On Rapes in Minova, Ladsous Calls Situation Fluid, Won't Say Which Units, Policy Question Dodged

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 30 -- When top UN Peacekeeper Herve Ladsous took questions Friday across First Avenue from the UN, he said apparently without irony that the MONUSCO mission has done a good job in Eastern Congo in the last two weeks.

  Inner City Press asked Ladsous about two specific places in the Kivus: Pinga, on which Ladsous previously refused to answer a Press question, and Minova where at least 22 women were raped after the Congolese Army retreated from Sake.

  Since the UN, specifically Ladsous' Department of Peacekeeping Operations, says it has a Human Rights Due Diligence Policy under which it will not work with or support rights abusers, Inner City Press asked Ladsous whether the Congolese Army units at issue will be named.

  Ladsous dodged the question - better than refusing it, as he did before - saying that the situation was "fluid." He said that Policy will be complied with.

  But when Inner City Press asked again the unanswered question, whether the units of the Congolese Army or FARDC in Minova at the time will be named, Ladsous did not answer at all.

  As Ladsous continued, including to say that he has no problem with the media, his spokesman seem to indicate that more information may be available. 

   We hope it is, and await it, having two days ago emailed three of Ladsous spokespeople, and the two spokespeople of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon whom they copied, these questions on Minova:

"On Minova, (a) which FARDC units were present in Minova when the 21 rapes took place? (b) What was MONUSCO's presence in Minova during this time? (c) What and where are the "appropriate processes" through which DPKO will report? Are any of them public, so that compliance with the Human Rights Due Diligence Policy can be assessed?"

  As soon as these questions are answered, we will report the answers in full. Until then, we will keep asking.

   Inner City Press had to leave Friday's event, after several more statements, to continue to cover the Security Council debate on Women, Peace and Security. Ladsous spoke there, with no mention on Minova or abuses by the Congo forces that MONUSCO works with.

   Nor did no respond on the reports, including in TIME Magazine, that Mai Mai Cheka rebels decapitated civilians in Pinga and the MONUSCO peacekeepers there did nothing.

The event, entitled "Telling the Peacekeeping Story Better," was held across First Avenue at the International Peace Institute, on whose Syria program Inner City Press also recently reported / tweeted. 

  The program of the "Storytelling on Peacekeeping" event is or will soon be here -- several of the other panelists and participants spoke movingly, for example about winning over a BBC reporter to the UN's work in Sierra Leone by actually explaning and answering questions about it -- and video should be available shortly (though UN Peacekeeping's link to it wasn't working at press time.) We may have more on all this. Watch this site.

Exclusive: WFP High Spending on Ertharin Cousin's Housing & Chicago Trip, Palm in Dubai, Golden Parachutes

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, November 29, updated -- World Food Program executive director Ertharin Cousin today issued a statement on WFP's assistance to people living with AIDS in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

  Earlier in the month before US Thanksgiving her office issued video of Cousin visiting Syrian refugees in Zaatari Camp in Jordan.

   But WFP has not answered a series of questions about its and Cousin's spending which concerned WFP staff have exclusively provided to Inner City Press, seeking to reform what they see as injury to their agency by waste and even fraud.

   Sources and documents obtained by Inner City Press show WFP Executive Director Cousin asking for an increase of nearly €24,000 euros for her housing allowance, up to €160,000 per year.

   They show use of WFP funds for a recent Thanksgiving trip to Chicago which, several WFP staff say, was not mostly WFP work.

  Click here for itinary of the November 20-25 trip, of which a WFP staff member complained to Inner City Press that WFP's "Executive Director has also taken it upon herself to fly (business class no less) on the UN’s dime to spend thanksgiving at home in her hometown of Chicago, stay at a nice hotel, attend a homecoming reception, and speak at the International Law Committee -- none of which has anything remotely to do with WFP’s work of responding to emergencies and eliminating world hunger."

  The above is not an "anti-UN" perspective, but that of a long time UN worker anger by perceived waste and abuse, which should be answered.

