On Rwanda and DR Congo History, MONUC.org Gone, No MONUSCO.org Yet, Ladsous' Drone Games

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 7, 2014 -- A month after UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous having purged Congolese and Rwanda historical documents by letting go of the MONUC.org domain was exposed by Inner City Press, more spin and snafus have come to light.

    The MONUSCO mission, which has yet to explain how the UN's stated "Human Rights Due Diligence" policy will apply to its support of the Minova rape units of the Congolese Army now that impunity has been confirmed, bragged of using its drones to spot a ship sinking. 

    To some using the incident to promote drones seems self-serving, with Ladsous talking up drones in the Central African Republic.  

  But when Inner City Press sought to track down the underlying MONUSCO press release, the mission's Twitter profile page's link to "MONUSCO.org" results in "This Site Is Under Construction." Click here to view.

    So under Ladsous, with his own history in 1994 in the Great Lakes region, UN Peacekeeping purged the information in MONUC.org -- and links to a MONUSCO.org that is "Under Construction." It's akin to some to France's position in boycotting the April 7, 2014 ceremony in Kigali commemorating the 1994 Rwanda genocide: a wish by some that history can be erased, or in this case purged and (partially) rebuilt, under construction.

  Again we ask: when UN Peacekeeping closes down or even just re-names one of its missions, what remains of its history, including its website and domain? 

  Well at least under Herve Ladsous as regards the oldMONUC.org, now renamed MONUSCO, history is purged, sold off, covered up. 

   And then, tellingly, the UN dissembles, today telling Inner City Press that MONUC.org is not really gone. But it is - click here and watch as www.MONUCO.org redirects to www.waypathinternet.com - and along with it, history of complicity in the Rwanda genocide.

  On April 7, 2014, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Ladsous openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question about when MONUSCO will belatedly go after the Hutu FDLR militia, saying "Mister, you know I never answer your questions and you know very well why." Video here.

Why, then? Ladsous was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, and he argued for French policies including the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. See sample memo, here.

Ladsous would certainly like that 1994 memo to disappear - in fact, by refusing to answer Press questions he tries to disappear the issue. But consider this:

On the old MONUC missions website, MONUC.org, was this about former UN staffer Callixte Mbarushimana, at a page named http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17015

"Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris

"The serious and consistent allegations against Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, have been a source of considerable embarrassment for the UN for many years. After the evacuation of foreign staff, the 44-year-old computer technician appointed himself as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda, from 10 April to 4 July 1994. He is accused by dozens of witnesses, including former colleagues, militiamen and local administrators, of used his position, and the resources, of the UNDP, to advance the policy of massacres, including the murder of Tutsis who worked for the UNDP. Dressed in military fatigues, armed with a gun and carrying grenades in his belt, witnesses say that he lent the vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to militaryofficers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings."

On a previous April 7, Inner City Press had written about Mbarushimana, citing and linking to MONUC.org. 

  But attempting it on April 7, 2014 it emerged that the UN has not only abandoned the website of its largest and longest running peacekeeping mission - it has allowed a for profit company PathwayInternet.com to take it over. So much for preserving memory. Under Ladsous, the goal seems to be to censor or disappear memory.

  And so on April 8 Inner City Press asked the UN's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq what had happened to MONUC.org, and to the information about the Rwanda genocide that used to be on it. Haq's office returned with this, copied to lead spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, which leaves MONUC.org and that now missing information UNaddressed:

Subject: Your question on DPKO websites
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply
Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:17 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at[ un.org>

Regarding the question you asked about MONUC and other websites of past UN peacekeeping missions, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has the following information:

UN Peacekeeping maintains pages on the UN Peacekeeping website for all past operations http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/

This includes MONUC:

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/

Most active missions run their own local website. In the case of MONUC, we understand their local website was renamed with a new url to reflect the establishment of MONUSCO:

http://www.monusco.unmissions.org/

   But where is MONUC.org and the information that was on it? On the archivedhttp://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/ there appears to be no information on the UN's own Callixte Mburushimana. There are dead links.

  So too out in the world: a "V-Day" website about sexual violence in the DRC, on which Ladsous is now slated to speak on April 9 along with Zainab Bangura and Navi Pillay after Ladsous refused questions about the Minova rapes for months, click here, now points to a non-existent (or covered-up, sold off) page, http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=855&menuOpened=About%20MONUC

   It is noteworthy that despite the ease of verifying where www.MONUC.org points now, the above was sent - but Inner City Press' April 8 question about what Ladsous said about drones or UUAVs has not yet been answered. We'll have more on this.

