By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 2 -- As the US takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council for July, its big debate will be on the the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region on July 25, with Secretary of State John Kerry presiding.
Inner City Press, which exclusively published the full text of the DRC Group of Experts report, asked US Acting Permanent Representative Rosemary Di Carlo on Tuesday about rapes by the DRC Army, both in the new Group of Experts' report and those already in the public record in Minova in November 2012.
Ambassador Di Carlo said she wouldn't comment on the Group of Expert report before it is formally introduced to the full Security Council, but that the US is “clear with DPKO [the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations] and the TCC [Troop Contributing Countries] that they have to abide by UN guidelines.”
The problem is, the UN's guidelines have been shifting. It had been said the UN wouldn't support DRC Army units engaged in abuses.
But even after two units were implicated in the 135 rapes at Minova, DPKO's Herve Ladsous decided to continue to support them. There have been, as confirmed in the Group of Experts' report, only two arrests for the 135 rapes, and some suspensions -- a seemingly lenient punishment for rape.
Likewise, while many had assumed that one certain consequence for a national army being put on the UN list of child soldier recruiters would be banning for UN peacekeeping missions, Ladsous has given Chad, which is on the Child and Armed Conflict list, a “grace period” of at least four months.
So what ARE these UN guidelines?
Ambassador Di Carlo added a reference to the behavior demanded of US forces, and that by answering she was not agreeing with what Inner City Press had said.
That's fine, but the 135 rapes in Minova have been reported by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the figure of two arrests is from the Group of Experts report, which Inner City Press has put online here exclusively, as credited by Bloomberg News (from Kinshasa).
Inner City Press also asked Ambassador Di Carlo about the letter by 19 members of the US Congress asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take responsibility for the introduction of cholera into Haiti. Di Carlo said she hadn't seen the letter, “we'll have to get back to you.” Video here from Minute 19:40. Watch this site.
Di Carlo is the “charge d'affaies” in UN-ese after Susan Rice went to Washington and before Samantha Power arrives (by the July 29 double reception?) She handled Tuesday's press conference ably. There was no question on Kosovo or the Balkans, the nearest being Cyprus (she nailed it, with a budget reference.)
Inner City Press thanked her on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, which pressed June's president Mark Lyall Grant of the UK on the continuing lack of a media worktable at the Security Council stakeout, where one existedbefore and during the relocation. Watch this site.