UN Security Council Speaks on Abyei, IDP Expert Beyani on UN's Cote d'Ivoire Failure, But Ladsous Won't Speak

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- What about a referendum in Abyei? When the UN Security Council meeting Thursday on Sudan and South Sudan broke up, Inner City Press asked Azerbaijan's Agshin Mehdiyev, the Security Council's president of October, if there had been any discussion of the idea of holding the referendum now.

  Mehdiyev answered that the statement, or elements to the press, which he had just read out to an otherwise empty media stakeout contained the answer: no, the Council is not in favor.

  Inner City Press has obtained the agreed-to elements to the press, here they are:

The members of the Security Council reiterated their grave concern about the highly volatile situation in Abyei area, and urgently called on all concerned to refrain from any unilateral action that could heighten tension or impede a solution.

The members of the Security Council welcomed the 22 October Summit between the Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan, and the commitment again by the two Presidents to proceed expeditiously with establishment of Abyei Administration, Abyei Council and Abyei Police Service.

The members of the Council recall their decision in resolution 2046 that the parties must resume immediately negotiations to reach agreement on Abyei final status under the auspices of the AUHIP.

The members of the Council expressed support for the African Union Peace and Security Council visit to Abyei on 26-27 October and urged both communities to use this visit as an opportunity to ease tension.

The members of the Council looked forward to hearing from the AUPSC regarding its findings and to advancing the Parties’ efforts to peacefully resolve their differences.

  But what about the people trying to return to Abyei to vote, reportedly left under insufficient sheet plastic without enough mosquito nets?

  Inner City Press asked the UN's special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons Chaloka Beyani about the IDPs in Abyei. He said that in his visit to Sudan, he had not been able to visit Abyei, Southern Kordofan or Blue Nile states due to security concerns; he will soon travel to South Sudan.

  Inner City Press asked him about accountability, including for UN Peacekeeping, for the killing of IDPs in Nahibly camp in Cote d'Ivoire. He said the government had said it will prosecute but he had no information that it has -- rather like the assurances UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous accepted from Congolese authorities about the 135 rapes at Minova by their forces.

  A year ago, to the day, Beyani told Inner City Press that the UN Peacekeepers at Nahibly did not shot to protect civilians, since the attackers were not an army, but other civilians. 

 With Ladsous in DRC using attack helicopters and devoting UN resources to support France in Mali, while not protecting perceived Laurent Gbagbo supports in Cote d'Ivoire, one has to wonder what has become of UN Peacekeeping under his tenure.

To return to Abyei, what is the result of the promised investigation into the killing of the Paramount Chief of the area, which Ladsous' DPKO promised? What is it? Ladsous will not answer: video here, UN coverage here. Is this the UN, on UN Day? Watch this site.

   

To Egypt, UN Feltman Planned Trip Before Aug 14 Killings, Inner City Press Audio Captured, Versus Spoon-Fed Mis-Report

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 16 -- UN official Jeffrey Feltman's upcoming trip to Egypt, which Inner City Press first reported with exclusive audio on Thursday night, is being presented as showing the UN's response to the killing of hundreds of protesters on Wednesday.

  But Feltman's trip was planned and in the works BEFORE Wednesday's killings. The audio Inner City Press put online on Thursday night began with Egypt's Permanent Representative Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil answer Inner City Press, on Feltman, "Before what happened, he might go."Click here for audio.

  Then he went on to say, "we have been contacted by the Secretariat" of the UN, "Mr. Feltman expressed his interest to go." He said, through Egypt's Mission to the UN, Feltman asked "to set up a number of high level meetings and we have done so."

  On Thursday night after Inner City Press' report with audio, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson's Office still called the trip "a rumor."

  Then just before Friday's noon briefing, they spoon-fed the confirmation to Reuters UN bureau's Michele Nichols, who turned it into a two paragraph "report." The implication, repeated, was that this was the UN's responsiveness to the killing of hundreds on Wednesday.

But that's not true. This is how mis-direction by the UN, and mis-reporting on the UN, work.

  Then you have the UN Human Rights machinery. Special Rapporteur on internally displaced persons Chaloka Beyani intoned by Skype about accountability. But was General Sisi watching? 

