UN DRC Sanctions Report, Put Online by Inner City Press, Shows FARDC Looting & Deals with FDLR

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Full Text

UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- Yesterday, Inner City Press exclusively put online the Annexes to the new Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions report, zeroing in as others haven't on Congolese Army torture, looting and rape, beyond the 135 Minova rapes the UN has failed to act on.

Today, Inner City Press puts online exclusively as an HTML file the 215 paragraph report itself, here. Usually right before UN Security Council meetings, this time just before the full deployment of the Council's “Intervention Brigade,” the reports are leaked to a Western wire service and set the tenor of the debate.

  Rarely are the actually documents put online, only the wire service's gloss. In this case, Inner City Press immediately critiqued that gloss, which for example ignored Rwanda's opposition to two of the Group of Experts' members, Bernard Leloup and Marie Plamadiala, on which Inner City Press previously reported.

But now, after receiving copies from even more members of the Security Council, Inner City Press is putting not only the Annexes online, but also the report, as an HTML file, here. 

  Along with the new Free UN Coalition for Access, Inner City Press believes that the public, particularly the impacted public, has a right to see the actual documents, and not only Western wire services' spin of them.

Readers will of course focus on the parts most of interest to them. Inner City Press' focus, in the Great Lakes as in Haiti, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, is the UN at least purporting to try to live up to its stated principles.

The 135 rapes in Minova by two units of the Congolese Army have not resulted in any suspension of UN support, despite only two arrests being made for the rapes. This, like the inclusion of a listed child soldier recruiter into the new UN mission in Mali, is the responsibility of Herve Ladsous, the fourth French head of UN Peacekeeping in a row.

Ladsous in his previous incarnation as French deputy permanent representative at the UN during the Rwanda genocide argued for the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. When asked by Inner City Press about it, he started talking about “innuendo” and refusing to answer questions, video here.

The UN's and Ladsous' non-enforcement of human rights due diligence and conditionality policies were air brushed from Reuters gloss on this report -- not surprising, not only politically but also in light of recent evidence that Reuters gives the UN information the UN should not have, here: quid pro quo?

For now, consider these:

107. The Group interviewed 10 FARDC soldiers in Tongo, in North Kivu, who reported that FARDC and FDLR regularly meet and exchange operational information. These same sources stated that FARDC soldiers supplied ammunition to the FDLR. Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, denied such collaboration, but declared to the Group that FARDC and FDLR do not fight each other.

When Inner City Press published internal emails from the MONUSCO UN Mission on this topic, MONUSCO replied angrily via press release that it was false. Now that the Group says it too, will MONUSCO attack the Group of Experts?

MONUSCO has not responded to a request, in French no less, by the Free UN Coalition for Access, digging into the UN system's and particularly UN Peacekeeping's one-way social media, to clarify how many FARDC arrests there have been for the 135 rapes in Minova in late November. Now what of the UN mission MONUSCO working with Congolese Army units intertwined with the FDLR?

“138. On 20-21 November 2012 in Bunia (Ituri District, Orientale Province), PNC and FARDC organized the looting of more than three-dozen facilities belonging to MONUSCO, various United Nations agencies, and international humanitarian organizations, as well as residences of UN and humanitarian staff (see annex 65). Eyewitnesses in Bunia and a report by the District of Ituri specifically identified Col. Willy Bonane Habarugira (see annex 66),29 who was acting commander of FARDC forces in the Safisha Operational Zone (Ituri), as having organized and participated in the ransacking of UN and humanitarian facilities...The Military Tribunal in Bunia convicted 5 PNC and 1 FARDC of pillaging; however, the government has brought no charges against either Col. Bideko or Col. Bonane despite their well-known roles in the pillaging.

“29 In 2009, the U.S. Government rejected Col. Bonane for participation in a U.S.-run military training course due to his poor human rights record.”

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

  

UN's Congo Sanctions Porn, Spun By Reuters, Now Put Online by Inner City Press: Rwanda Was Defamed, Hege Lives On? By

 Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- The politicization of the UN's sanctions process is perhaps most clear in connection with the reports on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

  Usually right before UN Security Council meetings, this time just before the full deployment of the Council's “Intervention Brigade,” the reports are leaked to a Western wire service and set the tenor of the debate.

   Rarely are the actually documents put online, only the wire service's gloss. In this case, Inner City Press immediately critiqued that gloss, which for example ignored Rwanda's opposition to two of the Group of Experts' members, Bernard Leloup and Marie Plamadiala, on which Inner City Press previously reported.

  But now, after receiving copies from a number of Council members, Inner City Press is putting the Annexes online, exclusively, here. The report itself is, typically, watermarked each with the name of the Council member to which it was given. The annexes do not bear the mark, and even by a biased Group of Experts undercut the wire service's one-sided summary.

