In DR Congo, Some Applause for UNSC, But Why? As French Picked Scribes Go Silent, Genocide Joyride

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 5 -- The UN Security Council is in Kinshasa and there is a lot of happy talk. As of Friday night it was unclear if President Joseph Kabila would hold a direct meeting with the Council. By Saturday some Council diplomats were tweeting about Kabila's speech to the closing of the national consultation, and noting that they or the UN received applause.

It's nice. But what does it mean? If the SADC Intervention Brigade had killed more M23, or even just Rwandaphones, the Council members might be applauded. Would that be good?

Inner City Press was on a previous 2010 Security Council trip to Africa -- France banned it from this one -- and saw the Council applauded in South Sudan, and protested in Sudan. Did the cheering in Juba mean that everything was going to work out? Just ask people in Jonglei.

  The Council met with DR Congo foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda, who in the Council in New York in July said that all rebellions in Eastern Congo bear the same "genetic signature." Was this troubling line clarified? Or was the applause too loud?

  In 2013 many of the diplomats are doing their own tweeting, which is all to the good. Shocking is that the journalists that France hand-picked for the trip have send out NOTHING.

For Reuters, the last two tweets were October 2 and 3, both before the trip. The first was about humanitarian aid to Syria, blaming all blockages on the Assad government with no mention, for example, for the ISIS rebels' threats against aid workers in Jarabulus, which the EU's Kristalina Georgieva has acknowledged to the Free UN Coalition for Access@FUNCA_info (by twitter, no less).

The second was about child soldiers, a swipe at Rwanda. Maybe that's why Reuters will finally start reporting: to trash Rwanda and focus only on the M23, nothing on the FDLR. 

  That's how Reuters presented the last Group of Experts report on the DRC, until Inner City Press obtained and exclusively put the full text online, showing DRC Army involvement with the FDLR, in illegal mining and, yes, recruitment of child soldiers.

The Security Council wouldn't get applause in Kinshasa for that part of the report. So should they not have reported it?

Voice of America's last tweets are not even about news - they are about the UN Correspondents Association, through which VOA tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, citing its coverage of Sri Lanka and, yes, France and the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, with his own troubling history in the Great Lakes region, here.

  Could that be why they were hand picked by France for this trip, which some for that reason call France's Genocide Joyride. But report, at least.

Inner City Press has asked the UN if there will be any meetings with opposition in the DRC, and to name the civil society groups to be met with in Goma. The UN won't respond - but Rwanda's foreign minister sent a response, about her countries hope for the trip.

But apparently some in the Council, and UN, measure the success of their trip by what applause they got. That is not the measure. Watch this site.

Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson Martin Nesirky on camera admitted that the decision on which media would be allowed to go on and cover the UNSC's Africa trip was made "in consultation" with the lead mission for the trip: France. Inner City Press YouTube channel video here:http://youtu.be/N_nn8lToeUU

This was sent to Inner City Press:

From: Jerome Bernard [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: Security Council trip to Africa
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at] InnerCityPress [dot] com
Cc: Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info

Hi Matthew,

I am sorry but because of the very limited number of seats in the UN plane it won't be possible for you to travel with the Security Council for this trip to the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

I am sure there will be other opportunities for travel in the future.

Best regards,

Jerome Bernard
Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General

Inner City Press was told that Bernard would be providing information from the trip. Then not. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Cuba Cites Malvinas, Hugo and Hiroshima Before Samantha Power, AU and Press Access Limited

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- The first speaker in the UN Security Council on Tuesday was Cuba's foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, who eulogized Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, cited Argentina's sovereignty over the Malvinas Island, and mentioned Hiroshima.

  Argentine President Cristina Kirchner thanked US Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo for chairing the Council in July, and welcomed as new US Permanent Representative Samantha Power.

  Given what Power said during her Senate confirmation, including citing the Venezuela of Chavez and now Maduro as a regime, one wondered how she would respond in this, her first Security Council meeting.

  Ethiopia's Permanent Representative Tekeda Alemu, speaking for the African Union, said that the support package and compensation for the AU's AMISOM mission in Somalia should be the same as for UN Peacekeeping missions. 

  For MONUSCO in Eastern Congo, UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous (replaced at Tuesday's session by Edmond Mulet)  is spending 10 million Euros a year on a drone, Selex ES Falco, which previously crashed in Pakistan and Wales. Some note Ladsous' drone could view and film up to 10 kilometers into Uganda and Rwanda.

  Before the meeting, Rwanda's Permanent Representative Gasana chatted with Samantha Power, who devoted much of her book "A Problem from Hell" to the UN's, US' and France's inaction during the Rwanda genocide.

