Showing posts with label Kwibuka 20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kwibuka 20. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

ALERT III: Cabled of Burundi Youth-Wing Arming, Inaction by France As UNSC Penholder


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 9 -- Burundi is on the agenda of the UN Security Council and on April 3, UN envoy Parfait Onanga-Anyanga sent three UN officials a confidential cable on "alleged distribution of weapons to the Imbonerakura," the CNDD-youth wing.


   Inner City Press has reliably confirmed the receipt of the cable and put it online here.  On April 8 the UN Department of Political Affairs briefed the UN Security Council behind closed doors. When Security Council president for April Joy Ogwu of Nigeria came out to take questions afterward, only two media were there, including Inner City Press. No press statement had been proposed, much less drafted and adopted. 
   Why not?
   Which Security Council member "had the pen" on Burundi, meaning that proposing and drafting resolutions, Presidential Statements or Press Statements would be up to them? It is France, which also has the pen on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire and Mali, former colonies.
   Is this wise? 
   Just over the weekend French foreign ministry spokesperson Romain Nadal said he was "surprised" at the linking of France to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He shouldn't have been. Beyond the documentary evidence, earlier this year at the UN memorial of the genocide with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon present France was named as guilty, see below.
  Nevertheless, France said that its Justice Minister Christiane Taubira would no longer attend the April 7 memorial in Kigali. 
  Rwanda is a major UN troop contributing country, most recently in Central African Republic. But Ladsous, who in 1994 was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, has his own history. Sample memo here. Ladsous argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo -- where "his" UN Peacekeeping, even now, went after the M23, then the ADF while still not the Hutu militia FDLR.
  When Inner City Press asked Ladsous about his history, in the form of a question, Ladsous responded by refusing to answer any Inner City Press questions, even about precautions against spreading cholera as UN Peacekeeping did in Haiti. Video compilation here, UK coverage here, yet
more here, on what to call the 1994 genocide.
  On April 9, Ladsous declined to answer Inner City Press' question about alleged gang rape by peacekeepers in his mission in Mali, video forthcoming.
   After that on April 9, Inner City Press asked now-lead UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric:
"this is a request that your Office confirm to Inner City Press as quickly as possible the receipt by USG Ladsous of an April 3 cable from Parfait Onanga-Anyanga at BNUB in Burundi concerning the alleged distribution of weapons to the Imbonerakure. Given the stakes, as well as the echo of Rwanda, please respond as quickly as possible, and also state what if anything USG Ladsous has done about it."
   We will report Dujarric's answer when received. French Ambassador Gerard Araud answers questions only selectively; the Quai d'Orsay above him has called any questions of France's complicity in the Rwanda genocide against the Tutsi "disgraceful," as dutifully "reported" by Reuters on VOA.
    At the UN on February 27 at the Kwibuka 20 ceremony, from the podium France was twice blamed for working with genocidaires and helping them escape into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  On the podium Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has praised French troops even his UN human rights counterpart Navi Pillay noted they'd left Muslim communities vulnerable to attack, looked uncomfortable. 
  Ban mentioned his "Rights Up Front" program, without mentioning its roots in the 2009 failure of his UN in Sri Lanka, as tens of thousands were killed. 
   Following Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana, genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza spoke movingly of barely escaping slaughter, but then speaking of forgiveness.  Gerald Caplan said he would be less forgiving, and was. 
   He twice blamed France, specifically for Operation Turquoise which current UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous defended and promoted in the Security Council in 1994 as France's deputy permanent representative, click here for a memo.
   Caplan also mentioned Bill Clinton, for example -- but Clinton has apologized, unlike Ladsous. Instead, Ladsous simply refuses to answer this and other critical questions at the UN, and the UN accepts it, even tried to dictate how Ladsous can be covered.
  Forgiveness is one thing, and censorship is another. The February 27 ceremony was nothing but class. But day to day at the UN, with scribes braying about only the M23 and not the FDLR, it's another story.
  Even earlier on February 27, when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky when UN Peacekeeping will go after the Hutu FDLR militia, he responded he would not speak to operational activities that "have not yet started and that might not start." Click here for that.
   In late January after the Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions resolution was adopted by the UN Security Council, 15-0, Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana emerged from the Council chamber. Inner City Press asked him about his DRC counterpart's comment that Gasana was educated in the Congo. Video here and embedded below.
  Gasana laughed and said he was born in Burundi. He mused that the Congolese might want to adopt him. Then he turned to go.
  Wire services Reuters and Agence France-Presse pursued him to the esclator, where Reuters UN bureau chief asked Gasana about Rwanda being accused of supporting the M23. Gasana replied that the DRC has other problems, for example in Katanga. He said Rwanda is a scapegoat for the DRC's wider problems.
  Reuters insisted that the Group of Experts report had been welcomed by the Security Council resolution.  "Because they need that," Gasana replied. "This is the raison d'etre of the Security Council." 

