In Rwanda History Purge, Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping Let MONUC.org Go, But Won't Admit It

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 8, 2014 -- When UN Peacekeeping closes down or even just re-names one of its missions, what remains of its history, including its website and domain? 

  Well at least under Herve Ladsous as regards the old MONUC.org, now renamed MONUSCO, history is purged, sold off, covered up. 

   And then, tellingly, the UN dissembles, today telling Inner City Press that MONUC.org is not really gone. But it is - click here and watch as www.MONUCO.org redirects to www.waypathinternet.com - and along with it, history of complicity in the Rwanda genocide.

  On April 7, 2014, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Ladsous openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question about when MONUSCO will belatedly go after the Hutu FDLR militia, saying "Mister, you know I never answer your questions and you know very well why." Video here.

Why, then? Ladsous was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, and he argued for French policies including the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. See sample memo, here.

Ladsous would certainly like that 1994 memo to disappear - in fact, by refusing to answer Press questions he tries to disappear the issue. But consider this:

On the old MONUC missions website, MONUC.org, was this about former UN staffer Callixte Mbarushimana, at a page named http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=17015

"Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris

"The serious and consistent allegations against Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, have been a source of considerable embarrassment for the UN for many years. After the evacuation of foreign staff, the 44-year-old computer technician appointed himself as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda, from 10 April to 4 July 1994. He is accused by dozens of witnesses, including former colleagues, militiamen and local administrators, of used his position, and the resources, of the UNDP, to advance the policy of massacres, including the murder of Tutsis who worked for the UNDP. Dressed in military fatigues, armed with a gun and carrying grenades in his belt, witnesses say that he lent the vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to militaryofficers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings."

On a previous April 7, Inner City Press had written about Mbarushimana, citing and linking to MONUC.org. 

  But attempting it on April 7, 2014 it emerged that the UN has not only abandoned the website of its largest and longest running peacekeeping mission - it has allowed a for profit company PathwayInternet.com to take it over. So much for preserving memory. Under Ladsous, the goal seems to be to censor or disappear memory.

  And so on April 8 Inner City Press asked the UN's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq what had happened to MONUC.org, and to the information about the Rwanda genocide that used to be on it. Haq's office returned with this, copied to lead spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, which leaves MONUC.org and that now missing information UNaddressed:

Subject: Your question on DPKO websites
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply
Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:17 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at[ un.org>

Regarding the question you asked about MONUC and other websites of past UN peacekeeping missions, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has the following information:

UN Peacekeeping maintains pages on the UN Peacekeeping website for all past operations http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/

This includes MONUC:

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/

Most active missions run their own local website. In the case of MONUC, we understand their local website was renamed with a new url to reflect the establishment of MONUSCO:

http://www.monusco.unmissions.org/

   But where is MONUC.org and the information that was on it? On the archivedhttp://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/monuc/ there appears to be no information on the UN's own Callixte Mburushimana. There are dead links.

  So too out in the world: a "V-Day" website about sexual violence in the DRC, on which Ladsous is now slated to speak on April 9 along with Zainab Bangura and Navi Pillay after Ladsous refused questions about the Minova rapes for months, click here, now points to a non-existent (or covered-up, sold off) page, http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=855&menuOpened=About%20MONUC

   It is noteworthy that despite the ease of verifying where www.MONUC.org points now, the above was sent - but Inner City Press' April 8 question about what Ladsous said about drones or UUAVs has not yet been answered. We'll have more on this.

  Also in Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping there is a process of not speaking in the first place. At the event on April 7, 2014 where Ladsous refused to answer, Inner City Press also asked why for example Ladsous' Western Sahara mission MINURSO has no social media presence. It is listed at the bottom of UN Peacekeeping's website as a "missions with no social media presence."

  The answer given -- not by Ladsous, who refuses Inner City Press questions -- is that for some missions, countries do no give permission for certain equipment or, apparently, Twitter accounts. But who could it be, banning MINURSO in Western Sahara from social media?

Ladsous tries to spoonfeed information to friendly scribes; in his favor first the UN Correspondents Association (requested by Agence France Presse) then the current spokesperson of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have made threats to discourage coverage. There's more on this - but this is yesterday's video, here; this is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

Purging Rwanda History, Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping Let MONUC Mission's Web Domain Go: Covering Up Callixte

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 7, 2014 -- When UN Peacekeeping closes down or even just re-names one of its missions, what remains? Well at least under Herve Ladsous as regards the old MONUC mission in the Congo, now renamed MONUSCO, history is purged, sold off, covered up.