  One wondered if US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki's July 23 statement on external support to M23, seemingly scripted by Human Rights Watch and sussed out by a planted questions from Voice of America, which is run by the US State Department with John Kerry on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, would come up, or the Congolese foreign minister's July 24 statement that all rebellions in the Great Lakes bear the same "genetic signature," on which the US Mission to the UN never commented.

  It's been asked: did the minister mean that former rebel Joseph Kabila bears the same genetic signature?

  The UN, when also asked by Inner City Press, said it had no comment on the "genetic signature" citation in the Council.

For Tuesday's Security Council meeting, for the first time the Press was banned from using the southern entrance and exit of the Council stakeout (still without a media work table), a limitation nowhere to be found in the so-called Media Access Guidelines the UN Department of Public Information agreed to with its UNCA. 

  The limitation of access has been raised by the new Free UN Coalition for Access, both to UN Media Access and Liaison Unit and its supervisor, so far without response.Libertad de prensa! Watch this site.

   

On DRC's "Genetic Signature" Line, UN's Ban Won't Comment, Kerry "Didn't Hear," France Mute

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 27 -- In the UN Security Council on July 25, 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).

Given the mass killing of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 and events since, this line was quickly seen, including by diplomats from UN Missions including that of the United States, but only not for attribution, as hate speech or worse.

Inner City Press went to the UN's July 26 noon briefing and put the question to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's outgoing spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey:

Inner City Press: Yesterday, possibly even while this briefing was taking place, the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in his prepared remarks that he read in the Security Council, said that rebellions in the Great Lakes region all bear a similar genetic signature. And many people have seen this as a problematic statement given the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and its ethnic basis. And so what I wanted to know is, the Secretariat, do they have any comment on the use of what some people see as hate speech inside the Great Lakes meeting of the UN Security Council?

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: No, we’re not going to comment on that, Matthew. If people find it offensive, it’s up to them to take it up with the Congolese authorities.

  This hands-off approach stands in contrast to cases in which Ban Ki-moon has chosen to criticize comments, like those questioning who did Nine Eleven, about about the Boston bombing, by what Ban described as an independent special rapporteur. Given the resonance of genetic signature to genocide and the number of people killed, why take this approach here? Convenience?

  Outside the US Mission to the UN on July 25, Inner City Press asked Secretary of State John Kerry about his Congolese counterpart's reference to "genetic signature." Kerry stopped and ask for clarification, then replied that he heard the Congolese minister's comment. He was chairing the meeting.

UN video here at 1:06:20 

A written request to the US Mission to the UN for comment, including Tshibanda's prepared speech and a link to the video as delivered, has yet to be responded to (although there was an oral update).

A similar question, including on the Intervention Brigade slated to be run by Frenchman Herve Ladsous in Eastern Congo, has gone entirely unresponded to by four French Mission spokespeople, including Frederic Jung.

  The UK has told Inner City Press they are looking into the questions with their DRC expert. Still, delegates from other UN and Security Council members marvel at what was said, and the lack of response. "They want to pretend they're solving things there, so they just let it go," one said.

  To be fair, Inner City Press asked a member of the Congolese delegation about the comment, expect to have its meaning spun as has to done to Inner City Press on Twitter. But the Congolese delegate told Inner City Press, No, that was exactly what we intended, we did not want to say it more directly. And even then -- would Ban, or Kerry, or the French or UK mission, have responded to any way? Watch this site.

  

Syria / Saudi Opposition Chief Al Jarba To Hold Pseudo Briefing With UN Censorship Alliance, UNCA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 -- There is a hunger among some at the UN that Ahmad al-Jarba, President of the Syrian Coalition turn out to be authentic, credible, open. 

  This was reflected by how quickly Thursday the ostensibly big issue of the Congo and Great Lakes was dropped to chase around al-Jarba and his entourage. (Inner City Pressvideo, featuring US Secretary of State John Kerry, here.)

  But when al-Jarba was announced as the leader of the Syrian Coalition, few had heard of him and those who had declared him as the candidate of Saudi Arabia, which was simultaneously nosing out Qatar in Egypt.

  After al-Jarba et al met with John Kerry on Thursday, it was Kerry who spoke briefing to the media. (Inner City Press asked him about the Congolese minister saying all rebellions in the Great Lakes bear a similar genetic signature; Kerry said he hadn't heard it. But video here, from Minute 1:06:20).

  Al-Jarba et al strode north on First Avenue past the Trump World Tower and into the German mission, after which leaks and a press release issued.

