instigated. Reuters more generally including its UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau jumped in. That the UN has no rules on false complaints, or due process, has only made it worse.

But Ladsous loves it -- since then he's again tried to hand “scoops” to AFP, finally falling back on the UN's own UN Radio. And the UN and its Department of Public Information (and Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's office) have put up with this.

So what to make of their statements this month about “never again” and the Rwandan genocide? Not much. Watch this site.