On April 7, 2014, the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Ladsous openly refused to answer Inner City Press' question about when MONUSCO will belatedly go after the Hutu FDLR militia, saying "Mister, you know I never answer your questions and you know very well why." Video here.

Why, then? Ladsous was France's Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide, and he argued for French policies including the escape of the genocidaires into Eastern Congo. See sample memo, here.

Ladsous would certainly like that 1994 memo to disappear - in fact, by refusing to answer Press questions he tries to disappear the issue. But consider this:

On the old MONUC missions website, MONUC.org, was this about former UN staffer Callixte Mbarushimana:

"Callixte Mbarushimana in Paris

"The serious and consistent allegations against Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, have been a source of considerable embarrassment for the UN for many years. After the evacuation of foreign staff, the 44-year-old computer technician appointed himself as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda, from 10 April to 4 July 1994. He is accused by dozens of witnesses, including former colleagues, militiamen and local administrators, of used his position, and the resources, of the UNDP, to advance the policy of massacres, including the murder of Tutsis who worked for the UNDP. Dressed in military fatigues, armed with a gun and carrying grenades in his belt, witnesses say that he lent the vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to militaryofficers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings."

On a previous April 7, Inner City Press had written about Mbarushimana, citing and linking to MONUC.org. 

  But attempting it on April 7, 2014 it emerged that the UN has not only abandoned the website of its largest and longest running peacekeeping mission - it has allowed a for profit company PathwayInternet.com to take it over. So much for preserving memory. Under Ladsous, the goal seems to be to censor or disappear memory.

Also in Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping there is a process of not speaking in the first place. At the event on April 7, 2014 where Ladsous refused to answer, Inner City Press also asked why for example Ladsous' Western Sahara mission MINURSO has no social media presence. It is listed at the bottom of UN Peacekeeping's website as a "missions with no social media presence."

The answer given -- not by Ladsous, who refuses Inner City Press questions -- is that for some missions, countries do no give permission for certain equipment or, apparently, Twitter accounts. But who could it be, banning MINURSO in Western Sahara from social media?

Ladsous tries to spoonfeed information to friendly scribes; in his favor first the UN Correspondents Association (requested by Agence France Presse) then the current spokesperson of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have made threats to discourage coverage. There's more on this - but this is today's video, here; this is today's UN. Watch this site.

   

On Rwanda Genocide, UN Silent on Its Own Role, So ICP Asks, Duhozanye Answers

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 9 -- When the UN invited two Rwanda genocide survivors to speak on April 9, commemorating 19 years after UN peacekeepers left in the face of mass murder, one expected the “lessons learned” to also be about the UN.

  But the formal presentation asked Daphrose Mukarutamu, founder of the Duhozanye organization, and her fellow survivor only about reconciliation in the country. The UN Women panelist, Nahla Valji, spoke about thegacaca courts.

  But in terms of “Never Again,” what of the UN's own performance, its abandonment of the victim, even helping the genocidaires to escape into Eastern Congo?

  As we have noted, current chief of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous in 1994 as Deputy Permanent Representative of France advocated for and facilitated this rescue of genocidaires, through “Operation Turquiose.”

Ladsous refused to answer Inner City Press questions about his role, then refused to answer ANY questions from Inner City Press, including about rapes by the Congolese Army, his partners. Video here.

On Tuesday night, the UN did not ask about these issues either. So Inner City Press did. YouTube video here.

  Daphrose Mukarutamu replied with dignity that members of Duhozanye have testified in Arusha against those who committed the genocide, and the government is trying to track more down.

  But what of, for example, Callitxe Mbarushimana, who while working for UNDP in 1994 used UN vehicles and radios to kill at least three dozen Tutsis, including Florence Ngirumpatse, the director of personnel at UNDP's office in Kigali?

  The UN let him keep working for them, in Angola where he was not even language qualified, until he was outed in 2001 working for the UN in Kosovo. Even then, he was paid an additional $35,000.

  After Inner City Press' question, and Daphrose Mukarutamu's answer, a participant hissed to Inner City Press, do you think that question elevated the discussion?

  It had to be asked. It should have been in the introduction. It should have been in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's canned statement over the weekend. And it will continued to be asked.

