UN Peacekeeping in DR Congo, Kobler Under Ladsous, Won't Explain French Colonial Domination, FrancAfrique

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 6 -- If the UN Security Council had gone on a trip to Iraq to visit "its" UNAMI peacekeeping mission, would the United States have been allowed to alone hand-pick which media could go on the UN plane and cover the trip?

That is what was allowed to happen on the Security Council's current trip to Africa. The UN has admitted, on camera, that France was allowed to pick which media would fly in the UN plane, from Kinshasa to Goma to Kigali to Entebbe to Addis Ababa.

  Thus the UN (and its Security Council) have enshrined FranceAfrique, and colonialism. How can it be justified?

  Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky cut off the question, telling Inner City Press that the other correspondents in the room didn't care to hear about Inner City Press' travel arrangements, or lack thereof. Video here. 

  So Inner City Press has put the question to Martin Kobler, the UN's top envoy in the Council trip's first stop, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As luck would have it, Kobler was previously the top envoy in Iraq. Would he have accepted a "Security Council" trip with media hand picked only by the US?

  But Kobler hasn't answered. Nor has his MONUSCO provided any transcript of what its Dee Brillenburg Wurth "told reporters," about M23 child soldiers coming from and being trained by Rwanda, and the DRC being blameless. (See hand-picked Reuters piece here.)

   Kobler tweeted that his head of office in Goma Ray Torres was updating the Council about negotiations involving Mai Mai Cheka, sanctioned for mass rape. No clarification, or transcript, has been provided. Will it now, that France's Genocide Joyride has moved to to Rwanda?

  A press conference was held at the Goma airport; Kobler tweeted a photograph but hasn't answered why France was allowed to pick the journalists to cover the trip. The UN's Radio Okapi, during the Goma press conference, was broadcasting... sports. Call it bread and circuses.

  So is the UN, or at least UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head DPKO, a vehicle for neo-colonialism? Is this, as some now say, just France's Genocide Joyride? It seems these questions should be answered. Watch this site.

   

In Goma, UNSC Hears of Rapist Cheka, Any Follow-Up on Minova Rapes by DRC Army, Mayele?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 5 -- It's all coming together. Or is it? Now the UN announces that its envoy on Sexual Violence and Conflict, Zainab Bangura, will be in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the same time as the Security Council.

  So will answers belatedly be given, publicly, about the 135 rapes in Minova in November by units of the Congolese Army to which UN Peacekeeping continues to provide support?

  Inner City Press asked Bangura, and UK foreign secretary William Hague, about accountability for the Minova rapes back on September 24 at the UN General Debate. Video here, from Minute 7:22.

  Hague referred the question to Bangura, since it had to do with the UN. (This seems strange, since it is member states, particularly the Permanent Five with which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon now almost exclusive deals on the matters he deems important, which oversee the UN.)

  Bangura first answered about sexual exploitation, meaning abuse by UN Peacekeepers themselves: the Sri Lankan peacekeeper in Haiti (no update), the Chad MINUSMA soldiers accused of rape in Gao (natch).

  Then she told Inner City Press that the best place to ask about the Minova rapes is "DPKO." But Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Herve Ladsous has repeatedly refused to answer Inner City Press questions about Minova and other abuses. Video compilation here.

As Inner City Press reported yesterday, while the French picked scribes on the trip either trashed Rwanda (Reuters) or wrote a UN fluff piece (VOA), US Ambassador Samantha Power raised the issue to DRC President Joseph Kabila, and UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant raised it to three ministers.

  But what was the response? Inner City Press has asked the US Mission to the UN, including because one of the Minova rape units, the 391st Battalion, was US trained, and others. The answers should be public.

Meanwhile of the commander of a previous mass rape at Wakikale, Mai Mai Cheka a/k/a Ntabo Ntaberi, MONUSCO chief Martin Kobler tweeted, en francais bien sure, "Le chef de bureau de Goma nous informe sur les negociations en cours a #Pinga entre #Cheka et Janvier (#APCLS)."

  That is, the Head of MONUSCO's Goma office gave then an update on the negotiations taking place at Pinga between Janvier of APCLS and Cheka.

  Does MONUSCO so blandly give updates on talks involving mass rapists? And what is the reaction? Inner City Press has asked.

  In 2010 Bangura's predecessor Margot Wallstrom bragged of the arrest of ‘Lieutenant Colonel’ Mayele. But what ever happened with him? 

  What has happened with the two Congolese Army officers, jailed for human rights abuses, who recently escape with help from the prison at Bukavu? Inner City Press twice asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky, and neither time did he answer. Where is the follow-through? Watch this site.