  Nothing was asked there about the fight in the Council on how to described the 1994 genocide and the compromise language in the resolution. AFP's outgoing scribe was there, but asked nothing. Nor when the DRC Permanent Representative spoke minutes later at the UNTV stakeout, in French. This is how the UN works.
  An hour later at the UN's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq for an update on any accountability for the mass rapes in Minova by units of the Congolese Army the UN supports, and if UN Peacekeeping, led by Herve Ladsous, is investigating links between the Congolese Army and the FDLR militia. On this, Haq said to look at the Council's resolutions. Video here.

  In the January 30 resolution, the language compromised on is "the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed."
  Sources exclusively told Inner City Press that the United States resisted calling it a genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda, even saying that there is a US policy against referring to it in this way.
   Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN for an explanation. It was said one might be forthcoming after the vote.
  Where would such a US policy be written down? It seemed strange, particularly during a time of Holocaust events at the UN, from one aboutHungary to another about Albania.
   On January 29, Inner City Press asked a US Council diplomat, who said spokespeople would be asked. Inner City Press was told to wait for the language to be final, then, for the vote.
  In the Council's January 29 debate, the representative of the DRC spoke about Rwanda and the M23 rebels. Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative replied with a series of questions: was it Rwanda who killed Lumumba? Was Rwanda responsible for Mobutu? Who hosted and failed to separate the genocidaires from Rwanda in 1994?
  This continued on January 30 after the vote.  Rwanda Permanent Representative Gasana said UN Peacekeeping should investigate links between the DRC Army and the FDLR.
  The DRC representative asked to be given specifics about links between his country's army the FARDC and the FDLR militia. The resolution voted on provides:
"Noting with deep concern reports indicating FARDC collaboration with the FDLR at a local level, recalling that the FDLR is a group under United Nations sanctions whose leaders and members inchide perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed, and have continued to promote and commit ethnically based and other killings in Rwanda and in the DRC, and stressing the importance of permanently addressing this threat"
"107. The Group interviewed 10 FARDC soldiers in Tongo, in North Kivu, who reported that FARDC and FDLR regularly meet and exchange operational information. These same sources stated that FARDC soldiers supplied ammunition to the FDLR. Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, denied such collaboration, but declared to the Group that FARDC and FDLR do not fight each other."
  Going further back, it is impossible not to note, particularly given the lack of explanation or transparency, that US Permanent RepresentativeSamantha Power began her 2001 article "Bystanders to Genocide" in the Atlantic with this sentence: "In the course of a hundred days in 1994 the Hutu government of Rwanda and its extremist allies very nearly succeeded in exterminating the country's Tutsi minority."
  Given that, why would the US Mission be saying it had a policy of describing the genocide as being against the Tutsi minority? Inner City Press asked again: Since I'm told that the US has said that there is a government position not to say the 1994 genocide was against the Tutsis, can you say what that policy is? Why does it exist? Does it apply to other genocides or atrocities?
  A Rwandan diplomat told Inner City Press these were Hutu killed not because of their ethnicity but because they opposed the genocide against the Tutsi. "This is a precedent," the diplomat said. Watch this site.

   
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Saturday, April 5, 2014

France Won't Go to Rwanda Genocide Memorial, UN Ladsous Questions, DR Congo Then and Now


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 5 -- French foreign ministry spokesperson Romain Nadal has said he is "surprised" at the linking of France to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He shouldn't be. Beyond the documentary evidence, earlier this year at the UN memorial of the genocide with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon present France was named as guilty, see below.

  Nevertheless, now France said that its Justice Minister Christiane Taubira will no longer attend the April 7 memorial in Kigali. Ban Ki-moon will be there -- and some wonder if his (or France's) head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous will go. 

