UN's Congo Sanctions Porn, Spun By Reuters, Now Put Online by Inner City Press: Rwanda Was Defamed, Hege Lives On? By

 Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- The politicization of the UN's sanctions process is perhaps most clear in connection with the reports on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

  Usually right before UN Security Council meetings, this time just before the full deployment of the Council's “Intervention Brigade,” the reports are leaked to a Western wire service and set the tenor of the debate.

   Rarely are the actually documents put online, only the wire service's gloss. In this case, Inner City Press immediately critiqued that gloss, which for example ignored Rwanda's opposition to two of the Group of Experts' members, Bernard Leloup and Marie Plamadiala, on which Inner City Press previously reported.

  But now, after receiving copies from a number of Council members, Inner City Press is putting the Annexes online, exclusively, here. The report itself is, typically, watermarked each with the name of the Council member to which it was given. The annexes do not bear the mark, and even by a biased Group of Experts undercut the wire service's one-sided summary.

  The Group's lack of seriousness is evident even from the first Annex, in which Uganda's 2012 letter is labeled “October 13, 2013.” Note to Leloup and Plamadiala -- that date has not yet occurred.

  These are followed by self-serving “extracts” and photos of ammunition looted, a truck and tank taken, photos of the M23 headquarters taken by The Group -- from a helicopter no less -- and almost pornographic pictures of bullets and their launchers. (In the vein, in Annex 44 the Group includes some stomping at the “Hotel Pygmy in Mambasa town.”)

  Finally, only in Annex 50, the Group gets into the FDLR, a militia actually linked to a genocide.

  There is an annex of 509 names provided by the Rwandan government -- portrayed by Reuters as not cooperating, in an article which uploaded neither the report nor its annexes.

  The UN, Reuters' partner (click here to see Reuters UN bureau chief leaking to the UN, against Inner City Press, leading to the formation of the new Free UN Coalition for Access) typically is most concerned with attacks on itself. In Annex 64 it showed burned trucks.

  There are screen shots of SMS messages -- never mind that the UN denied or stonewalls on documents showing when Bosco Ntaganda was working with the FARDC they supported. The process is entirely politicized.

  When Inner City Press published internal emails from the MONUSCO UN Mission on this topic, MONUSCO replied angrily via press release that it was false. Not that the Group says it too, will MONUSCO attack the Group of Experts?

MONUSCO has not responded to a request, in French no less, by the Free UN Coalition for Access, digging into the UN system's and particularly UN Peacekeeping's one-way social media, to clarify how many FARDC arrests there have been for the 135 rapes in Minova in late November.

  Now what of the UN mission MONUSCO working with Congolese Army units intertwined with the FDLR? After UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, in his previous incarnation representing France in the Security Council, argued in favor of letter the genocidaires escape from Rwanda into Eastern Congo? 

  Ladsous, of course, hand his information to favored scribes, at least one of which returns the favor to the UN, as recently shown.  And who did this one? And now what? Watch this site.

  

At UN, Sudan Ridicules Ocampo, Competence and Bosco Left Unanswered, Farrow in Council

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/icc7ocampo060509.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- In what some are calling a showdown at the stakeout, International Criminal Court prosecutor Jose Moreno Ocampo walked up and stood next to Sudan's Ambassador to the UN as the latter spoke to the Press after Friday morning's Security Council meeting. Video here.

Ocampo stood flipping pages as the Ambassador spoke -- in part, ridiculing Ocampo -- and then took the microphone himself. He insisted that Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir will be arrested sooner or later. He said the government, that is, Bashir's government, should turn Bashir in.

Inner City Press asked what Ocampo was doing to bring about the arrest of the previously ICC indicted Jean-Bosco Ntaganda, now working with the Congolese Army and indirectly with the UN Mission there, MONUC.

The previous day, Inner City Press had put the same question to Human Rights Watch's Richard Dicker, who had said that Ocampo should do more about Bosco, should make an affirmative statement. But even prompted, Ocampo did not, merely saying that he has talked to the government.

Afterwards, a senior Ocampo staffer approached Inner City Press visibly upset. She asked, why do you say that I do not do my job? It was noted that the ICC Office of the Prosecutor "brooks no criticism."

Inner City Press contrasted the ICC Prosecutor's volume on Sudan versus Bosco, working with Congo and the UN. She predicted that Bosco will be arrested. We'll see.

Ocampo did not answer the question about HRW's September 15, 2008 letter criticizing his management, including retaliation against a whistleblower who accused him of sexual harassment. Moment later, Mia Farrow took to the microphone to say that there have been 100 babies born in Darfur and Eastern Chad named Ocampo, or Ocambo. Some who closely follow the ICC follies heard the sound of car keys jingling - click here for explanation.