  Beyani to his credit previously criticized the UN Mission in Cote d'Ivoire under Bert Koenders for its actions and inactions as IDPs were killed in the Nahibly camp. ButKoenders got a promotion, to the UN Mission in Mali. This is the UN. Watch this site.

   

In Cote d'Ivoire Like DRC, UN Airbrushes DPKO Out, In Niambly As Minova

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, December 1 -- Who will hold the UN accountable when its personnel stand by during murder or rape?

  When top UN Peacekeeper Herve Ladsous took questions on November 30 across First Avenue from the UN, he wouldn't answer Inner City Press' follow-up if his Department of Peacekeeping Operations will ever disclose which battalions of the Congolese Army, which the UN supports, were present in Minova in connection with dozens of rapes.

   In Cote d'Ivoire, Ladsous' DPKO has twice committed to investigating its peacekeepers' inaction or complicity during the murder of perceived Gbagbo supporters in the Niambly Internally Displaced Persons camp in July. Click here for July 21 story by Inner City Press; here for next-day follow up story with UN email to Inner City Press that DPKO was "conducting a full investigation of the incident."

   After this first promise, UN envoy Bert Koenders immediately undercut it by saying his peacekeepers did nothing wrong. He "dismissed allegations that peacekeepers failed in their mandate to protect civilians." Click here for July 27 story by Inner City Press.

   Then after the discovery of more and more bodies in wells around the camp, the UN's Ivan Simonovic today issued a press release calling for an investigation -- by the Ouattara government. He did not advance the questions about the UN's role, and where the two promised UN investigations are.

  Inner City Press asked the UN's special rapporteur on IDPs Chaloka Beyani about Niambly, and he said the UN peacekeepers' rules of engagement were implemented so as to not fire on non-state aggressors. Click here for October 21 story by Inner City Press.

  Beyond describing UN peacekeepers in Niambly standing by just as they would in November in Goma in the DRC, Beyani told Inner City Press the "rules of engagement of UN peacekeeping forces do not allow them open fire civilians if civilians are attacking other civilians." He told Inner City Press he'd heard the same of DPKO missions in South Sudan and Afghanistan.

   DPKO denied it -- but some ask, whom to believe? An independent human rights special rapporteur, or Ladsous' DPKO given its current record?

The UN cites immunity, for example for peacekeepers introducing cholera to Haiti. But the UN, at least Ladsous' DPKO, won't credibly investigate itself.

   While the Congolese Army's role in the rapes at Minova becomes more and more clear, Ladsous insisted on Friday that the raped happened during a "fluid" situation. Then he wouldn't answer if he will ever disclose which FADRC battalions were there, such that the UN's supposed Human Rights Due Diligence Policy can be assessed.

  And where is the UN's investigation of Niambly?

  Maybe Simonovic and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights should get more involved and answer. Watch this site.

IDP Expert Beyani Likens Sri Lanka to Cote d'Ivoire, Stayed Away from UN Probe

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 -- The strange treatment of Sri Lanka at and by the UN was on display on Wednesday in New York.

  The UN's Special Rapporteur on Internally Displaced Persons Mr. Chaloka Beyani gave a press conference. He was immediately asked by a fellow selected to come four months to the UN if he'd praise the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa for relocation of IDPs from the camps set up after the 2009 conflict -- called the "Bloodbath on the Beach" by another UN official -- to land in northern Sri Lanka.

  As Beyani began answered the leading question, Inner City Press left its post covering the UN Security Council and ran through the garage to the Dag Hammarskjold auditorium briefing room. Video here, from Minute 11:36.

  There, Inner City Press asked a follow up question, based on a story in the Washington Post noting that "346 people from 110 families who were last to leave the camp could not return home because their lands are occupied by the military."

  Beyani said he'd heard of it, and that he was concerned about a lack of "durable solutions." He said it was like what he encountered in a country he visited, Cote d'Ivoire -- where IDPs were killed after the government wanted to close down the camps they lived in. Click here for that.