  Duhozanye is composed of, and cares for, genocide survivors, now focusing on those who are aging without family members to take care of them. They want to start a retirement community. The event was strangely lacking in contact information for them. But we suggest an Internet search: Duhozanye. And check out, as well, Callitxe Mbarushimana and the history of Herve Ladsous, while you're at it. Watch this site.

Footnote: the UN Department of Public Information, the evening's host, does some good programs, and surely will do more. But they should have included some mention of the UN's own role. 

 And, just within UN Headquarters itself, they should be more forthright about how and why they raided the office of Inner City Press without consent or even notice on March 18, and how photographs they took were leaked to BuzzFeed.com on March 21. The Rwandan mission is aware of what DPI did, even referred to it on UNTV earlier this month. Accountability, high and low. Or impunity? Watch this site.

UN on Rwanda Genocide Rings False, Between Callixte Mbarushimana and Ladsous

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- Remembrances of the 1994 Rwanda genocide at the UN have an air of falsity to them, like some other things at the UN.

  Take for example the case of UN employee Callixte Mbarushimana. In 1994 he is strongly alleged to have used his UN vehicle and radio and access to assist in the killing of at least three dozen Tutsi, including Florence Ngirumpatse, the director of personnel at UNDP's office in Kigali.

  What did the UN do about this? They gave Mbarushimana other UN jobs including in Angola (for which he was not language-qualified) and in Kosovo, as if on an ethnic cleansing road trip. Only when outed did they act; then they ended up paying Mbarushimana an additional $35,000. 

  The International Criminal Court, charging him in connection with other killings in Eastern Congo in 2009, also failed.

What does this say about the UN? At the UN's French-free genocide memorial on April 7, 2008, Inner City Press asked asked Rwanda's then-Ambassador Nsengimana about Mbarushimana's case. "The UN's awareness came very late," he said, diplomatically.

  But it's gotten worse. As we asked yesterday and before, what does it say about the UN that Herve Ladsous, who in 1994 as French deputy permanent representative argued for the evacuation of the genocidaires to refuge in Eastern Congo through Operation Turquoise, is now chief of UN Peacekeeping?

When Ladsous held his first press conference as head of DPKO on October 13, 2011, Inner City Press asked him about his past on Rwanda. Video here, from Minute 22:50.

  All Ladsous would say that day was that was history, that was the past. But is it only the past?

  Ladsous has refused to answer Inner City Press questions about his previous work; most recently last month Tim Witcher of Agence France Presse, on an management board of which Ladsous used to serve, complained to the UN that Inner City Press asked Ladsous a question, or how it asked the question.

Click here for questions, refused by Ladsous in 2012 on November 27, December 7 and December 18, all about rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army.

  Plus ca change, as they say. Never again? Hardly. Watch this site.

UN Resignation of Petrie Caused by Inaction on Staff Genocidaire, UN No Comments

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 20 -- The UN moved Charles Petrie from Somalia to Burundi in April of this year, and now on November 1 he is leaving the employ of the UN.

On October 19, Inner City Press asked the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq why Petrie is leaving. He is not being thrown out of the country, Haq said. “Clearly, he has been talking about this, and so, you could get the answer just as easily from Mr. Petrie. I wouldn’t have any way of adding to his own comments.”

But a September 30 resignation letter from Petrie to Ban Ki-moon, obtained elsewhere in New York by Inner City Press, shows that Petrie is choosing to leave the whole UN system, due to the UN's inaction on genocidaire Callixte Mbarushimana, and that while he will now work part time on Somalia, it will not be through the UN, but on behalf of European donors.

For a UN official to leave the UN system due to its failure to act on a genocidaire who worked for the UN is news -- which may be why Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson's Office has refused to say anything. Back on October 11, Inner City Press asked

Inner City Press: does the UN have any comment on the arrest in Paris of Callixte Mbarushimana?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: I know who you mean, and this is an ICC [International Criminal Court] arrest. We’ve seen the same press release or statement that you have on this person…

Inner City Press: He worked for the UN; I am wondering what the response…

Spokesperson Nesirky: We of course know where he worked before, and you also know the full history to that. What I can simply say is that we are aware in the same way that you are — from the media and from their press release — that the International Criminal Court has announced that this man was arrested earlier today in Paris by the French authorities following a sealed ICC arrest warrant. That’s what I can tell you.