  But when al-Jarba deigned to take question from the media, it was not at a UN press conference or one elsewhere open and publicized to all UN accredited journalists. Rather it was with an increasingly questionable subset, the United Nations Correspondents Association, which sent notice only to its dues paying members.

  Inner City Press has shown that UNCA's first vice president Louis Charbonneau leaked to the UN's top accreditation official an ostensibly internal UNCA document three minutes after saying he would not. Story here,document here, audio here.

  Even after this was documented, UNCA took no action. This is a dubious organization.

  Charbonneau and current UNCA president Pamela Falk of CBS News made a variety of statements after, as an alternative to UNCA which tries to get the investigative press thrown out of the UN, the Free UN Coalition for Access was formed.  On the record audio here, and here (Falk); here andhere (Charbonneau).

  In full disclosure, Inner City Press first crossed swords with UNCA when its then president organized such a pseudo UN event for the government of Sri Lanka to deny war crimes charges. Click here.

  To prop UNCA up (while threatening to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' accreditation unless it takes down even a FUNCA sign from the door to it shared office), the UN gives UNCA an office, Press passes for their non-journalist interns (who take "focus booth" space denied to actual working journalists), and a big meeting room for events like the one with al Jarba.

  From an UNCA source, not from UNCA, not posted on the door to its UN given, locked meeting room, Inner City Press has obtained the notice sent out only to those who paid money:

UNCA will hold a press briefing with the delegation of the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces tomorrow, Friday, July 26th in the UNCA Meeting room S-310 soon after the informal UN Security Council Meeting.

The delegation will include:

Ahmad al-Jarba, President of the Syrian Coalition

Michel Kilo and Burhan Ghalioun, Syrian Coalition members and members of the Syrian Coalition Political Committee

Dr. Najib Ghadbian, Special Representative of the Syrian Coalition to the United Nations

We will send an update on a time in the morning.

  Why would the UN give its -- the member states' -- space to a group that invites only some types of speakers, and does not publicize it to all UN accredited journalists? And what does this birds of a feather connection say about al-Jarba et al? 

  Why not just do it in the Saudi mission? Or have Saudi Arabia sponsor a real press conference, in the UN briefing room, publicized and comfortable to all UN accredited journalists? Why indeed. Watch this site.

   

For Kerry - Syria Opposition Photo Op, 2 Hours in US Mission Hallway, DR Congo Ironies

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 -- When US Secretary of State John Kerry came to New York on Thursday, he chaired aUN Security Council meeting at which the Democratic Republic of the Congo foreign minister said all rebellions in the region has the "same genetic signature."

  Despite this, most of the media interest was in Kerry's 4:20 pm meeting at the US Mission to the UN with representatives of the Syrian opposition. 

  On July 24 at the State Department, spokesperson Jen Psaki said Kerry "plans to meet with SOC President Jarba and other members of the coalition, including Michel Kilo and Burhan Ghalioun. They will discuss the current situation in Syria, how to support a process of political dialogue and the Geneva conference, and ways to bolster our assistance to local communities in coordination with the SOC."

  There was an irony. A recurrent message at the Security Council meeting in the morning, and from the State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, was that foreign countries should not support rebels inside the DR Congo. But support to rebels in Syria is not criticized: it is welcomed, it is engaged in.

  The press was told that to come to the 4:20 pm photo op -- there was a mention of a briefing, but that was clarified in the morning as a mis-statement -- they'd have to arrive at the US Mission at 3:15 pm. It's directly across First Avenue from the UN, and Inner City Press and 30-some other journalists went there while the Congo meeting proceeded.

  To put it diplomatically, this being UN-world, things could have been better planned. The thirty-some journalists were shepherded up to a second floor hallway where they stood for two hours. 

  It became to smell like a locker room, as one correspondent put it. From time to time a Mission staffer would disappear behind the door - a quick waft of air conditioning - but without an explanation.

  At 5:12 pm, the remaining journalists (some had left) were let into the room. On one side of a table sat John Kerry and his team, on the other, the opposition. They made small talk for less than a minute to the click click of cameras. (An Inner City Press tweeted photo is here.) Then the media was asked to leave. There was groaning, there was push back.

  Were this to happened inside the UN, the new Free UN Coalition for Access which Inner City Press co-founded would protest, as it did the truncation of the UN noon briefing earlier in the day. But does or should FUNCA work on press access and treatment issues at Mission? It has been asked to. And so it will. Watch this site.

 (On DRC's "genetic signature" line, Inner City Press has asked the US Mission if Kerry, Russ Feingold or the Mission's Acting Chief have any comment. As of 5:45 pm, none - but we remain hopeful.)

    

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.