By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- For 126 rapes in Minova from November 20 to 22, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations is belatedly blaming two Congolese army units -- but it will not identify them.
Back in December, Inner City Press exclusively reported that during the rapes, the Congolese Army FARDC 802 Regiment and 1001 Regiment were in Minova.
On March 5, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon what if anything had been done by the UN about the rapes.
On March 7, DPKO responded with a private briefing for scribes who'd never even asked about the rapes, excluding Inner City Press which three times asked DPKO chief Herve Ladsous about the rapes, until he had his spokesperson seize the UNTV microphone to try to avoid the question, video here.
DPKO's chosen scribes wrote stories that two unidentified units had been given an unspecified deadline to prosecute, they said, in a February 4 letter.
On March 8, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky to identify the units and the deadline. He declined, but went further than DPKO in disclosing 200 witness statements about sexual violence, and a “final” February 18 letter.
But why NOT identify the units? One of the scribes said that DPKO's March 7 briefing was not for attribution because the contacts with the DRC were “private.” Not anymore. Earlier the UN told Inner City Press that for “due process” even the units would not be identified.
But now, either the prosecutions will begin before that UN's undisclosed deadline -
- and prosecutions are public -- or they will not, and the UN will ostensibly suspend support to the units, which of course should be public.
Or might this basic information NOT be public, in the UN of Herve Ladsous and ultimately Ban Ki-moon? Watch this site -- and watch this short March 10 video, third in the #LADSOUS2013 series.
