UN Will Not Act on Chad's Assault on Shadowy Rebels, Some Peacekeeping

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/chad1pfnr050410.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- When Chad claimed to have killed 105 rebels in a fight last week, human rights groups were quick to point to the incident as another reason the UN peacekeeping mission MINURCAT should be allowed to stay.

But after speaking with Chad's Ambassador Ahmad Allam-mi, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky what MINURCAT was going to do. "The closest the MINURCAT is to that location where the reported clash has taken place is about 150 kilomters. It's not related, clearly, to the discussions abou the future of MINURCAT."

So while human rights groups seem to believe that the UN peacekeeping mission could be or even is doing something about this, it is not.

Ambassador Allam-mi described the rebel group at issue, the Popular Front for National Renaissance, as little more than gangsters, living in a heavily mined area that the government barely controls. They work with the Lord's Resistance Army, he told Inner City Press. They worked with the forces of Bemba [now on trial for war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.)

Allam-mi described in novelistic fashion the career of PFNR leader Adoum Yacoub: he was in London, he fought in South Sudan, he got a bullet in his stomach. But where is the UN?

From the UN's April 30, 2010 transcript, Inner City Press' questions

Inner City Press: There are these reports in Chad. The Chadian Government claims to have killed 105 rebels near the Sudan border. I wonder what the UN knows about this, and how it may or may not relate to MINURCAT [United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad] or other UN missions in the area, or has any comment on this reported large killing?

Spokesperson Nesirky: We can’t confirm the death toll in that fighting. And the closest that MINURCAT is to that location where the reported clash has taken place is about 150 kilometres away. It’s not related, clearly, to the discussions about the future of MINURCAT.

Question: I guess that, since MINURCAT does have this mandate of to some degree protection of civilians, is it that it is geographically out of MINURCAT’s zone or that it is viewed as being a military conflict not affecting civilians?

Spokesperson: I think it is simply geography and logistics rather than mandate here. It’s just where they are located at the moment. It doesn’t mean that they’re not trying to find out. They are trying to find out what is going on. But at the moment they can’t confirm the figure that you are saying now. We have seen the same reports. We can’t confirm that. We have also seen the denial from the other side. What we can say is that, clearly, the Mission would like to know what is going on and is trying to do precisely that: to find out.

Question: Just one follow-up on this. The Chadian ambassador was just telling me that the area in which this took place is, has been for a long time, heavily landmined by what he called this rebel group which he alleges works with the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] and with the forces that Mr. [Jean-Pierre] Bemba used to command in the Central African Republic. So what I wonder is, given the UN’s overarching … has the UN ever, maybe you’ll know this so you could, have they ever done mine removal or mine action? What is the UN’s degree of access to the geographical area that this is in? I wouldn’t expect, if you can look into that …

Spokesperson: Sure. Happy to do so.

But four days later, there has been no additional information provided. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/chad1pfnr050410.html

UN in Africa Needs Further Oversight, Should Protect Trucks to Darfur, of Double-Standards

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1postafrica061108.html

IVORY COAST TO NEW YORK, June 10-11 -- During the UN Security Council's seven-nation African tour, what was learned? The UN's interlocutors on Somalia do not include the insurgents who are actually fighting the occupation by Ethiopian troops. While the UN has begged Sudan to allow a second extension of Lockheed Martin's no-bid contract for peacekeeping bases in Darfur, Sudan has said it will stop giving visas to Lockheed Martin in July. (At the June 11 noon briefing, at deadline for this round-up, Inner City Press formally asked the UN to confirm that Sudan granted a final three month extension for the no-bid Lockheed Martin contract that expires in July, video here.)

While the UN's World Food Program attributes its halving of food rations in Darfur to the hijacking of trucks from El Obeid to Darfur, the UN is not using the troops it has in El Fasher to go out and protect at least some trucks. Inner City Press interviewed numerous peacekeepers in the UNAMID base in El Fasher, Lockheed Martin's cash crop, who express frustration at the lack of action, at not being able to help more. The UN should arrange protection for at least some trucks, some routes. You have to start somewhere.

Despite France's blind and desperate support of the Chadian regime of Idriss Deby Itno, he feels no need to meet with the Council delegation led by France's Jean-Maurice Ripert, and Ripert is willing to dissemble to the press to cover up this snub. Even South Africa's Dumisani Kumalo, at trip's end, said Chad is "a lost cause."

The Council as a whole likes to hear praise of the International Criminal Court from Congo's Joseph Kabila, even though an even-handed Court could indict Kabila and not only his opponents. But when challenged on this point, the Council claims to have no relation to the ICC, despite its insistence in Sudan on compliance with the Court. The troubling evidence that UN peacekeepers in Eastern Congo traded guns for gold with murderous militias does not appear to be subject to any substantive re-investigation, despite the UN's own lead investigator now stating that his findings were hidden and whitewashed.