  Rwanda is a major UN troop contributing country, most recently in Central African Republic. But Ladsous, who in 1994 was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, has his own history. Sample memo here. Ladsous argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo -- where "his" UN Peacekeeping, even now, went after the M23, then the ADF while still not the Hutu militia FDLR.
  When Inner City Press asked Ladsous about his history, in the form of a question, Ladsous responded by refusing to answer any Inner City Press questions, even about precautions against spreading cholera as UN Peacekeeping did in Haiti. Video compilation here, UK coverage here, yet
more here, on what to call the 1994 genocide.
   At the Kwibuka 20 ceremony at the UN on February 27, from the podium France was twice blamed for working with genocidaires and helping them escape into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  On the podium Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has praised French troops even his UN human rights counterpart Navi Pillay noted they'd left Muslim communities vulnerable to attack, looked uncomfortable. 
  Ban mentioned his "Rights Up Front" program, without mentioning its roots in the 2009 failure of his UN in Sri Lanka, as tens of thousands were killed. 
   Following Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana, genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza spoke movingly of barely escaping slaughter, but then speaking of forgiveness.  Gerald Caplan said he would be less forgiving, and was. 
   He twice blamed France, specifically for Operation Turquoise which current UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous defended and promoted in the Security Council in 1994 as France's deputy permanent representative, click here for a memo.
   Caplan also mentioned Bill Clinton, for example -- but Clinton has apologized, unlike Ladsous. Instead, Ladsous simply refuses to answer this and other critical questions at the UN, and the UN accepts it, even tried to dictate how Ladsous can be covered.
  Forgiveness is one thing, and censorship is another. The February 27 ceremony was nothing but class. But day to day at the UN, with scribes braying about only the M23 and not the FDLR, it's another story.
  Even earlier on February 27, when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky when UN Peacekeeping will go after the Hutu FDLR militia, he responded he would not speak to operational activities that "have not yet started and that might not start." Click here for that.
   In late January after the Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions resolution was adopted by the UN Security Council, 15-0, Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana emerged from the Council chamber. Inner City Press asked him about his DRC counterpart's comment that Gasana was educated in the Congo. Video here and embedded below.
  Gasana laughed and said he was born in Burundi. He mused that the Congolese might want to adopt him. Then he turned to go.
  Wire services Reuters and Agence France-Presse pursued him to the esclator, where Reuters UN bureau chief asked Gasana about Rwanda being accused of supporting the M23. Gasana replied that the DRC has other problems, for example in Katanga. He said Rwanda is a scapegoat for the DRC's wider problems.
  Reuters insisted that the Group of Experts report had been welcomed by the Security Council resolution.  "Because they need that," Gasana replied. "This is the raison d'etre of the Security Council." 

  Nothing was asked there about the fight in the Council on how to described the 1994 genocide and the compromise language in the resolution. AFP's outgoing scribe was there, but asked nothing. Nor when the DRC Permanent Representative spoke minutes later at the UNTV stakeout, in French. This is how the UN works.
  An hour later at the UN's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq for an update on any accountability for the mass rapes in Minova by units of the Congolese Army the UN supports, and if UN Peacekeeping, led by Herve Ladsous, is investigating links between the Congolese Army and the FDLR militia. On this, Haq said to look at the Council's resolutions. Video here.

  In the January 30 resolution, the language compromised on is "the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed."
  Sources exclusively told Inner City Press that the United States resisted calling it a genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda, even saying that there is a US policy against referring to it in this way.
   Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN for an explanation. It was said one might be forthcoming after the vote.
  Where would such a US policy be written down? It seemed strange, particularly during a time of Holocaust events at the UN, from one aboutHungary to another about Albania.
   On January 29, Inner City Press asked a US Council diplomat, who said spokespeople would be asked. Inner City Press was told to wait for the language to be final, then, for the vote.
  In the Council's January 29 debate, the representative of the DRC spoke about Rwanda and the M23 rebels. Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative replied with a series of questions: was it Rwanda who killed Lumumba? Was Rwanda responsible for Mobutu? Who hosted and failed to separate the genocidaires from Rwanda in 1994?
  This continued on January 30 after the vote.  Rwanda Permanent Representative Gasana said UN Peacekeeping should investigate links between the DRC Army and the FDLR.
  The DRC representative asked to be given specifics about links between his country's army the FARDC and the FDLR militia. The resolution voted on provides:
"Noting with deep concern reports indicating FARDC collaboration with the FDLR at a local level, recalling that the FDLR is a group under United Nations sanctions whose leaders and members inchide perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed, and have continued to promote and commit ethnically based and other killings in Rwanda and in the DRC, and stressing the importance of permanently addressing this threat"
"107. The Group interviewed 10 FARDC soldiers in Tongo, in North Kivu, who reported that FARDC and FDLR regularly meet and exchange operational information. These same sources stated that FARDC soldiers supplied ammunition to the FDLR. Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, denied such collaboration, but declared to the Group that FARDC and FDLR do not fight each other."
  Going further back, it is impossible not to note, particularly given the lack of explanation or transparency, that US Permanent RepresentativeSamantha Power began her 2001 article "Bystanders to Genocide" in the Atlantic with this sentence: "In the course of a hundred days in 1994 the Hutu government of Rwanda and its extremist allies very nearly succeeded in exterminating the country's Tutsi minority."
  Given that, why would the US Mission be saying it had a policy of describing the genocide as being against the Tutsi minority? Inner City Press asked again: Since I'm told that the US has said that there is a government position not to say the 1994 genocide was against the Tutsis, can you say what that policy is? Why does it exist? Does it apply to other genocides or atrocities?
  A Rwandan diplomat told Inner City Press these were Hutu killed not because of their ethnicity but because they opposed the genocide against the Tutsi. "This is a precedent," the diplomat said. Watch this site.