  The Group's lack of seriousness is evident even from the first Annex, in which Uganda's 2012 letter is labeled “October 13, 2013.” Note to Leloup and Plamadiala -- that date has not yet occurred.

  These are followed by self-serving “extracts” and photos of ammunition looted, a truck and tank taken, photos of the M23 headquarters taken by The Group -- from a helicopter no less -- and almost pornographic pictures of bullets and their launchers. (In the vein, in Annex 44 the Group includes some stomping at the “Hotel Pygmy in Mambasa town.”)

  Finally, only in Annex 50, the Group gets into the FDLR, a militia actually linked to a genocide.

  There is an annex of 509 names provided by the Rwandan government -- portrayed by Reuters as not cooperating, in an article which uploaded neither the report nor its annexes.

  The UN, Reuters' partner (click here to see Reuters UN bureau chief leaking to the UN, against Inner City Press, leading to the formation of the new Free UN Coalition for Access) typically is most concerned with attacks on itself. In Annex 64 it showed burned trucks.

  There are screen shots of SMS messages -- never mind that the UN denied or stonewalls on documents showing when Bosco Ntaganda was working with the FARDC they supported. The process is entirely politicized.

  When Inner City Press published internal emails from the MONUSCO UN Mission on this topic, MONUSCO replied angrily via press release that it was false. Not that the Group says it too, will MONUSCO attack the Group of Experts?

MONUSCO has not responded to a request, in French no less, by the Free UN Coalition for Access, digging into the UN system's and particularly UN Peacekeeping's one-way social media, to clarify how many FARDC arrests there have been for the 135 rapes in Minova in late November.

  Now what of the UN mission MONUSCO working with Congolese Army units intertwined with the FDLR? After UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, in his previous incarnation representing France in the Security Council, argued in favor of letter the genocidaires escape from Rwanda into Eastern Congo? 

  Ladsous, of course, hand his information to favored scribes, at least one of which returns the favor to the UN, as recently shown.  And who did this one? And now what? Watch this site.

  

As Congo Sanctions Report Leaks Again, Predictably, Nothing on Suspect Experts, Borello, Herve Ladsous' Past

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- As yet another UN sanctions report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo was leaked on Friday, what was not reported was as noteworthy as what was.

  Rwanda's opposition to two of the Group of Experts' members, Bernard Leloup and Marie Plamadiala, was not noted. As with Steve Hege (and UN Great Lakes envoy Mary Robinson's new hire Frederico Borello), their positions were made clear even before joining the Group.

  Alluded to is Congolese Army support for and work with the FDLR militia. When Inner City Press published internal emails from the MONUSCO UN Mission on this topic,MONUSCO replied angrily via press release that it was false. Not that the Group says it too, will MONUSCO attack the Group of Experts?

  MONUSCO has not responded to a request by the Free UN Coalition for Access, digging into the UN system's and particularly UN Peacekeeping's one-way social media, to clarify how many FARDC arrests there have been for the 135 rapes in Minova in late November.

  Now what of the UN mission MONUSCO working with Congolese Army units intertwined with the FDLR? After UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, in his previous incarnation representing France in the Security Council, argued in favor of letting the genocidaires escape from Rwanda into Eastern Congo? 

  Ladsous, of course, hands his information to favored scribes(one of which returns the favor to the UN, as recently shown.) And who did this one? Watch this site.

  

On DRC, Rwanda Tells UNSC Leloup & Plamadiala Are Not Welcome

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- One month after Rwanda joined the UN Security Council, on Friday afternoon it attended a meeting of the Council's Sanctions Committee on the Democratic Republic of Congo.

   This Committee had adopted some new sanctions on New Years Eve, just before Rwanda joined on January 1.

  On Friday, February 1, things were different, Inner City Press is exclusively informed. The other 14 members were told by Rwanda that while it is keen to collaborate with the new Group of Experts, it doubts their will to change mindsets, given past experience.

 The reference was for example to Steve Hege, the expert who took off the Internet his writings about the FDLR militia once they were identified and linked to by Inner City Press.

   The news of February 1 is that Rwanda told the Committee that neither Bernard Leloup nor Marie Plamadiala, as members of the Group of Experts charged with visiting not only DRC about also its neighbors, will be welcomed in Rwanda, whatever the consequences. Rwanda had informed the UN Secretariat before their appointment and now feels it needs to be respected.

   Inner City Press has inquired into Rwanda's objection to Leloup. For a random search, click here.

As one example: http://rwanda-rugari.tripod.com/rwandarugari/id83.html

   As with Hege, it would seem that in the wide world of academic experts, one could be found without a paper trail of such strong opinions, which undermine at least the perception of objectivity. 

 Why does the UN keep doing this? Watch this site.