On Myanmar, UN Misleads With "Ban Welcomes Ceasefire Agreement in Kachin," DPI Spinning As on UNSC Media Access Reduction?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 -- What's wrong with the UN? On May 31 it said, of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Myanmar, that "Ban welcomes ceasefire agreement in Kachin."

There is only one problem: no ceasefire has been agreed to. Inner City Press has obtained and now puts online the actual agreement, here.

Likewise it is reported that Myanmar "and ethnic Kachin rebels signed a preliminary agreement on Thursday...The parties however, failed to reach an official ceasefire agreement."

So why would the UN, through its Department of Public Information, misleading announce that "Ban welcomes ceasefire agreement in Kachin?" (DPI's reporting was criticized during the recent UN Committee on Information meetings, which Inner City Press covered, as gently as possible.)

This is the same Department of Public Information which has been claiming for ten days that eliminating a media worktable that existed in front of the Security Council for years, before the relocation for renovation and since, is in fact somehow NOT a reduction in media access.

That claim is false. At best we can say that some atop DPI don't understand, or don't want to understand, how coverage of the Security Council has worked for years now, with reporters using laptops on a table in front of the Council in order to be there when ambassadors leave in the middle of meetings, or speakers come during all day open debates. To stand for hours is unnecessary: but it's what Ban's DPI and its partners are for now demanding.

Perhaps rather than inaccurately playing at reporting, DPI should pay more attention to its claimed role of ensuring the independent journalist can cover the UN and how deals are done here. Some deals are ugly, including deals to mislead, and misleading about deals.

So is it that the UN's DPI, on Myanmar, is intentional misleading about what was agreed to in Kachin? Or, like how the Security Council has been covered for years, is it that they just don't understand or don't care? We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

Spinning Reduction in UNSC Media Workspace Agreed to by UNCA Big Wigs, DPI Claims Press Might Eavesdrop on Turkish Gazebo: Ironic, After Raid

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 -- As furniture was carted back into the UN Security Council, in the hallway outside where previously there was a media worktable a representative of the Department of Public Information tried to justify to Inner City Press the planned banning of media workspace there.

  The Free UN Coalition for Access, ever since it saw the proposed prohibition in the draft UN Media Access Guidelines on May 21, has been asking for a reversal or explanation of the reduction in media access from what existed before the Council's move to the basement, and while it was downstairs.

  And for now, this is the best DPI can come up with: diplomats sitting in the strange gazebo-like alcove of the so-called Turkish Lounge might be concerned about eavesdropping.

This strange argument immediately followed the statement that the press could sit IN the gazebo with a laptop. So which is it?

  (The specter of violating privacy is ironic from DPI, which on March 18 conducted a non-consensual raid on Inner City Press' office while UNCA's president Pam Falk took photographs she has yet to explain -- more to come on this.)

It appears increasingly clear that the proposed elimination of a media worktable in front of the Security Council is supported, is even attributable to, the Gulf and Western big wire services that control the old UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee.

Inner City Press asked DPI for identify of the drafters of the following paragraph:

"f. The Security Council stakeout area, including the Turkish Lounge, is not to be used as a permanent workspace for the media. When the Council is not in session, correspondents should minimize the amount of time in the area, unless interviewing or conversing with a U.N. delegate or official."

We all agreed to it, has been the answer. The parties to the Guidelines are UNCA -- apparently, only the Executive Committee, since there has been not general membership meeting or discussion of agreeing to this reduction in access -- DPI, UN Security and Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesperson.

But Ban's Office at Friday's noon briefing said it didn't even know when the draft Guidelines would go into effect.

The UN preaches transparency and public participation to governments about the world. But even on this Guidelines, it can't say who proposed what, what the responses to FUNCA's proposed amendments are, or when the Guidelines -- which Guidelines? -- would go into effect. It's a joke, except it's not funny.

It has been explained to the top of DPI that it is with a media worktable that the Security Council has been able to be covered before the temporary move, and during the interim period.