But the UN could have said more.

The public record shows that Petrie was the UN's Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide. In his September 30 letter of resignation to Ban, Petrie urged

“the UN to come to terms with the case of Callixte Mbarushimana, a former staff member of UNDP (1992 - 1995 Rwanda, 1996 - 1998 Angola) and later UNMIK (2000-2001), accusing of having participated in the murder of thirty-three people at the time of Rwanda's genocide, among [them] UN colleagues. To a large part as a result of the UN's inability, or unwillingness, to initiate an investigation of the accusations that were know to it by 1996, Callixte Mbarushimana won a legal action against the UN in 2004 which resulted in the organization paying his thirteen months salary as compensation for the 'violation of his rights.'”

The UN could have addressed this, but didn't. Perhaps the “review” that Petrie's letter to Ban says he will embark on will help address this. Watch this site.

Congo's Bosco Exposes UN War Crimes Double Talk, Gambari's Planned Darfur Turn Over Confirms It

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 13 -- As indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda has walked freely around Goma in Eastern Congo, bragging about leading military operations which the UN has supported, the UN has claimed it did not deal with Bosco, that it wanted him arrested.

Inner City Press has published at least four stories on the UN's dalliance with Bosco, indicted for child soldier recruitment, in 2008 and 2009. In May 2009 Inner City Press obtained and published minutes showing Bosco was in the chain of command of UN supported military operations, click here to view.

The UN doggedly ignored the written evidence, claiming it it had obtained a letter to the contrary, even as a former UN peacekeeping official called the UN's double talk "shameful." Click here.

Then on October 11, 2010, days before a human rights report further detailed the UN's duplicity, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: Last week there was an interview with [Jean] Bosco Ntaganda — indicted for recruitment of child soldiers and other war crimes — in which he said openly that he is part of the Congolese Army’s action in Walikale, and that that’s some action that the UN provides logistical support to. So, since the UN has in the past claimed that it does not support any action in which he is a commander, how do they respond to him doing this interview in full view of UN peacekeepers and bragging about UN support to him?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: In precisely the same way as we have done before, Matthew.

Inner City Press: Meaning what? Saying it’s not true just by…?

Spokesperson: Correct. That we do not deal with him and we would not participate in operations with him.

Inner City Press: Is the UN providing logistical support to the attacks, to the attempts to rein in the FDLR [Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda] in Walikale, which he claims to be the commander of?

Spokesperson: As I have said, we would not be dealing with him. Okay?

Inner City Press: [inaudible] as I am sure you know, quotes a Western diplomat as saying everyone knows that he commands it. It’s basically that the UN doesn’t want to admit it. So I guess I am just… I am asking you, is it… how is it possible that the UN…?

Spokesperson: You’ve asked me, Matthew, and I have given the answer. So, what’s the next question?

Inner City Press: Okay, the next question is does the UN have any comment on the arrest in Paris of Callixte Mbarushimana?

Spokesperson: I know who you mean, and this is an ICC [International Criminal Court] arrest. We’ve seen the same press release or statement that you have on this person…

Inner City Press: He worked for the UN; I am wondering what the response…

Spokesperson: We of course know where he worked before, and you also know the full history to that. What I can simply say is that we are aware in the same way that you are — from the media and from their press release — that the International Criminal Court has announced that this man was arrested earlier today in Paris by the French authorities following a sealed ICC arrest warrant. That’s what I can tell you.

This last point is not unrelated -- since the UN is willing to mince words about providing logistical support to military operations involving and even led by a war criminal, why be surprised that a war criminal like the FDLR's Callixte Mbarushimana ended up in the employ and pay of the UN?

After Nesirky's dogged insistence that the double talk that began when MONUC was run by Alan Doss, who asked for “leeway” to get his daughter Rebecca Doss a job at UNDP then retired while the UN delayed and buried its investigation of nepotism, should continue unabated now that Roger Meece runs MONUSCO, Inner City Press necessarily turned to another UN official.

On October 12, Inner City Press asked Ban's Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy about MONUSCO working with Bosco, despite Bosco's indictment by the ICC for recruiting child soldiers.

While Ms. Coomaraswamy began by repeating the UN's line, under Nesirky's watchful eye, later to her credit she indirectly acknowledged that despite the UN's stated position, Bosco is still there -- taking photos with UN peacekeepers.