  The sources point to what they call a sole source consulting contract Counsin gave to Piers Campbell for "consulting," without transparency.

   Agency-wide, Inner City Press has asked the cost to WFP of the global management meeting next week in Dubai -- how many WFP staff will stay in the Hotel Atlantis the Palm at Palm Jumeirah, and elsewhere in Dubai, at what cost and for what?

   Cousin was a major Obama administration appointee, and the adminstration often speaks at the UN in New York against pay increases for staff, and about "interns flying business class." 

   It is not clear how that is applied to the above, or to the Cousin-proposed $20 million package of "golden parachutes" for WFP staff (in paragraph 227 of the Management Plan) regardless of their performance, as e-mailed out by Ruth Grove, Acting Director of WFP's Human Resources Division.

Inner City Press, despite having documents, would have liked to have and included WFP's and Cousin's responses. 

  Two days ago Inner City Press asked four separate WFP spokespeople, in Rome, London and New York, including Emilia Casella, Vichi Demarchi and Gregory Barrow, the following "questions for WFP on deadline:

1) Please state the cost to WFP of the global management meeting next week in Dubai -- how many WFP staff will stay in the Hotel Atlantis the Palm at Palm Jumeirah, and elsewhere in Dubai, at what cost and for what?

2) Please deny or confirm and comment on the WFP Executive Director asking for an increase of nearly €24,000 euros for her housing allowance, up to €160,000 per annum.

3) Please deny or confirm and comment on the Executive Director giving a six figure ($150,000 we are told) non-competitive contract to Piers Campbell for "consulting" -- what were / are the deliverables and terms of references, and past personal contact?

4) Please comment on the $20 million package of "golden parachutes" for WFP staff (in paragraph 227 of the Management Plan) regardless of their performance

5) Please state the cost to WFP of the Executive Director's Thanksgiving trip to Chicago, how much of it was WFP business (and please explain, for example the speech)."

But rather than answers, to questions which are based on documents, there came only another statement by Executive Director Cousin. The questions should be answered -- and, ironically, asked by Cousin's US government which is so funding WFP. Watch this site.

Update: on December 3, WFP sent a number of answers, which less than an hour after received Inner City Press reported here.

On Palestine, US Pressure Gets Pacific Abstentions, Scorn at Slovenia, ICC Games

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, November 29, updated Nov 30 -- When finally the UN resolution on Palestine as an Observer State came to a vote, it passed with 138 in favor, 41 abstentions and only nine against. 

  Inner City Press had predicted ten negative votes, even days before the vote. But things change.

  Ultimately the negative nine were the US, Palau, Micronesia, Marshall Islands. Panama, Nauru, Canada, Israel and the Czech Republic. Sources in the EU tell Inner City Press that the Czechs were flirting with abstention, but fell back to no.

  There were 138 votes in favor, and 41 abstentions. List here.

  A well placed European Permanent Representative, speaking exclusively to Inner City Press, expressed particular scorn for Slovenia, which after almost voting Yes, ending up abstaining.

   He told Inner City Press the Slovenian mission at the UN in New York pushed for a Yes vote, but couldn't get the capital to agree. And not having an Ambassador here, he said, was a problem.

  US pressure didn't get even ten "no" votes. But many Pacific Island states abstained. And, it was noted, Liberia did not show up. But neither did Ukraine, nor Madagascar. Two of these three accounted for small gap between Palestinian Mission's internal projection of 140, and the final 138 Yes votes.

  After the vote, Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant about his statement about abstaining because he could not get assurances such as Palestine not rushing to the International Criminal Court.

   Doesn't this cheapen the ICC and make it look like a political chip to be played?

   Lyall Grant gamely answered that the assurances sought were in order to permit the peace process.

   Inner City Press asked the Ambassador of Sudan, which introduced Palestine's resolution as this month's head of the Arab Group and whose president Omar al Bashir is under ICC indictment for genocide, about the UK's position. 