  Also in Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping there is a process of not speaking in the first place. At the event on April 7, 2014 where Ladsous refused to answer, Inner City Press also asked why for example Ladsous' Western Sahara mission MINURSO has no social media presence. It is listed at the bottom of UN Peacekeeping's website as a "missions with no social media presence."

  The answer given -- not by Ladsous, who refuses Inner City Press questions -- is that for some missions, countries do no give permission for certain equipment or, apparently, Twitter accounts. But who could it be, banning MINURSO in Western Sahara from social media?

Ladsous tries to spoonfeed information to friendly scribes; in his favor first the UN Correspondents Association (requested by Agence France Presse) then the current spokesperson of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have made threats to discourage coverage. There's more on this - but this is yesterday's video, here; this is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

In Rwanda History Purge, Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping Let MONUC.org Go, But Won't Admit It

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 8, 2014 -- When UN Peacekeeping closes down or even just re-names one of its missions, what remains of its history, including its website and domain? 

  Well at least under Herve Ladsous as regards the old MONUC.org, now renamed MONUSCO, history is purged, sold off, covered up. 

   And then, tellingly, the UN dissembles, today telling Inner City Press that MONUC.org is not really gone. But it is - click here and watch as www.MONUCO.org redirects to www.waypathinternet.com - and along with it, history of complicity in the Rwanda genocide.

  On April 7, 2014, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Ladsous openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question about when MONUSCO will belatedly go after the Hutu FDLR militia, saying "Mister, you know I never answer your questions and you know very well why." Video here.

Why, then? Ladsous was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, and he argued for French policies including the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. See sample memo, here.

Ladsous would certainly like that 1994 memo to disappear - in fact, by refusing to answer Press questions he tries to disappear the issue. But consider this:

On the old MONUC missions website, MONUC.org, was this about former UN staffer Callixte Mbarushimana, at a page named http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17015

"Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris

"The serious and consistent allegations against Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, have been a source of considerable embarrassment for the UN for many years. After the evacuation of foreign staff, the 44-year-old computer technician appointed himself as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda, from 10 April to 4 July 1994. He is accused by dozens of witnesses, including former colleagues, militiamen and local administrators, of used his position, and the resources, of the UNDP, to advance the policy of massacres, including the murder of Tutsis who worked for the UNDP. Dressed in military fatigues, armed with a gun and carrying grenades in his belt, witnesses say that he lent the vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to militaryofficers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings."

On a previous April 7, Inner City Press had written about Mbarushimana, citing and linking to MONUC.org. 

  But attempting it on April 7, 2014 it emerged that the UN has not only abandoned the website of its largest and longest running peacekeeping mission - it has allowed a for profit company PathwayInternet.com to take it over. So much for preserving memory. Under Ladsous, the goal seems to be to censor or disappear memory.

  And so on April 8 Inner City Press asked the UN's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq what had happened to MONUC.org, and to the information about the Rwanda genocide that used to be on it. Haq's office returned with this, copied to lead spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, which leaves MONUC.org and that now missing information UNaddressed:

Subject: Your question on DPKO websites
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply
Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:17 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at[ un.org>

Regarding the question you asked about MONUC and other websites of past UN peacekeeping missions, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has the following information:

UN Peacekeeping maintains pages on the UN Peacekeeping website for all past operations http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/

This includes MONUC:

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/

Most active missions run their own local website. In the case of MONUC, we understand their local website was renamed with a new url to reflect the establishment of MONUSCO:

http://www.monusco.unmissions.org/

   But where is MONUC.org and the information that was on it? On the archivedhttp://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/ there appears to be no information on the UN's own Callixte Mburushimana. There are dead links.

  So too out in the world: a "V-Day" website about sexual violence in the DRC, on which Ladsous is now slated to speak on April 9 along with Zainab Bangura and Navi Pillay after Ladsous refused questions about the Minova rapes for months, click here, now points to a non-existent (or covered-up, sold off) page, http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=855&menuOpened=About%20MONUC

   It is noteworthy that despite the ease of verifying where www.MONUC.org points now, the above was sent - but Inner City Press' April 8 question about what Ladsous said about drones or UUAVs has not yet been answered. We'll have more on this.