It has been explained, since these top DPI officials like some of the wire services rarely come to the stakeout that a range of reporters use the media worktable at different time, for example to wait to speak with "their" ambassador during Council open debates. There is no way to know the specific time of a speaker, as some run over, and people trade places.

  So journalists have been able, while they wait, to work on laptops at the table, rather than as DPI and the UNCA big wigs now propose, stand up for three or four hours at a time. Why require that? We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

As UN Security Council Moves, UN Stonewalls on Rule Banning SC Media Workspace: When, & Who Favors?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 -- With the UN Security Council already moving from the basement back to the second floor, and the media table in front of it already gone, Inner City Press at Friday's noon briefing asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey for the status of the draft rule which would for the first time ban media workspace in front of the Council. Video here, from Minute 10:04.

  Inner City Press for the Free UN Coalition for Access was shown, "for comment," a draft Media Access Guideline on May 20 which along other things would provide:

"f. The Security Council stakeout area, including the Turkish Lounge, is not to be used as a permanent workspace for the media. When the Council is not in session, correspondents should minimize the amount of time in the area, unless interviewing or conversing with a U.N. delegate or official."

  As FUNCA commented on May 21, and Inner City Press has reported in stories since, this proposed rule would reverse the media workspace -- a work table -- that existed in front of the Security Council before its temporary move to the basement, and that continued in the basement, until today.

  A week ago, Del Buey claimed that the rule would not reduce media access. Now he has been repeating to Inner City Press that it can only ask the Department of Public Information, whose Stephane Dujarric has not provided the date of implementation, nor acted on or even provided a substantive response to other complaints lodged with him.

(Beyond those complaints, including involving a UN Security camera about Inner City Press' and FUNCA's office door, other FUNCA members have raised their banning as non-resident correspondents from the Delegates' Lounge; the rules would also trample on free speech rights.)

  Del Buey on Friday again said, "Ask Stephane," saying that while Ban's Office of the Spokesperson is listed as a party to the Guidelines -- tellingly, so is the old UN Correspondents Association, although no membership meeting on these has been held -- it is DPI which "implements" the rules. 

 So it's DPI banning media workspace and access, using or being used by the Gulf & Western wires who run the UNCA board? UNCA's 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS claimed to UNCA members who asked that she hadn't seen the Media Access Guidelines. More recently the spin is that it is up to Security Council members.

  Two anonymous social media accounts associated with UNCA / Reuters, and now analogized by one observer to "Mean Girls," have opposed the press for maintaining media workspace by the Security Council. And Ban's DPI?

  The incoming Security Council presidency has acknowledged that having a media table in front of the Council hurts no one, and helps coverage. So by what right would it be eliminated?

  The issue of the impending and unnecessary banning of media workspace in front of the Security Council has been raised above Dujarric, politely, with the offer of any additional information necessary. Watch this site.

Exclusive: UN's Malcorra Met Syria on New Rep to Damascus, US Banking Blockage Raised, Sarin Suspicions

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 -- Syria's Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari was summoned Thursday to meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Susana Malcorra, topic undisclosed.

So at the May 30 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey:

Inner City Press: Syrian Permanent Representative [Bashar] Ja’afari said he wrote to the Secretary-General to complain about Robert Serry’s briefing, that it didn’t mention sufficiently from his view the Golan Heights and the kidnapping of peacekeepers. Can you confirm the receipt of that letter? And also, he was summoned to meet with Susana Malcorra, and I’d like to know, one, if it’s true, and two, what the purpose of the meeting was.

Deputy Spokesperson: Well, Matthew, I don’t have any information on the receipt of a letter that you refer to, and secondly, we don’t have any information on any meeting that may have taken place. As Mr. [Hervé] Ladsous said yesterday, the meeting between United Nations officials and members of the diplomatic corps of the Permanent Missions, we don’t usually report on them.

But we do, and exclusively: Malcorra's topic to Ja'afari was to notify or seek approval of a new UN system official in Damascus, for the UN Development Program. And Ja'afari raised again the UN's duty to ensure that the Host Country, the United States, made it possible for all UN diplomatic missions to have bank accounts. "They are trying to use it as leverage," Ja'afari told Inner City Press.