While truncated, the UN's own summary of Ms. Coomaraswamy's press conference states:

“Asked about the case of Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel commander charged with using child soldiers and war crimes by the International Criminal Court, she said that she had strongly advocated for his arrest and trial. The United Nations as a whole had the same policy, but had not able to arrest anyone anywhere in the world. She would not comment on photographs that allegedly showed him with peacekeepers.”

While in Sudan last week, Inner City Press continued reporting on the UN's next de-evolution: UN Darfur chief Ibrahim Gambari being on the verge of turning over five rebel supporters to the Sudan regime of indicted war criminal and genocidaire Omar al Bashir, relying on Bashir's promise he won't execute them.

It was been said, without any direct response from the UN spokesman when asked, that this would make the UN complicit in genocide. Bosco and MONUSCO are part of this picture. Now what will the UN do? Watch this site.

Sri Lanka Denies IDP Reduction Reported by Inner City Press, Raises to UN, Crackdown Explained?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
www.innercitypress.com/untrip3may7srilanka060509.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 5 -- The Sri Lankan government has denounced a story about "missing" internally displaced people which Inner City Press, based on discrepancies in UN documents and statements from UN sources, published this week.

Beyond denying that any IDPs have been removed from the UN-funded camps in Vavuniya, which Inner City Press visited on May 23, the government has said that it is raising the matter with the UN. "Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations," according to a pro-government web site.

On June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson publicly denounced Inner City Press for its reporting, but denied she had discussed "complaining to Google News" about it, presumably to stop its distribution or censor it. The next day she recanted, click here. Click here for Inner City Press (on NYTimes.com) on tensions in Sri Lanka.

Inner City Press' story noted that even the UN, in a May 30 report, acknowledged that its number of IDPs in the camps decreased by over 13,000.

While the public report by UN OCHA ascribed this sudden drop -- from May 27 -- to "double counting," local UN sources, on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation not only by the Sri Lankan government but also by the UN, told Inner City Press that as with the satellite photos of the conflict zone and casualty figures, some in the UN were seeking to downplay this potentially troubling information.

OCHA's May 30 report states that "276,785 persons crossed to the Government controlled areas from the conflict zone. This represents a decrease of 13,130 IDPs since the last report (Sitrep No.18) on 27 May 2009. The decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required."

But earlier, OCHA had praised the "improved, systematic registration being undertaken in the camps."

The article continued that UN sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other purposes, as UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews

Shouldn't the UN look into this more closely, given multiple and credible reports of people being "disappeared" from the UN-funded IDP camps? The UN so far has done nothing in this regard.

To expedite matters, one hopes, Inner City Press now publishes a list of some of the places where the UN -- or perhaps a less compromised body -- should look for missing people:

Pallekelle near Kandy; Ambepussa, Boosa and, it is said, the Army training camp at Diya-talawwa.

On June 2, Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson while again publicly denouncing Inner City Press for its reporting, denied she had discussed "complaining to Google News" about it, presumably to stop its distribution or censor it.

The next day, Ms. Montas confirmed that both legal action and "complaining to Google News" were discussed at a meeting she had with four top UN officials, including Mr Ban's speech writer, who also traveled to Sri Lanka on May 23, the UN's top lawyer Patricia O'Brien, Angela Kane and the head of UN "Public Information," Kiyotaka Akasaka, previously of the Japanese foreign ministry.

Following a failure by these officials to respond to requests that they explain how the strategy they discussed comports with the free press Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Inner City Press has asked for action from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, click here.

Footnotes: During this week's back and forth about the UN threatening legal action against the Press, and to complain to Google News about Inner City Press' coverage, a high UN official, again anonymous due to fear of retaliation even at his level, approached Inner City Press to say that the attempt at censorship or expulsion was being pushed by what he diplomatically called "a member state." Asked if this meant Sri Lanka, he nodded.

Meanwhile, in a show of retaliation, the UN has taken the step of seizing and checking the UN e-mail of staff members who they believe have been sources for Inner City Press. Some say that when the UN went to Sri Lanka, rather than seek to hold the government to a high standard of human rights, the effect was to make the UN (even) more like the administration of the Rajapaksas...

Guard in Manik Farm camp, (c) M. Lee May 23, 2009

The article below quoting that "Minister of Human Rights and Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe is expected to take up the issue with United Nations" takes issue with Inner City Press quoting that

"UN sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other purposes, [as] UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews."