   
Posted by at

Thursday, February 27, 2014

At UN, Rwanda Genocide Twice Blamed on France, Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping Neutralization of FDLR "Has Not Started and May Not Start"


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 27, more here -- When the Rwanda genocide was remembers at the Kwibuka 20 ceremony at the UN on February 27, from the podium France was twice blamed for working with genocidaires and helping them escape into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  On the podium Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has praised French troops even his UN human rights counterpart Navi Pillay noted they'd left Muslim communities vulnerable to attack, looked uncomfortable. 

  Ban mentioned his "Rights Up Front" program, without mentioning its roots in the 2009 failure of his UN in Sri Lanka, as tens of thousands were killed. 

   Following Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana, genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza spoke movingly of barely escaping slaughter, but then speaking of forgiveness.  Gerald Caplan said he would be less forgiving, and was. 
   He twice blamed France, specifically for Operation Turquoise which current UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous defended and promoted in the Security Council in 1994 as France's deputy permanent representative, click here for a memo.
   Caplan also mentioned Bill Clinton, for example -- but Clinton has apologized, unlike Ladsous. Instead, Ladsous simply refuses to answer this and other critical questions at the UN, and the UN accepts it, even tried to dictate how Ladsous can be covered.
  Forgiveness is one thing, and censorship is another. The February 27 ceremony was nothing but class. But day to day at the UN, with scribes braying about only the M23 and not the FDLR, it's another story.
  Even earlier on February 27, when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky when UN Peacekeeping will go after the Hutu FDLR militia, he responded he would not speak to operational activities that "have not yet started and that might not start." Click here for that.
   In late January after the Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions resolution was adopted by the UN Security Council, 15-0, Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana emerged from the Council chamber. Inner City Press asked him about his DRC counterpart's comment that Gasana was educated in the Congo. Video here and embedded below.
  Gasana laughed and said he was born in Burundi. He mused that the Congolese might want to adopt him. Then he turned to go.
  Wire services Reuters and Agence France-Presse pursued him to the esclator, where Reuters UN bureau chief asked Gasana about Rwanda being accused of supporting the M23. Gasana replied that the DRC has other problems, for example in Katanga. He said Rwanda is a scapegoat for the DRC's wider problems.
  Reuters insisted that the Group of Experts report had been welcomed by the Security Council resolution.  "Because they need that," Gasana replied. "This is the raison d'etre of the Security Council." 

  Nothing was asked there about the fight in the Council on how to described the 1994 genocide and the compromise language in the resolution. AFP's outgoing scribe was there, but asked nothing. Nor when the DRC Permanent Representative spoke minutes later at the UNTV stakeout, in French. This is how the UN works.
  An hour later at the UN's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked the UN's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq for an update on any accountability for the mass rapes in Minova by units of the Congolese Army the UN supports, and if UN Peacekeeping, led by Herve Ladsous, is investigating links between the Congolese Army and the FDLR militia. On this, Haq said to look at the Council's resolutions. Video here.