After reports of Al-Nusra arrests in Turkey, having sarin gas, Inner City Press asked Ja'afari what he made of it. He said, the US trying to distance itself from Al-Nusra.

When US Ambassador to Geneva Eileen Donahoe announced she had met Friday with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Inner City Press posed the question: did CoI member Carla Del Ponte say anything about her "strong suspicions" of rebel use of chemical weapons, which the Al Nusra arrests in Turkey seem to support? So far, no response. It's called social media, not a one way street. Watch this site.

At End of Togo's Month Atop UNSC, Talk of CERD & Big Media Sleaze, DPI, P5 & Delegates' Lounge

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- When Togo held its end of Security Council presidency reception Thursday at the UN, Ambassador Kodjo Menan's gratefully short speech did not look back at the month, as the morning's Wrap-Up session did, but rather to a UN election on Monday.

  Ms. Hohoueto, interviewed later by Inner City Press, is running for the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. There are 16 candidates, minus Madagascar, for nine seats, and the election is June 3. This is how the UN works.

  This too is how the UN works: multiple diplomats approached Inner City Press to say they are outraged at the idea of a press table in front of the Security Council being eliminated. One African Permanent Representative demanded, Who is behind this?

  A Western Permanent Representative explained, there are some in the UN press corps who have said they do not want it. (They control the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee.) "We do not agree, but we need them."

  How can it be, that ostensible journalists would be lobbying for less rather than more access?

  It's that the media is a business. These Gulf and Western correspondents benefit from less access: they get spoon-fed scoops by "their" missions, and do not want independent media being able to access the range of UN and elected Security Council members states by means of a work table at the stakeout.

  But what should the UN Secretariat want -- access for the range of journalists, or a monopoly of Gulf and Western media? This has become the question, raised by the Free UN Coalition for Access.

  The head of the UN Department of Public Information, to whom this has been raised, faces a moment of truth: is he in favor of access? The arguments have been made, and the verdict is awaited. He has asked for time and it has been granted. But time is running short. The issue is not complicated: return to how things were, or reduce access.

  Invited to the Togo reception in the "Delegates Dining Room," Inner City Press went up to the DDR on the fourth floor, now open. But there it was corporation, JP Morgan, Bill and Melinda Gates et al. Toto was in the cafeteria, albeit with smoked salmon by the river, spicy Togolese meats in the back.

Among Permanent Five members of the Council, Russia's Vitaly Churkin, China's Li Baodong and the UK's Mark Lyall Grant were in attendance.

  UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous, we kid you not, walked around unnoticed for a while, before alighting on Kenya's Permanent Representative. Did they talk about the racism of the ICC? Or how that court refuses to prosecute those who kill perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo?

  Somalia's Permanent Representative as it happens is a long time UN system employees, with the World Health Organization all over Africa and finally in Eritrea. It is a UN story, as is that of an 80 year old retiree who remembers a UN barbershop, cut rate roast beef and the Delegates' Lounge.

  When will that re-open, after so much spending by member states? And who would dare turn it dry, even on Friday night? Is that Joe Torsella? Or someone joyless? Watch this site.

UN Population Fund Pays PR Agency Portland Communication to Serve Up Its Praise of UN Report on Post-2015 Goals: Waste?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- This UN found a way to waste money and fool people even amid the hoopla about the release of its anti-poverty Post-2015 High Level Panel report on May 30.

Inner City Press dutifully covered the 12:30 John Podesta press conference on the report, and published on its right at the 3 pm embargo. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued statements as did many of the Panel's members and their governments.

Then just before 5 pm an e-mail came in headed "PRESS RELEASE: UN RESPONSE TO NEW REPORT BY PANEL LED BY DAVID CAMERON."

It seemed a bit strange, the UN responding to what is in a sense a UN report. The sender was not the UN or one of its agencies but rather a corporate public relations firm, Portland Communications. Their clients include Medicapital Bank, CBS and Maersk.