  He replied that it is strange that a country that is a member of the ICC would ask another not to take a case there.

  Indonesia's Foreign Minister, when asked by Inner City Press if the blockage of Palestine from UN membership by the US veto in the Security Council militates for reform said, the rules are the rules. But for how long? One wanted to ask him about the Rohingya in Myanmar. Next time.

   When Palestine's Rial Malki came to speak, Inner City Press asked him about the ICC. He said that if Israel doesn't continue with settlements and aggression, then Palestine won't go to the ICC. And if they do? Watch this site.

One wag joked that perhaps Hamas, for Gaza, could go to ICC.

Footnote: more transient insights remain on Inner City Press' Twitter feed, here.

Update: ... where you'll find this Inner City Press photograph in GA November 30, State of Palestine:

On Damascus Bombing, Churkin Quotes US As Unsure if Terrorist Attack

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- After a Syria briefing by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Inner City Press asked Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin about the status of the draft press statement Russia circulated in the Security Council on Wednesday, on which Inner City Press reported, and is now putting online, condemning the Damascus bombing.

  Churkin said that first some Council members asked for more time -- Inner City Press understands that the silence procedure was extended to 10 am -- and then the United States said "no."

  Pulling a sheet of paper out of his pocket, Churkin read out loud what he said was the response from the United States -- whose Ambassador Susan Rice was seen entering the Security Council before the session -- that there was "not sufficient information to label it a terrorist attack." This has a certain echo.

 (When Inner City Press asked Syria's Bashar Ja'afari about the US quote, he said it proves the US is "protecting those who perpetrate these acts.")

  Inner City Press also asked Churkin for Russia's view of the plan to put NATO missiles on Turkey's border with Syria. He quoted foreign minister Lavrov, that weapons brought into a conflict zone tend to then be used. Then attention turned to the afternoon's Palestine Observer State. 

On Western Sahara, Morocco Got Ban Assurances, Polisario Calls MINURSO Secret

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 28 -- When two sides to a controversy in the UN Security Council come out to talk to the press at the stakeout, is it better to go first or second? 

  Among Sudan and South Sudan it is often a race who can get there first, or to know if the other is going to speak. But the power dynamic between Morocco and the Polisario Front of Western Sahara is quite different.

   Wednesday after UN envoy Christopher Ross briefed the Council and then took a few question at the stakeout, Ahmed Boukhari of Polisario approached the microphone. 

   Then he paused and gestured to Morocco's Permanent Representative Loulichki, who was standing up the steps from the stakeout, if Loulichki wanted to go first.

  Loulichki waved him off, seeming to say, I don't need to talk there. Morocco is a member of the Security Council now, and for the next 13 months.

  Boukhari started up. Inner City Press asked him about reported restrictions on the UN's MINURSO peacekeeping mission and why the Department of Peacekeeping Operations hasn't in the past year made these restrictions more public.

  Among other responses, Boukhari talked about foreign journalists being thrown out by Morocco. Inner City Press asked him about the European Union's fisheries agreement with Morocco, which would purport to cover waters off Morocco in violation, some experts say, of international law.

  Boukhari said the EU should closely consider the law. When he finished, despite some expectation he would be the last speaker, Loulickhi came to the microphone and said he was ready for any question.

  Inner City Press asked him about Morocco's questioning of Ross as envoy, and about the expulsion of foreign journalists. On the former, Loulichki said that the King of Morocco received assurances from Ban Ki-moon, in their phone conversation, that this would not be a continuation of the same mediation process.

  Loulichki will become the president of the UN Security Council for the month of December, in just a few days.

  On the latter, Loulichki said that some come in as tourists, and then begin activities that have nothing to do with reporting. He said one has to apply, as a journalist, and that Morocco is open to the "dialectics" of human rights, is open to criticism.

  In connection with the last few UN reports on MINURSO and Western Sahara, Inner City Press has been told in detail by UN sources of lobbying by Morocco, and France, to change the report before it is released. 