  Also in Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping there is a process of not speaking in the first place. At the event on April 7, 2014 where Ladsous refused to answer, Inner City Press also asked why for example Ladsous' Western Sahara mission MINURSO has no social media presence. It is listed at the bottom of UN Peacekeeping's website as a "missions with no social media presence."

  The answer given -- not by Ladsous, who refuses Inner City Press questions -- is that for some missions, countries do no give permission for certain equipment or, apparently, Twitter accounts. But who could it be, banning MINURSO in Western Sahara from social media?

Ladsous tries to spoonfeed information to friendly scribes; in his favor first the UN Correspondents Association (requested by Agence France Presse) then the current spokesperson of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have made threats to discourage coverage. There's more on this - but this is yesterday's video, here; this is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

Purging Rwanda History, Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping Let MONUC Mission's Web Domain Go: Covering Up Callixte

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 7, 2014 -- When UN Peacekeeping closes down or even just re-names one of its missions, what remains? Well at least under Herve Ladsous as regards the old MONUC mission in the Congo, now renamed MONUSCO, history is purged, sold off, covered up.

On April 7, 2014, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Ladsous openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question about when MONUSCO will belatedly go after the Hutu FDLR militia, saying "Mister, you know I never answer your questions and you know very well why." Video here.

Why, then? Ladsous was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, and he argued for French policies including the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. See sample memo, here.

Ladsous would certainly like that 1994 memo to disappear - in fact, by refusing to answer Press questions he tries to disappear the issue. But consider this:

On the old MONUC missions website, MONUC.org, was this about former UN staffer Callixte Mbarushimana:

"Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris

"The serious and consistent allegations against Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, have been a source of considerable embarrassment for the UN for many years. After the evacuation of foreign staff, the 44-year-old computer technician appointed himself as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda, from 10 April to 4 July 1994. He is accused by dozens of witnesses, including former colleagues, militiamen and local administrators, of used his position, and the resources, of the UNDP, to advance the policy of massacres, including the murder of Tutsis who worked for the UNDP. Dressed in military fatigues, armed with a gun and carrying grenades in his belt, witnesses say that he lent the vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to militaryofficers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings."

On a previous April 7, Inner City Press had written about Mbarushimana, citing and linking to MONUC.org. 

  But attempting it on April 7, 2014 it emerged that the UN has not only abandoned the website of its largest and longest running peacekeeping mission - it has allowed a for profit company PathwayInternet.com to take it over. So much for preserving memory. Under Ladsous, the goal seems to be to censor or disappear memory.

Also in Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping there is a process of not speaking in the first place. At the event on April 7, 2014 where Ladsous refused to answer, Inner City Press also asked why for example Ladsous' Western Sahara mission MINURSO has no social media presence. It is listed at the bottom of UN Peacekeeping's website as a "missions with no social media presence."

The answer given -- not by Ladsous, who refuses Inner City Press questions -- is that for some missions, countries do no give permission for certain equipment or, apparently, Twitter accounts. But who could it be, banning MINURSO in Western Sahara from social media?

Ladsous tries to spoonfeed information to friendly scribes; in his favor first the UN Correspondents Association (requested by Agence France Presse) then the current spokesperson of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have made threats to discourage coverage. There's more on this - but this is today's video, here; this is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

In Rwanda, UN Bans Real History of Its Inaction and Sri Lanka, A La Francaise, Ladsous Connects

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- At the Rwanda genocide commemoration that France's Justice Minister refused to attend, UN Secretary General gave a speech that did not mention the issue -- that is, the history.

  Of Rwanda in 1994, Ban said

"Many United Nations personnel and others showed remarkable bravery. But we could have done much more. We should have done much more."

   But it was more than inaction. Take, for example, UN staff member Callixte Mbarushimana, who 

"lent vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to military officers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings," as stated in an article that was on the UN's own MONUC mission website, since abandoned or forgotten - covered up? Another UN documents recites his role in "the death of UNDP’s National Personnel Officer, Ms. Florence Ngirumpatse, and a number of refugees in the residence where they had taken refuge."

  The international justice machinery Ban praised fumbled on this.  Now, Ban argues that but for divisions in the Security Council like on Syria, the UN has turned the corner. Referring to what's now called the "Rights Up Front" program, he said

"I have sent my own signal to UN representatives around the world. My message to them is simply this: When you see people at risk of atrocity crimes, do not wait for instructions from afar. Speak up, even if it may offend. Act. Our first duty must always be to protect people -- to protect human beings in need and distress. That is what we have done recently in South Sudan."

