While US Drafted UNSC Statement on Journalists Killed in Mali, Why Doesn't UK on Somalia?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 4 -- After journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were killed in Mali, the UN Security Council quickly approved and issued a press statement strongly condemning the assassinations. 

  The Free UN Coalition for Access deplored the murders too. But in the spirit of journalism, Inner City Press asked: why didn't the Security Council condemn or even note the killing of eight journalists so far this year in Somalia, in which there is also a UN support peacekeeping mission, AMISOM?

  By the Security Council on Monday morning, Inner City Press learned more. First, that perhaps seeing the conflict of interest, France the former colonial power in and "pen holder" on Mali did not circulate the statement. 

   "The United States did it, which was strange,"a Council member told Inner City Press, adding that it seems France asked the US to do it in its stead.

  Another source agreed that it is strange, now, that when journalists are killed in Somalia, the UK as pen holder (or the US in its stead) does not circulate any draft press statements.

 "Maybe it's more sensitive in Somalia," the source said, going on to acknowledge the "politics" of such statements.

 The statement on the killing of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Northern Mali uses the words France or French three times, including concluding that "the members of the Security Council reiterated their full support for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and French forces who support it."

Actually, it was the French army which went in first, in Operation Serval; the UN's MINUSMA went in later, to support the French. For the new Operation Hydra in the North, as noted by Inner City Press, the UN says that MINUSMA is not involved.

The French-drafted Security Council statement begins: "The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the kidnapping and assassination of two French journalists in Kidal, Mali on 2 November 2013."

  Journalistically one must ask: why list the nationality of the reporters killed? While condemning their killing, couldn't the identification of journalists with a particular country and its foreign and military policies be a problem?

  Also, why didn't the Security Council condemn the killing of eight journalists in Somalia so far this year? Why hasn't it said more, as just one example, of the killing of Congolese journalist Floribert Chebeya for which the Congolese government, as on the 135 rapes in Minova by its own troops, has assigned no accountability?

Outside of Africa, why has the Security Council said nothing of the many killings and disappearances of journalists in Sri Lanka, where UK prime minister David Cameron is set to visit this month for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting? Has he yet seen "No Fire Zone"?

Footnote: Surprise grows, alongside the above, that the UN Security Council which must procure 15 approvals or at least 15 non-objections through silence was able to issue a statement on the killing of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who held a press conference about Mali on November 1 and now is there. Ban is listed on a press release about the World Bank allocating $1.5 billion to the Sahel. But still nothing on the killing of the journalists.

Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky on November 1 if Ban (and the World Bank's Jim Kim) will be going to northern Mali and Kidal; this question was not answered. Watch this site.

   

FrancAfrique, 26 Years After Sankara Was Killed, French Pen on DRC, Mali & CAR

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 15 -- Twenty six years ago today, Thomas Sankara was overthrown and killed in a coup led by Blaise Compaore, who still holds on as Burkina Faso's president.

  It was under Sankara that the country's name change from "Upper Volta" to Burkina Faso, land of the upright. History records two meetings of Sankara and France's Francois Mitterand. At the Vittel conference, Mitterand stared stony-faced ahead as Sankara spoke of seeking foreign relations with countries beyond France.

  And later, after South African apartheid leader Pieter Botha had visited France, Sankara criticized Mitterand to his face in Ouagadougou, after Mitterand drove through the streets waving at the crowd. Soon the Compaore coup would kill Sankara, and France and Boigny would congratulate him. The rest is history.

  How different is it, really, when Francois Hollande is driven through Bamako, or now Laurent Fabius through Bangui? How much time has been wasted, how much of FrancAfrique under-developed and by design? Sure, Sankara had some idea that didn't work. But could the Central African Republic be any worse off than it has been under France?

 And new colonies, too: France has laid claim to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, controlling the Security Council's recent trip there, down to which media could go on the "UN" plane.

  France for over sixteen years has controlled UN Peacekeeping, now most outrageously through Herve Ladsous, twice spurned, who was France's Ambassador to the UN during the Rwanda genocide, arguing for the escape of genocidaires into Eastern Congo.

  Consider that on the Security Council France "holds the pen," drafts first and thus controls, the following files: Burundi, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Great Lakes, Mali. Plus ca change. 

 What has been accomplished, for example for CAR? What would Thomas Sankara say? On this day, and going forward, we must ask. Watch this site.

   

After France Hand-Picks Scribes for DRC and Rwanda Trip, Australia Won't Even Confirm the Trip as MONUSCO Has: Of CAR, Leaks & Stakeouts

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 30 -- When outgoing UN Security Council president for September Gary Quinlan of Australia held his "wrap up" press conference on Monday, he twice referred to his country being the "pen holder" on items on the Council's agenda.

  Being the "pen holder" means the right to present the first draft of documents on the item. But has the Security Council allowed it to mean more than that, to the the extent of censorship?

  Earlier on Monday Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky to confirm how decisions were made on which media could accompany the Security Council on its upcoming trip beginning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  Nesirky replied that the decisions were made "in consultation with the lead mission from the Security Council for the entire trip." Video here, from Minute 13:10.

  That "lead mission, the "pen holder" on DRC, is France, which supported the genocidaire government in Rwanda and their post-genocide escape into Eastern Congo.

  So Inner City Press asked Quinlan to explain the goals of this upcoming trip, and how not only the goal but which media can go were decided on.

  Quinlan declined to answer, or even to confirm that there IS a trip. Inner City Press told him, and has since tweeted evidence, that the MONUSCO mission run by Herve Ladsous (the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping) has already been talking publicly about the trip: October 3 in Kinshasa, October 4 in Goma.

Here is an article quoting MONUSCO's spokesperson Madnodje Mounoubai, picked up by the UN's own Radio Okapi.

So there is no basis not to answer. We hope to have more on this.

  Inner City Press also asked Quinlan why there had been n oaction in his month on the Central African Republic. He cited a ministerial meeting which France sponsored at the EU offices. But, surprise, surprise, Inner City Press was not informed of or invited to cover there, either.

Inner City Press asks and reports about CAR, and has in the past routinely been invited to EU briefings, particularly those involving as this did Kristalina Georgieva (who even on Monday was sending replied to the new Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info from the UNHCR meeting in Geneva on Syria, here.) But not this one.

Similarly for UNSC Africa trips in the past, in 2008 to the DRC and as it turned out Rwanda, and 2010 to Uganda and elsewhere, Inner City Press went after in one case it was explained that France tried to block or "veto" it (for noting France's history in the region), but then co-leader of the trip South Africa said it was not for France to censor the Press.

What happened this time? Actually, there are separate leaders for each leg of the trip, Inner City Press has learned and, after Nesirky's answer, has reported.

Also in his end of presidency press conference, Quinlan twice joked about the leaking of his draft Presidential Statement on humanitarian access in Syria, saying "WE didn't leak it" to Reuters. It is not hard to figure out for whom Reuters' UN Bureau serves as a pass through (and for whom it spies: click here for story, here for document, here for audio.) It was pointed out that Agence France Presse had it to -- natch. We'll have more on this.

Footnote: on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, Inner City Press thanked Quinlan for the relatively many stakeouts he did in September, noting that one on Abyei was somewhat needlessly delayed. It was a month more transparent than most, thought, to be repeated in November 2014. Watch this site.