  Is this just part of the dialectic?

  When Boukhari was at the microphone, he said that MINURSO is a "secret operation" without proper access to the population, to the international community or to the press. He said silence on this undermines the credibility of the peacekeeping mission. It is noted that the head of UN Peacekeeping is Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold the position.

Since May, Ladsous has refused to answer any Inner City Press question, most recently summoning other less critical correspondents to follow him into the hallway beside the stakeout to give "information" about the Congo, on which he came to brief the Council. He also came Wednesday morning for Sudan, but did NOT come to the Council on Western Sahara and MINURSO.

   Some in DPKO who work for Ladsous say it is unfair to criticize or even question Ladsous about Western Sahara, his previous role working for his native France (including as Deputy Permanent Representative of France at the UN during the Rwanda genocide in 1994).

    But since Ladsous won't answer anything on this, the questions only mount, and with them the criticism. But we will keep asking. Watch this site.

Exclusive: At UN, Malcorra M23 Meeting Panned, Angolan Presence in Bukavu Acknowledged

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, November 28 -- After the UN Security Council extended Congo sanctions on Wednesday morning for another 14 months, Congolese representative Ileka Atoki then his Rwandan counterpart spoke in the Council chamber. Dysfunction was on display.

   Rwanda made a pointed reference to some Security Council members' "escapades" in the Great Lakes region. Chief among these would be France. Notably, sitting in the chamber now representing UN Peacekeeping was Herve Ladsous, who was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN during the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

Afterward in front of the Council the references became clearer, with the Habyarimana regime, which France in 1994 supported, being named.

Further details emerged about Tuesday's closed door consultations, after which Ladsous refused to answer any Inner City Press question, including what his MONUSCO did while the Congolese Army committed at least 21 rapes in Minova.

  The photographs Ladsous showed were called "pathetic." It emerged that Susana Malcorra claimed that in her visit to Makenga in Goma she saw weapons indicating external support. "Since when is she a guns expert?" it was asked. "These are just DPKO talking points."

  Inner City Press has been exclusively told that France confronted Malcorra and asked her by what right or authority she spoke with the M23 rebels. One Council member mused, what about the rebels in Syria?

  When French Ambassador Gerard Araud left the Council on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked him, to be sure, if France supported Malcorra meeting with M23.  It is already happened, Araud said with a smile. "There is no question of supporting, she has already done it."

   The more nuanced argument is that the Security Council is undermining the decision of the International Community of the Great Lakes Region, the type of regional organization the Council says it supports. The ICGLR said among other things that the Kabila government should address the legitimate concerns of the M23.

  It emerges that in consultations, a member insisted that is only one legitimate force in the DRC: the government. This is NOT what that government says about the government of Syria, it was pointed out, so it is a position of politics, not principle.

  Also afterward, Inner City Press spoke with Ileka Atoki of the DRC, asking about the rapes in Minova, which Ladsous refused to answer about. (Previously, Ileka Atoki has referred to UN peacekeeper's baisodrome on the Congo, their sexual exploitation.)

  Ileka Atoki to his credit expressed concern that the military leader sent to Minova might be too hard line.

When Inner City Press asked Ileka Atoki about reports of Angolan troops in Bakuvu, positing that these must have been false, Ileka Atoki told Inner City Press exclusively, "not so false, a line had to be drawn."

  Inner City Press asked, but what about the sanctions and arms embargo on the Congo?

Ileka Atoki replied that there were there only as part of the (future?) International Neutral Force. He said that the UN Security Council should listen more to SADC than the ICGLR, since SADC will be providing the troops.

So are some major members in the UN Security Council picking which regional group to purport to support? And how can the head of UN Peacekeeping get away with refusing to answer questions about his peacekeepers' inaction while the FARDC they partner with committed at least 21 rapes in Minova? We will have more on this. Watch this site.