  In the January 30 resolution, the language compromised on is "the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed."
  Sources exclusively told Inner City Press that the United States resisted calling it a genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda, even saying that there is a US policy against referring to it in this way.
   Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN for an explanation. It was said one might be forthcoming after the vote.
  Where would such a US policy be written down? It seemed strange, particularly during a time of Holocaust events at the UN, from one aboutHungary to another about Albania.
   On January 29, Inner City Press asked a US Council diplomat, who said spokespeople would be asked. Inner City Press was told to wait for the language to be final, then, for the vote.
  In the Council's January 29 debate, the representative of the DRC spoke about Rwanda and the M23 rebels. Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative replied with a series of questions: was it Rwanda who killed Lumumba? Was Rwanda responsible for Mobutu? Who hosted and failed to separate the genocidaires from Rwanda in 1994?
  This continued on January 30 after the vote.  Rwanda Permanent Representative Gasana said UN Peacekeeping should investigate links between the DRC Army and the FDLR.
  The DRC representative asked to be given specifics about links between his country's army the FARDC and the FDLR militia. The resolution voted on provides:
"Noting with deep concern reports indicating FARDC collaboration with the FDLR at a local level, recalling that the FDLR is a group under United Nations sanctions whose leaders and members inchide perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed, and have continued to promote and commit ethnically based and other killings in Rwanda and in the DRC, and stressing the importance of permanently addressing this threat"
"107. The Group interviewed 10 FARDC soldiers in Tongo, in North Kivu, who reported that FARDC and FDLR regularly meet and exchange operational information. These same sources stated that FARDC soldiers supplied ammunition to the FDLR. Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, denied such collaboration, but declared to the Group that FARDC and FDLR do not fight each other."
  Going further back, it is impossible not to note, particularly given the lack of explanation or transparency, that US Permanent RepresentativeSamantha Power began her 2001 article "Bystanders to Genocide" in the Atlantic with this sentence: "In the course of a hundred days in 1994 the Hutu government of Rwanda and its extremist allies very nearly succeeded in exterminating the country's Tutsi minority."
  Given that, why would the US Mission be saying it had a policy of describing the genocide as being against the Tutsi minority? Inner City Press asked again: Since I'm told that the US has said that there is a government position not to say the 1994 genocide was against the Tutsis, can you say what that policy is? Why does it exist? Does it apply to other genocides or atrocities?
  A Rwandan diplomat told Inner City Press these were Hutu killed not because of their ethnicity but because they opposed the genocide against the Tutsi. "This is a precedent," the diplomat said. Watch this site.

   
Posted by at

On DR Congo, UN Still Won't Say When - Or If - It Will Go After Hutu FDLR Militia, Day After Feingold Testified Should Be "Soon" - Credibility?


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 27 -- The day after US Special Envoy on the Great Lakes Russ Feingold called for the UN to "soon" neutralize the Hutu FDLR militia, for its own credibility, Inner City Press asked the UN spokesperson when this will start.

   Spokesperson Martin Nesirky responded that he would not answer about "operational activities that have not yet started and that might not start." Given previous UN statements that it was only a question of "when," this "might not start" line triggered a follow up question.

   Will the UN in fact only go after the FDLR if the Congolese Army does so? Spokesperson Nesirky said that "there is always going to be a level of coordination," and that "this is turning into a little bit of an interview here." But shouldn't the questions be answered? Particularly with Ban Ki-moon attending a "Kwibuka 20" memorial to the Rwanda genocide on the afternoon of February 27?