In this case, they were paid to put out a press release for a UN agency, the UN Population Fund or UNFPA. This agency, of course, has its own paid public relations staff, one of whom is listed on the bottom of the press release. So why pay an outside firm?

Perhaps because of this, the header is misleading. UNFPA knows or should know it cannot speak for "the UN." What if another agency -- UNDP, or the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, say -- has another view?

So why waste this money, on the UN praising itself? 

 This on the same day when the chief of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, who has at least three spokespeople, chose for the first time not to put out a transcript of his press conference of May 29, when he outright refused to answer a question from Inner City Press about mass rape in the Congo by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army. Video here.

Instead, as if it couldn't afford to do a transcript despite the three spokespeople, DPKO used only a "summary," which did not mention Minova, the rapes, the question or that Ladsous refused to answer. Where is this UN going? Watch this site.

At UN, Post-2015 Plan Asks Less Consumption from Developed World, Embargoed Podesta

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- When the UN "launched" its report on Post-2015 development goals, it promoted an embargoed press conference, emphasizing that John Podesta would be here. In fact, the UN press releases listed only Podesta.

  When Inner City Press was called on, third, it thanked the four panelist on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, and asked Podesta if the new plan requires developed countries to do more than contribute aid. How about reducing consumption?

  Podesta referred the question to another panelist - whose name was not listed in the UN's press releases - who said that twice in the plan there are calls on the developed world to limit consumption, "low carbon."

  What about transparency, accountability, and poor people's participation? There was no time for this. The press conference was embargoed -- so much for live tweeting -- and the panelists had to leave less than a half hour after it was scheduled to begin.

  The report was given to member states well before the deadline. Were they pledged to secrecy? Was this an attempt to hit the airwaves or satellite TV all at one time? We'll see, literally. Watch this site.

UN Cover Up of Minova Rapes Omits Both Words From Ladsous "Summary," New Rapes, No Update, #LADSOUS2103

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- How does the UN cover up mass rape by its partners? 

  Most recently on May 29, when Inner City Press asked the UN's Herve Ladsous about 135 counted rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army, Ladsous said, "you know I don't respond to you." Video here.

  Inner City Press encouraged him to pretend someone else, less critical of his record, had asked the question and provide an update. But he did not.

  On May 30, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations rather than put online a transcript of Ladsous' press conference as it did in February, put online only a"summary" -- which made no mention of Minova, or rape, or Ladsous' refusal to answer.

  This is like some dictatorial countries: they simply erase the question. Ladsous tried this before, asking UNTV to edit out the final portion of a stakeout so that Inner City Press' question -- which he refused to answer -- could not be heard.

It happened on December 18, 2012, when Ladsous directed his spokesman to seize the UNTV microphone to try to keep Inner City Press from asking a question about the Minova rapes. Video here.

And now, they reverse previous practice and don't release a transcript, but only a summary which does not mention the 135 rapes.

In fact, there may have been more than 135 rapes. On May 30 Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about a report of 88 rapes in Minova -- and for the update on accountability it had asked Ladsous for the day before.

Del Buey said the update would now start being sought. The wheels didn't start the day before, when Ladsous was asked? Apparently not. It's a cover up, you see. A cover up in plain sight and with the implicit approval of Ladsous' bosses, the Secretary General and.... guess who? Watch this site.

UN Says It Reached Out to Uzbek NGOs But They Didn't Attend Meeting, Why? Of Andijan, Gulnara, Minova

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- When UN human rights official Ivan Simonovic visited Uzbekistan, rights groups there complained they were not reached out to. They pointed to Uzbek state media quoting Simonovic praising the Karimov government.

At the UN on May 30, Inner City Press asked Simonovic about this criticism, about independent journalist Jamshid Karimov, and whether the quotes attributed to him are true. He said his views are in his own press releases; he said he raised a number of individual cases but wouldn't name them.

On what he called civil society, he said they were invited to a meeting but a number did not show up. But how did that impact the visit, and his views? Inner City Press asked, what about Andijan?