Farrow, asked by Inner City Press about not only Congo but also Sri Lanka, said she hadn't come prepared to speak about either. She focused on Sudan. Inner City Press asked for her response to the African Union's criticism that peace talks are undermined, and only Africa targeted, by Ocampo. Farrow quoted Kenyan Nobel prize winner, as having made the AU's Jean Ping be quiet. Some said that the Turkish president of the Security Council for June had asked her to leave the Council's closed meeting.

The circus came to town, and then the circus left. It was not clear what was done, nor who won the standoff at the stakeout. Video here.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/icc7ocampo060509.html

Sudan Calls UK Ambassador an Amateur, of War Criminals in Congo Too

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un9sc1africa051809.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 18 – As the UN Security Council traipses across Africa this week, it is notably skirting Sudan. UK Ambassador to the UN John Sawers offered an explanation. "We're not going to meet with someone who is an indicted war criminal," he said, referring to the arrest warrant obtained by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in March on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

When the Press conveyed Sawers views to Sudan's Ambassador at the UN, he replied that Sudan has no desire to be visited by the UK, “a country with blood on its hands,” and called Sawers “an amateur diplomat.” Beyond the overheated rhetoric, a long time Council diplomat consulted by Inner City Press agreed that Sawers had erred in his comment on the Council bypassing Sudan. It appears that the UK Mission to the UN has sought response from Sawers; if and when one is made available, it will be published on this site.

More seriously about Sudan, experts consulted by Inner City Press see the North – South peace deal unraveling, and predict war by mid-2009. “Much of the Darfur conflict grew out of the South,” one of them said. “Now war in the South will throw everything back into chaos.”

Ironically, with the Council in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is visit a UN Mission which works with an army that has incorporated at least one indicted war criminal, Jean-Bosco Ntaganda. As Inner City Press showed prior to the Council's trip, an April 4 memo from within the Congolese Army listed Bosco Ntaganda as Deputy Coordinator of Operation Kimia II, to which the UN Mission MONUC provided assistance.

The UN's shifting answers, first that they wouldn't work with an army that included Bosco, then that they wouldn't work with operations in which Bosco has a formal role, finally only that no pictures will be taken with Bosco, cast a different light on the UN and war criminals.

The Council is also skirting another African hot spot, Somalia, where the Secretariat and Council have unwaveringly taken the side of a government or faction which is, it seems, being pushed from power, at least in some Somali cities. Some say the UN has made the mistake of blatantly choosing sides in a civil war. Time, but not this selective Council trip, will tell.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un9sc1africa051809.html

UN and Congolese War Criminal Bosco, No Pictures, Please, As Council Approaches

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2bosco051309.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 13 -- The UN in the Congo claimed that it would not work with the Congolese Army if indicted war criminal Jean-Bosco Ntaganda was a part of it. Then the UN reduced the claim to that it would not work on Congolese Army operations in which Bosco played a part. Now, faced with Army minutes showing Bosco as a deputy commander in an operation MONUC works with, the claim is further reduced. The permanent representative of a Congo-interested country, part of the Contact Group, told Inner City Press on May 12 that at least the UN will not "sit down and take a photo with Bosco Ntaganda." That's not saying much.

On May 13, in advance of a Security Council trip to the Congo led by France's Jean-Maurice Ripert, Inner City Press asked Ripert for his and France's position on how the UN should distance itself from indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda. Ripert said, "France is very clear on that: we are a party to the Rome Stat[ute], we will not meet with people who are involved or indicted." Video here, from Minute 7:45.

But should the UN be working with the Congolese Army and its operations in the Kivus in which Bosco is listed in minutes as deputy coordinator? "This is a question you have to ask to the UN," Ripert answered, "not to France."


Alan Doss of MONUC, April 4 minutes show below

He went on, in response to another question, to say that the purpose of the Congo leg of the trip is to "monitor" the UN Mission. Doesn't monitoring include determining, factually, whether the UN Mission is working in an operation in which a war criminal is deputy coordinator?

Footnote: In the interim, in the run-up to the Council's visit to the Congo, Inner City Press did "ask to the UN," as Ripert suggested, and got back this, which drops the UN's claim that it hadn't seen the April 4 FARDC minutes in question:

Subj: Your question on Jean-Bosco Ntaganda

From: unspokesperson [at] un.org

To: Inner City Press

Sent: 5/13/2009 12:48:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

1.) We stand by our 30 January statement, that MONUC will not support operations with the FARDC in which Jean-Bosco Ntaganda plays a role.

2.) Both the MONUC Force Commander and SRSG have made this clear to their interlocutors at senior levels of the DRC Government and military. These interlocutors have assured MONUC that Bosco does not figure in the chain of command for operations in the Kivus.

3. MONUC has no executive law enforcement powers to execute the arrest warrant but is on record that it is prepared to assist the DRC Government in arresting Bosco should it decide to do so.

So what to make of the April 4 FARDC minutes? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2bosco051309.html