   Also in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 25,  not only Feingold and Ben Affleck testified -- they were joined by former UN envoy Roger Meece.
  When Meece was in charge of the UN Mission MONUSCO, there were questions including raised by Ambassador Susan Rice about failing to protect the victims of the Walikale mass rapes, following by a failed project Inner City Press dubbed "Meece's mills."
  Affleck on February 26 praised Meece's tenure at MONUSCO, perhaps being diplomatic -- but he also called for MONUSCO to sunset, to at long last finish. It's similar to calls in Haiti that the MINUSTAH mission be dissolved and the funds be devoted to combating the cholera the UN brought to the island.
   Affleck talked up a kind of organic chocolate bar -- for sale at Whole Foods, he added -- calling it the "magic of capitalism." This goes over big in the US Senate; Senator Flake called it bipartisan, and both sides (and Affleck) praised Cindy McCain.
  Back on February 25, "Sexual Violence in Conflict" was the topic of US Secretary of State John Kerry and his UK counterpart William Hague. One hoped for an update on or at least mention of the more than 100 rapes by the Congolese Army in Minova in November 2012.
   Instead the news was Kerry saying that there will be no US visas for those who perpetrate or order sexual violence in conflict zones. 
   That was more than 14 months ago, and yet at today's press conference by the UN Mission in the Congo MONUSCO, it was reported that in the already delayed interview of victims in Minova, interviewers spoke with barely a quarter of the more than 200 listed victims. Still no justice. So will there be visas? This is a test case -- for outcome if any of the Affleck - Kerry - Russ Feingold talks as well.
  Yesterday's Kerry - Hague transcript mentioned "DRC" five times, and "Congo" three, but there was nothing on Minova. Instead, the implication is that all the rapes in Eastern Congo are by the M23 -- not the FDLR, much less the Congolese Army, which the US supports.
  So maybe a Minova update next time? Or on February 26, when Kerry meets Great Lakes envoy Russ Feingold as well as Ben Affleck? From the February 25 transcript
Secretary of State Kerry: "In the Great Lakes region, we have just – in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where M23 was active, in the Kampala Accord, which Special Envoy Russ Feingold and Mary Robinson from the United Nations and others were engaged in helping to negotiate, we have a section in there that specifically talks about accountability and prevention of rape as a tool of – and holding people accountable in M23 for these acts."
  Back on January 13, after UN envoy Martin Kobler told the Security Council about "the need to address ill-discipline within the [Congolese Army] FARDC and National Police and to pursue all outstanding cases of misconduct," Inner City Press asked him about the FARDC's mass rapes at Minova in November 2012. 
  Kobler acknowledged that the most recent hearing in the Minova case had been postponed, that witness statements have still not been taken. Video here, from Minute 6:32. 
  Given that the UN says it has a Human Rights Due Diligence Policy of not supporting army units engaged in abuses, how much longer will the UN accept this? Thirteen months and counting.
  Perhaps relatedly, after rumors of the death of Rwanda's Paul Kagame were shot down, across the border in the Eastern Congo, a time-stamped photograph was tweeted of a UN truck full of people on the back, captioned "MONUSCO in Goma celebrating the death of Pres Paul Kagame."
  It seemed worth asking the UN mission chief Martin Kobler to comment on or explain the photograph, and Inner City Press sent this, to Kobler and three MONUSCO spokespeople:
"Please comment on / explain this time-stamped photo, which is being described as a UN truck participating in "celebrations" of the rumor of the Rwandan president's death. Do you dispute that the photo was taken on January 10? To whom is the UN giving a ride in this truck / photo? In what context?"
   After a time, UN envoy Kobler replied:
"@innercitypress Ceci apparait de toute évidence comme une utilisation frauduleuse d'un véhicule de la #Monusco. C'est inacceptable"
  Translated: "This appears clearly as a fraudulent use of a vehicle of the #Monusco. This is unacceptable."
(Translation not by Google, not only because of NSA spying issues but also acquiescence in Digital Millennium Copyright Act abuse by Reuters UN bureau, click here for that.)
  The question became, now what does Kobler, or those above him in New York, do?  
  Inner City Press on January 10 went to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's press conference, 11 am in New York, to ask this question: "in the DRC this morning, after false rumors of Paul Kagame being dead, a MONUSCO truck was photographed in what some call celebrations and Martin Kobler told me is "unacceptable." What do you think your UN should do about this, in terms of the perception of impartiality or bias by the UN?"
  But Ban's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq did not call on Inner City Press, instead automatically giving the first question to the United Nations Correspondents Association(a/k/a UN's Censorship Alliance), then mostly questions soft on the UN about Syria.
  Next came spin from MONUSCO, e-mailed to the Press:
Fraudulent use of MONUSCO truck in Goma

Kinshasa, 10 January 2014 - MONUSCO is aware of a photo being circulated on the internet showing a MONUSCO truck in Goma during a demonstration.

In reality, the truck was taken over by demonstrators while on a regular mission. The driver was alone and unarmed when the incident happened. MONUSCO condemns this agressivity against its assets.

MONUSCO has launched a full investigation to ascertain the circumstances and the context surrounding the incident. 
  But how does the UN explain, then, this UN jeep or Four by Four in this longer video of the anti-Kagame protests, from Minute 1:04 to 1:54? http://youtu.be/L9EPcUOpT1M

 On January 13, Inner City Press asked Kobler about the two vehicles. He said that both had been taken over, which now seems to mean that the UN drivers remained in the vehicles, carrying the protesters, on the single road from Sake to Munigi, through Goma.

  Kobler said the drivers were unarmed, but even if armed would not have tried to get the demonstrators off, at least not be using force. He said the protesters got off or disappeared out by the Uruguayan peacekeepers' base by the airport. There is more than a little skepticism. But that is what Kobler said: video here, from Minute 6:32.

   Watch this site.
   
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