Simonovic said he did raised Andijan, morphing the question into one of human rights while combating terrorism. He mentioned the "Uzbekistan Islamic Movement," saying they are in Afghanistan and there is a concern post-2014.

  What about Gulnara Karimova, daughter and Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and her deals with TeliaSonera? The briefing was over, before Inner City Press could ask Simonovic about the UN's Human Rights Due Diligence Policy and the 135 -- at least -- rapes by the Congolese Army in Minova. 

  This is a question that UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has resisted, including on May 29, video here. Perhaps we'll hear from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Watch this site.

Exclusive: Syria Complains of Golan Cover Up by UN's Serry and Ladsous, Gets Summoned by Malcorra, Ban Ki-moon's Chief of Staff

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- On Syria, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in New York it is his chief of staff Susana Malcorra who has summoned Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja'afari to meet this morning, topics undisclosed.

Inner City Press was exclusively informed about that meeting, and also that Ja'afari has written to Ban and to the Security Council to complain about the recent briefing by Ban's Middle East envoy Robert Serry. The complaint is that Serry didn't address the Golan, nor the repeated kidnapping of UN peacekeeper there by the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigade and, Syria says, Qatar.

Last week, Inner City Press published a portion of the Syrian mission's May 22 letter to Herve Ladsous' Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

As noted, and complained about by the Free UN Coalition for Access, Ladsous only disclosed the most recent kidnapping in a "conversation" with friendly journalists.

Ban's Office of the Spokesperson has refused Press requests to know Ladsous' response; on May 29, Ladsous openly refused to answer any Inner City Press question, video here.

So what is Malcorra's topic? Watch this site.

Exclusive: UN Overpays Prodi Rome Travel, Seeks to Cut 59 Publishing Jobs: Counter-Proposal Here

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- The UN says it is tightening its belt. But if so, it is very selective.

  Inner City Press has previously questioned why the UN's envoy on the Sahel, Romano Prodi, gets to work from Italy. Wednesday UN budget sources approached Inner City Press to complain it is worse than this.

  Prodi is not in fact based in Rome, they told Inner City Press. He is in Bologna, and he charges the UN $1,200 for each trip to Rome, so far to the tune of $36,000.

  And the report on the Sahel strategy of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which he was charged with preparing back in October 2012 has still not be presented to the Security Council. "It's a joke," one source told Inner City Press. "A bad joke."

  (Another source snarked that the vehicles to be bought for Herve Ladsous' Department of Peacekeeping Operations' new mission in Mali will in all probability come from French or Japanese manufacturers.)

  As Inner City Press asked and got confirmed, the UN's envoy to the Great Lakes Mary Robinson is being allowed to be based in Dublin. Are there any UN staff there? And what about the travel costs?

  Meanwhile at a lower level of the UN, staff in the Publishing Section were told that 59 "posts" -- that is, jobs -- would be eliminated. Management used the destruction of equipment in the third sub-basement to further their plan of eliminating the posts.

There was fight back, and now a counter-proposal has been sent to Ban Ki-moon; Inner City Press has exclusively obtained a copy and includes a section, below. 

 The same Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions which considers Prodi and Mary Robinson should consider these lower ranked staff member's proposal, with the same solicitude:

For a more economically efficient, flexible, and reliable printing operation, it is imperative to deploy four smaller capacity digital presses of overall capacity up to or about 90,000,000 page impressions... a total of twenty-four staff members in Trade and Craft staff category would be required for the operation of the print shop, in addition to fifteen General staff for distribution and fulfillment, and five General staff for the front office. The whole operation would be managed by a Professional staff at the P-3 level, supported by senior Trade and Craft at the TC-8 and TC-7 levels. The currents posts of the Chief (P-5) and Deputy Chief (P-4) of the Publishing Section would be abolished.

A total of twelve staff in the General staff category would be relocated to the Meetings Servicing Unit for Paper Smart meetings support. The remaining staff of the Publishing Section would be afforded real employment opportunities and appropriate training.

  So does this UN only care about the comfort of people like Prodi, charging big bucks to travel from Bologna to Rome? Or about these underground printing staff? Watch this site.