On DRC, Ladsous Refuses to Answer on Rapes in Minova, His MONUSCO's Failure

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Under the $1.4 billion watch of the UN Peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, at least 21 women were recently raped in Minova, presumably by the Congolese Army, which MONUSCO supports.

  Inner City Press pursued the story through questions to the UN in Geneva and at the UN's noon briefing, here. See transcript.

  When UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous emerged from a closed door briefing of the Security Council on Tuesday evening, he indicated that he would answer questions from the media. But once at the UN Television stakeout, he and his spokesman would take only pre-selected questioners.

  Inner City Press waited while favored media got their question, then asked, What about Minova? Beyond the rapes, there are reports of renewed fighting between the M23 mutineers and the FARDC. But Ladsous refused to answer, searching for any other questioner.

  So Inner City Press asked, what about the rapes in Minova? What was MONUSCO doing? Ladsous ended the stakeout session -- and then summoned the favored media away from the stakeout to a basement hallway of the UN. To not interrupt this transmission, Inner City Press remained at the stakeout, filming as is its right.

  As Ladsous left the Council minutes later, along with UK Deputy Permanent Representative Philip Parham, Inner City Press asked the question again, and called the lack of response shameful.

  Among other things, Ladsous and his DPKO's refusal to answer about Minova makes it impossible to meaningfully apply the UN's stated Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, as it was explained to Inner City Press on November 26 by Rupert Colville, spokesman for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, here.

  It was said to Inner City Press -- not by those two -- that somehow DPKO spokesman Kieran Dwyer "has explained this to you." But he has not, beyond a vague reference months ago to "personal attacks."

  Inner City Press has not written about Ladsous' family or anything personal -- only the job he is doing, and jobs he has done in the past. This is the subject matter of journalism, and it is not for the UN to try to dictate the content.

  Ironically, the next question Inner City Press wanted to ask, beyond the drones question on which Ladsous stopped answering Press questions, was what MONUSCO might do in response to recent threats against journalists in Bukavu and elsewhere in Eastern Congo. 

   But with Ladsous' approach, which began in late May stoked by other anti-press moves in the UN, it is difficult to see him, or his DPKO, as any defender of the press. Quite the opposite.

  Likewise, as described above it is difficult to take seriously the UN's claim to have a Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, if DPKO refuses not only in person but also in writing to say which FARDC units were in Minova.

  In just the past week, Ladsous has refused to answer about abuse of civilians in Pinga and "would MONUSCO defend Bukavu?" 

   In September at a Sudan stakeout where despite prompting no other journalist had any question, Ladsous refused to answer "what is the UN's role in Abyei?" 

  That one, like this, Inner City Press filmed. Ladsous, it emerges, has had his staff ask UNTV to edit out questions from the webcast archives.

 During Ladsous' closed door briefing, Inner City Press heard from sources and freely published that Ladsous was showing photographs that the M23 have equipment "not from the FARDC."

   Afterward an attendee of Ladsous' briefing said it was full of a scatological material -- we engage in circumlocution to not provide any pretext to use, as Ladsous' Dwyer and DPKO have, "personal attacks" as a pretext for censorship, or the conditioning of access on receiving positive coverage. Watch this site.

After Ladsous Stonewall on Pinga, UN in Geneva Acknowledges Heads, Grenades

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Amid chaos and some UN failure in Eastern Congo, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has ranged from blocking questions to answering them late and incompletely. 

  But one benefit of the structure of the UN system is that there are overlapping mandates, joint work, other places to ask.

   After twice being blocked from getting answers from, or even formally posing questions to, DPKO chief Herve Ladsous, and with a long delay in responses to written questions, Inner City Press posed some different but related questions to the Office of the Human Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

Yesterday we published, upon receipt, OHCHR spokesmanRupert Colville's explanation of the UN's stated Human Rights Due Diligence Policy (even if DPKO's belated answers, today, make the policy less than meaningful).