  This ignored -- covers up? - the roots of the Rigths Up Front program, the UN's failure in Sri Lanka in 2009 and since.  So, never again?

  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"

   As Inner City Press exclusively put online last June, some of these links were even specified in the UN Group of Experts report, for example:

"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?

 As noted, Inner City Press also has pending with the US State Department a number of requests, including a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the Administration's Atrocities Prevention Board.

  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.

   

Reuters Bashes Rwanda With One Sources from MONUSCO, Brown Nosing DR Congo, Voice of America Fluff, France's Hand-Picked Scribes

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 5 -- While the UN Ambassadors of the US and UK asked the Congolese President and ministers about mass rape committed by their army soldiers in Minova last November (click here for report by Inner City Press), the media hand-picked by France to accompany the trip applied their quite different spin.

Rather than about any problem of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters' correspondent issued a story reciting that one-third of "child soldiers" with the M23 rebels come from Rwanda.

  Extensively quoted is a staffer of the UN Peacekeeping mission, Brillenburg Wurth, who went on to express "surprise at Washington's decision regarding the Democratic Republic of Congo, which last year signed an action plan with the United Nations to stop and prevent recruitment of child soldiers. 'There have been huge results... They don't recruit children any more. There's been zero tolerance,' she said." That's how the Reuters article ends.

  But the mission of UN Peacekeeping, under its fourth Frenchman in a row Herve Ladsous, has not only continued material support to the Congolese Army units which committed the Minova rapes -- it has been to serve the Kabila government in any way possible.

  There is a structural problem here, on which Reuters does not report. After Kabila threatened to throw MONUC out, UN Peacekeeping changed its approach to one of subservience to his government, to remain relevant, even, to simply remain in the country. It did remain, in smaller "MONUSCO" form.

Under Ladsous, who as French Deputy Permanent Representative of France in 1994 argued in the Security Council for the genocidaires to escape from Rwanda into Eastern Congo, the siding against Rwanda has gotten worse. 

  Even shelling of Rwanda was quickly blamed on the M23, which no evidence yet produced. Ladsous refuses to answer Inner City Press questions, video here.

  Now that France was allowed to choose which media could go on the trip and rejected or banned Inner City Press, which went on such trips in 2010 and 2008, its handpicked media issues as its belated first story from the trip an anti-Rwanda piece that could have been written from New York, or anywhere else.

  Meanwhile Voice of America, also selected by France, wrote as its first story a puff piece about a project funded by, you guessed it, the UN Peacekeeping mission. A MONUSCO staffer Laure Gnassou, who tweeted that she had taken France's hand-picked scribes to the project, gets named and praised in the piece. 

  It reads like the worst of UN News Center, or even a UN Peacekeeping press release. Why take along an ostensibly independent journalist (actually, Voice of America is US state media) just to churn out the type of stories UN Peacekeeping writes itself? Why indeed. Watch this site.

   

On Mali, France Drafts Its Own Blank Check for $800M Mission Led by Its Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 15 -- To some it seems strange that France would be the country to draft the Security Council's resolution on Mali, and that its draft would have the Council “welcoming the action of the French forces.”

  But the French draft, which Inner City Press has put online here, would also authorize French forces to use “all necessary means” to intervene.

  Before the draft came out, Inner City Press asked French Permanent Representative Gerard Araud to compare France's plans for Mali with what it did in Cote d'Ivoire, where it operated its own Force Licorne parallel to, and often ultimately directing, the UN mission. Araud declined.

  On Monday Inner City Press asked Araud about Chad saying it will pull its troops from the anti-guerrilla or anti-terrorist fight in Mali. Araud replied, that was an announcement of president Deby, and said it wouldn't immediately impact the negotiations on the proposed new $800 million UN mission, MINUSMA.

  As another comparison, one wonders if the transition from the untried AFISMA to MINUSMA will go better than in the Democratic Republic of Congo, between MONUC and the current discredited MONUSCO.

  Behind it all is Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping. As shown, while Ladsous represented France at the UN during the Rwanda genocide,he argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo.

  Having a DPKO chief independent from France would be one way to counter-act the danger of letting France drafts it own mandate in Mali. But there is an increasing sense of who Ladsous works for. Watch this site.

Footnote: on the green side, the resolution says “to consider the environmental impacts of MINUSMA.” So will there be an Environmental Impact Statement? Watch this site.