UN Silent for 2 Days on 2-Child Policy for Rohingya, Nambiar on "Cordial" Kachin Talks, UN Women Odds

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 -- Imposing a two child policy on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine State seems like something of which the UN would be immediately suspect and critical.

But not this UN, apparently. Two days after Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey if Ban or his Myanmar "Good Offices" envoy Vijay Nambiar had any comment on the policy, still there is none. There is, however, a statement about Nambiar's presence at and view of the government's Kachin talks.

On May 28 Inner City Press asked:

Inner City Press: In Myanmar, there are these talks between the Government and the Kachin rebels, it is said that Vijay Nambiar was part of it. But it wasn’t clear what his role was. There are some reports that the UN [in] Yangon wouldn’t say it. What is his role, and also, does the UN have any comment on the announced two-child policy in Rakhine State for Rohingya Muslims?

Deputy Spokesperson: We’ve seen the reports of the announcement of two or two-child policy in Rakhine State.When we have something for you, we will get it to you. And Vijay Nambiar travelled to the country over the weekend, we will update you on what he is doing as soon as we get that information.

Two days later, nothing on the outrageous two-child policy. What is the UN coming to? But there's this, on or from Nambiar (who when in New York remains one of the few Department of Political Affairs affiliated people still based in the emptying North Lawn Building) --

Subject: Your question on Vijay Nambiar.
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

The Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, is attending the peace talks that began yesterday. This is the first time that such talks have taken place inside the country between the Government negotiators and Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO). The request for the presence of the UN as an observer was made by the KIO and was agreed to by the Government. The Special Adviser reports that the talks started on a cordial note, with both sides stressing their commitment to achieving peace and reconciliation in Kachin.

  There's buzz around the UN wondering what the relation might be between Nambiar and India possibly getting, on a non-interim basis, the top post at UN Women. Or will it goFinnish? Watch this site.

At UN, Inner City Press Asks Ban Ki-moon About Tanzania President Kikwete Urging Rwanda To Talk with FDLR, Ban Talks Brigade

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 29 -- The Great Lakes and Congo were the topics of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's briefing Wednesday to the UN Security Council, and ostensibly of his rare question and answer stakeout afterward.

As the only Africa question, Inner City Press asked Ban about Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete having said at the African Union summit on Sunday that Rwanda should negotiate with the genocidaire FDLR militia. Does the UN agree? Does Ban see that Kikwete's statement might undermine the new UN Intervention Brigade or at least how it is perceived?

Ban replied that peace is the focus; he acknowledged that the Intervention Brigade is headed by a Tanzanian. That might be a problem.

  Ban's head of Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous of France, again on May 29 openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question, about the 135 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army in November. Video here.

After Ban left, a Security Council diplomat approached Inner City Press to say that Tanzania, like "some other Brigade participants," is too close to the issue, or has too much of an interest in the Congo.

The Brigade is supposed to "neutralize" armed groups like the FDLR. But if the commanding country thinks they should be negotiated with, how so? On the other hand, the creation of the Brigade seems to have undermined the Kampala talks between the M23 and the Joseph Kabila government.

Kikwete also said Uganda should speak with the ADL; we may have a separate story on that. Watch this site.

UN's transcript:

Inner City Press: President [Jakaya] Kikwete of Tanzania has said at the African Union Summit that Rwanda should negotiate with the FDLR. And the Rwandan Foreign Minister has called this abhorrent and said this would be akin to negotiating with people who committed genocide in Rwanda. Since Tanzania is part of the Intervention Brigade, some people are saying this makes the Brigade less than impartial. What do you think of the idea of Rwanda negotiating with the FDLR? Are they a legitimate group or are they still tied to the genocide of 1994? Thank you.

SG Ban Ki-moon: What is important at this time is that Tanzania is one of the signatories to the Framework Agreement and they are going to provide [to the] Intervention Brigade and the force commander is coming from Tanzania. I hope with all this Framework Agreement and active participation of many countries involved, we will be able to see first of all peace and stability. That is our focus at this time and I will not comment any further on that matter. Thank you very much.