   Now we have this information, also from OHCHR (along with a HCHR op-ed), in response to Inner City Press' question about a reported incident in which a local Mayi Mayi group -- Mai Mai Cheka -- "allegedly threw the heads of decapitated civilians at the UN base in the village of Pinga, Walikale territory, North Kivu province."

  The response, from Geneva, is that "the UN did receive reports of decapitated heads, possibly of opposing combatants, being paraded on sticks in the village on two separate incidents on 13 and 19 September 2012.

   "The UN has documented a series of violent incidents, mainly between rival Mayi Mayi groups and between the Congolese army and Mayi Mayi groups between the end of August and November. UN peacekeepers on several occasions actively used force in order to protect civilians at immediate risk from these clashes. For example, on 3 October UN peacekeepers threw two hand grenades in order to stop combatants from harming civilians in the vicinity of the UN base. In November, two peacekeepers were injured as they tried to assist some 500 civilians who had gathered at the UN base in Pinga.

   "MONUSCO deployed a Joint Protection Team to Kashuga, Kalembe and Pinga from 24 to 28 September 2012. The multidisciplinary mission which included representatives of civil society organizations raised several recommendations including the deployment of a UNJHRO investigation mission. The latter was promptly planned but had to be canceled due to security constrains in and around Pinga at the time. However, following the recommendations of the Joint Protection Team , additional FARDC units were re-deployed to the area and Egyptian peacekeepers were also sent from Beni to Pinga to reinforce the local COB."

   So, this information exists. But when Inner City Press asked DPKO chief Ladsous what the UN was doing to protect civilians in Pinga, he refused to answer the question. Even after it was submitted in writing in New York, no answer has come. Only from Geneva. So it goes at the UN.

At UN, Ban Wants Budget Advisory Panel Views Ignored, Members Push Back

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- In a letter to the chairman of the UN's budget committee on November 26, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the committee to ignore the recommendations of its own Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

  Ban wants to push through his so-called Mobility plan while questions remain outstanding. The two page letter, addressed to the this year's chairman, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany Miguel Berger, is not yet public, members say, but Inner City Press has it.

   As one well placed member of the Budget Committee exclusively told Inner City Press, Ban's "mobility is now 'key' to a bunch of projects that began before it, like the Global Field Support Strategy and UMOJA," mired in delays and nepotism.

  Ban's letter "stress[es] that the new mobility framework is at the heart of our key management initiatives and a key enabler for other on-going reform efforts, such as UMOJA, our enterprise resource planning system and the Global Field Support Strategy."

  Ban writes that he is "disappointed" with the timelines recommended by the ACABQ, elections and then election of the chair of which Inner City Press recently covered. (On Monday, voting for vice chairman between the candidates of Gabon and the UK was postponed, with some idea there might be two co-vice chairs.)

  What ACABQ recommended on Ban's "mobility" proposal  is a one year delay in order to answer questions, get more information -- as one member put it, for more "transparency and accountability."

  Ban's letter states that he is "disappointed with the timeline suggested by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions which cannot meet our requirements."

  The letter came on the eve of an emergency staff meeting about "offshoring and outsourcing" the staff say Ban is trying to implement.

   Reform of the UN is needed -- see for example the inaction of UN Peacekeepers as the M23 mutineers took over Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the UN's continued inaction on a claim that its peacekeepers introduced cholera to Haiti, while it talks about accountability and the rule of law.

   But going against the recommendations of the UN's own Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions may not be the right road to reform, several budget committee experts and member states have opined. 

  Some see it as similar to the stealthly floated proposal for the UN to use drones. Ban's chief of peacekeeping Herve Ladsous proposed it to the C-34 in March, after which several members complained to Inner City Press. They said the proposal would only serve, and be used by, a small number of powerful states -- like this newer proposal?

   Now, using the UN's failure in the DRC as a pretext, theproposal has re-appeared. Ladsous has refused to answer any Press questions. On November 26, several members of the General Assembly and Security Council panned Ladsous and his plan. But will Ban just try to push it through, Mobility style? Watch this site.