  Beyani acknowledged he had yet to visit Sri Lanka, saying he had not wanted to in order not to get "in the picture" with the government's and the UN's "investigation."

  But what UN investigation? There was a Panel of Experts report, based on which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked first Thoraya Obaid and then, without further announcement until Inner City Press asked, Charles Petrie to probe the UN's own acts and inaction during the Bloodbath on the Beach.

  But that report, which some say is already finished -- Petrie is already heading a Norway funded project in Myanmar -- has yet to be made public, and may never be.

  Beyani said he would like to visit Sri Lanka, and we hope he does. But the strange treatment of Sri Lanka continues in and by the UN.

 
 In the upcoming "Universal Periodic Review" of Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, speakers will get only 72 second each -- the least of any of the countries being reviewed, which have far lower levels of killed civilians than Sri Lanka. Watch this site.

UN Peacekeepers Inaction on IDP Killings in Cote d'Ivoire Due to DPKO Rules?

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, October 24, updated -- In July after UN peacekeepers stood by -- or reportedly helped -- as seven internally displaced people were killed in the Niably IDP camp in Cote d'Ivoire, when Inner City Press asked it was told there would be an investigation.

  But two days later, UN Peacekeeping's top envoy to Cote d'Ivoire Bert Koenders "dismissed allegations that peacekeepers failed in their mandate to protect civilians."

  Inner City Press has continued to ask about it, but UN Peacekeeping chief now refuses to answer any Press questions, saying it is in response to "insulting insinuations." Such as a failure to protect civilians, or to honestly investigate failures?

  On October 24, Inner City Press put the question to the UN's Special Rapporteur on IDPs Mr. Chaloka Beyani, who had visited Cote d'Ivoire, two days before the killings at Niambly as it turns out.

 

Beyani recounted that "the Moroccan peacekeepers were there... By seven AM the camp was surrounded... Youths in their thousands overran the camp, n the presence of the peacekeepers."

  In conducting his own inquiry, Beyani said, "I asked the peacekeepers why they didn't act. They said that they have to take a balance, whether acting would cause more harm. They felt more would have been killed if they had acted with force."

  He continued, "Second, they were manning the entry, they would have been overrun. The commander to make sure preserve lives of men to continue to provide protection."

   So far, it was sounding like something of an Ivorian Srebrenica, at least to some. But then the real reason became clear. Beyani said that the "rules of engagement of UN peacekeeping forces do not allow them open fire civilians if civilians are attacking other civilians."

  These "civilians" killed seven people, but the UN peacekeepers "wouldn't get involved." Beyani said he has heard the same from UN missions in Afghanistan and South Sudan.

  This seems like a major problem, calling into question Koenders "dismiss[ing] allegations that peacekeepers failed in their mandate to protect civilians" and Ladsous' refusing to answer questions.

  Inner City Press went to the October 24 noon briefing and asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky:

 

Inner City Press: at 11 a.m., there was a press conference here by UN Special Rapporteur on IDPs Chaloka Beyani, and I asked him about this incident that happened in Côte d'Ivoire in July in which an IDP camp was burned down and at least seven of its residents were killed. Mr. Beyani said that DPKO [Department of Peacekeeping Operations], not only in Côte d'Ivoire, but elsewhere, has rules of engagement for its peacekeepers that they can’t fire upon civilians, even if civilians are killing other civilians. So I wanted a response, from the UN, if that’s true, and also, he said that there is a UN investigation ongoing which, given Mr. Koenders’ statement dismissing the allegation seems strange, but is there an investigation ongoing, and is it a correct statement of DPKO policy that was given here this morning?

 

Spokesperson: I’ll check, Matthew.

   Six hours later, no answer had yet been given. Is it appropriate for the head of UN Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, to openly refuse to answer Press questions like this? Is the stated policy in place, and is it responsible? Watch this site?

 
Update of October 25: at the following day's noon briefing the UN spokesman read out a statement including that there IS an ongoing investigation of the July events -- will it be made public? -- and denying what the Special Rapporteur said about UN Peacekeeping's rules of engagement. We'd expect to have more on this. In the same noon briefing, it was emphasized that UN Special Rapporteurs are NOT "UN officials."