By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 17 -- The UN and its Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous claim to be doing a lot to protect civilians and bring accountability. The claim is wearing thin, now in South Sudan as well.
There were the incidents in Pibor, and the UN's long silence about how many were killed.
Now, just as Inner City Press twice this week asked the UN about photographic evidence of its Congolese Army partners mutilating bodies, today we highlight a video depicting UNMISS peacekeepers in “Manyabol, Jonglei on July 14, 2013 narrating as 'thousands and thousands' of members of a government supported militia thought to be returning home from ethnic violence in Jonglei state marching past them and government troops with stolen cattle after violent clashes which have already led to hundreds of wounded. No action was taken to stop them or even to make this sighting public.”
While further inquiry proceeds, what will UN Peacekeeping do? Its and Ladsous' claims are belied by the MONUSCO mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where after 135 rapes by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army, the UN continues to support the two units, the 41st and 391stBattalions.
Ladsous sought to cover up the rapes for months, repeatedly refusing Press questions about them. Video compilation here.
Now for nineteen days they have refused to answer a simple Inner City Press question about whether the units of the Congolese Army they support include those depicted in the new Group of Experts report engaged in rape, looting, arming the FDLR and child soldier recruitment.
They acknowledged receipt of the question in June when Inner City Press exclusive put online the full text of the Group of Experts report, and said they would answer. But since then: nothing. Given what Ladsous is turning DPKO and the UN into -- a stonewalling duo which refuses questions on the implications of its own Group of Experts report, responding only to visual evidence, we run the video above.Watch this site.