Contrary to the (intentional?) misinterpretation below, Inner City Press was not saying that all Sri Lankan nationals are Sinhalese -- rather, that within the UN's staff in Sri Lanka, those who are of the majority Sinhalese group are seen by their Tamil colleagues as in some cases using their positions in the UN to advance, as some phrase it, "the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist cause." Inner City Press did not invent these divisions, and the article's and minister's statement that all is now well in Sri Lanka is, at best, wishful thinking. Within the UN, some recall the way in Rwanda a Hutu staff member named Callixte Mbarushimana was allowed to use his UN position and materiel to further the Hutu extremist cause which has since been acknowledged as genocide. The UN continued employing and paying Callixte Mbarushimana for many years. Some wonder, will that happen with the UN in Sri Lanka?

On June 5 outside the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked the Special Adviser of the Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, if his Office will do any work on Sri Lanka. "We try to follow what is going on, the post-conflict developments," he said. "It's been going on for twenty five years, you don't just...." His voice trailed off. "One phase ended, presumably, but....". And his voice trailed off again. Of course, it's been "going on" for far longer than 25 years.

At the UN noon briefing on June 5, Inner City Press asked Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq if the UN has received any communications from the Sri Lankan government about report based on OCHA's May 30 and May 27 figures. Haq said to ask Sri Lanka's mission to the UN. Inner City Press asked if Ban Ki-moon would speak about Sri Lanka with the Press after his closed door informal (or "unofficial") briefing to the Security Council slated for June 5 and 3:15 p.m.. Haq did not say yes. Watch this site.sir lank

And see, www.innercitypress.com/untrip3may7srilanka060509.html

At UN's Rwanda Genocide Commemoration, Questions of Ex-Interhamwe FDLR, Darfur and UNDP's Callixte Mbarushimana

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1rwanda040708.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- While the 14th anniversary of the start of the genocide in Rwanda was commemorated Monday at UN headquarters, the issues raised are not over. In Eastern Congo, the ex-Interhamwe FDLRs are being encouraged by the UN to disarm and return to Rwanda. At Monday's UN event, Inner City Press asked Rwanda's Ambassador to the UN Joseph Nsengimana what will happen with the FDLR fighters who return. They must come back without arms, he said. Then they will be treated like any Rwandan citizen. Does this mean that a form of amnesty is being granted, even to those who participated in the genocide?

Tanzania's Ambassador Augustine Mahiga spoke at the event, on behalf of the African Union, and said that in Liberia, too, he had seen "massacres go unpunished and uninvestigated." He spoke of seeing Rwandan genocidaires never separated out in the refugee camps in Bukavu in what he called, even Monday night, "eastern Zaire." By that stage, humanitarian and justice-seeking imperatives were deemed to be in conflict, needing to paralysis.

The UN's role in Rwanda in 1994 is not only one of inaction. UN Development Program staffer Callixte Mbarushimana "lent vehicles and satellite telephones of the UNDP to military officers, that he also used the UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings," as stated in an article on the UN's own DR Congo website. Another UN documents recites his role in "the death of UNDP’s National Personnel Officer, Ms. Florence Ngirumpatse, and a number of refugees in the residence where they had taken refuge."

After the 100 days of killing, Mbarushimana was allowed to continue working for the UN for seven more years, for example (as recited in the course of the UN's process leading to an additional payment of $35,000 to Mbarushimana) "from December 1996 to December 1999, he was with UNDP-Luanda, Angola." As noted in a more detailed account, Mbarushimana wan't even language-qualified for this UNDP post. We hope to have more on this.

Inner City Press asked Rwandan Ambassador Nsengimana about Mbarushimana's case. "The UN's awareness came very late," he said. In fact, the UN has yet to answer when it knew what it came to know about Mbarushimana, and what actions if any it took on what it knew. Now after repeated extradition requests from Rwanda, Mbarushimana is under investigation in France.

There did not appear to be an French representation at Monday's Rwanda genocide memorial, held in the two-storied Delegates' Entrance lobby. Sudan's Ambassador was present, and took umbrage when the final speaker linked Rwanda's genocide with more recent events in Darfur. Afterwards, he told Inner City Press, Rwandan Ambassador Nsengimana apologized to him for the comments. Never again?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1rwanda040708.html