UN Security carries loaded guns on planes, as evidence by the gunplay in Goma incident, and unlike UN propped-up governments like Congo's, Rwanda does not give favors, on visa, security checks or even air fuel. In the face of ransom demands, at least those involving their own convenience, most Council members dig into their pockets to pay. (One P-5 member, not at the Ambassadorial level, said it was outrageous and refused to pony up.) Ban Ki-moon's man in Abdijan, Choi Young -Jin, has not gotten the memo about taking a proactive position against sexual abuse and exploitation, but rather dodges questions on the topic. He is praised by Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo because unlike his predecessors he takes a hands-off approach, which Gbagbo believes will allow him to consolidate his power later this year.

Overall, the UN Security Council allows itself to be dominated by former colonial powers. The Council's public performance, particularly out in the field, is further distorted by the ambitions and self-interests of the Ambassador, exemplified by but not limited to France's Ripert running around Mugunga I camp in Goma looking for the France 24 television crew, and trying to micro-manage coverage of the trip by the Press. The ten non-permanent members do not provide an effective counter-balance; even P-5 member Russia lets the U.S. and Europe do and say what they want in Africa, while China saw no need to be part of the trip in Congo, Rwanda or Ivory Coast, no even sending its Ambassador in Kinshasa -- where it has a $9 billion deal for natural resources -- or Abidjan to attend the Council's functions. China prefers to deal with African and economic issues bilaterally, not through the Council. Therefore despite the claims of many human rights groups, China hardly controls the Council's approach for example to Sudan. There, former colonial power the UK publicly takes a hard-line, while in private being pushed around by Al-Bashir. One example was, in their closed door meeting, the UK's John Sawers raising NGOs' complaints which al-Bashir cut off, saying the NGOs should be using the previous established complaint process rather than waiting to tattle to Council members. According to Inner City Press' sources in the meeting, Sawers did not contest his. But a day later, in the Chadian IDP camp near Goz Beida, he told an audience of people admitted from Chad that he and the Council are pressing hard on President al-Bashir." The following day France's Ripert waded into the crowd in Mugunga IDP camp outside Goma in the Congo and said he and the Council are doing everything possible "so you can go home." Does unqualified support for Joseph Kabila, and nodding dismissal of the country's legislature -- which questioned the politics and timing of the arrest of Kabila's main opponent Jean-Pierre Bemba -- qualify in this regard? Time will tell.

On the other hand, the UN operationally is feeding and sheltering, sometimes in brutal conditions, destitute refugees and displaced people. In Mugunga, people live in huts of plastic sheeting, with floors of lava rock. Somehow 10,000 people are fed three meals a day. NGOs in Goz Beida run almost village-like camps of thatch-roofed huts. In Darfur's Zamzam camp outside El Fasher, there is a climate of fear, armed men everywhere, UN helicopters overhead.

In two, maybe three, of countries visits, the UN operates nearly as a state within a state. In Sudan the UN has two separate missions. UNMIS in the South dominates and distorts the local economy, seeming akin to UNMIK in Kosovo. In El Fasher in Darfur, the UN's and NGOs' presence has led to house rents of $5000, the emergence of a pizzeria and sale of balsamic vinegar. In the Congo, MONUC has an air force and peacekeepers everywhere, except when called on to engage rebel groups like the CNDC -- then they stand down and return to their bases, with good food and even surfing, and allegedly guns for gold sales. In Abidjan, Ban Ki-moon's man Choi is installed in an old hotel on a hill, with his own radio station and no need, apparently, to answer questions about the Mission's alleged wrongdoing, even when some at Headquarters say ONUCI senior leadership have a lot to answer for.

There is a need for more oversight, more checks and balances, less cover-up. We will continue to follow these issue.

Footnotes: In the Kigali airport, clutching a print-out an Inner City Press article which noted that France's Jean-Maurice Ripert had abruptly pulled back from the media after being accused of lying about Deby by, among others, the BBC's world correspondent, Ripert approached Inner City Press and demanded, "Why did you write this?" How about, because it's true?

In fact, Ambassador Ripert's problematic relationship with the truth began earlier on the trip, when he told the Wali of North Darfur that France had no role in the pardoning and release of the French staff of L'Arch de Zoe after they were found guilty of kidnapping Chadian and Sudanese children. It also continued right to the end of the trip, when in the final press conference before the Ambassador's were whisked to the Abidjan airport, Ripert grabbed the microphone to announced that "Licorne is not a French force," when the question hadn't even been asked. If put in charge of UN Peacekeeping Operations, thing would only get worse. And, we're compelled to report, one of the organizers of this Security Council trip tried to bar Inner City Press from going -- unsuccessfully as it turned out. But in Kigali, Ripert may have missed the point of that article and series, which looked more at the UN's own operations in these countries than at the quality and veracity of each Ambassador's performance.

In Djibouti, Inner City Press asked the staff of Ould-Adballah how much the UN is paying its largely London-based Somali opposition interlocutors, but the answer was not provided in Djibouti, nor in the following nine days of the trip. (At the June 11 noon briefing, at deadline for this round-up, Inner City Press formally re-posed the question at the UN's noon briefing in New York, video here.) In Sudan, it remains unclear if the legal advisor to UNMIS' Ashraf Qazi did, as Sudan claims, try to block the press' visit to the Omdurman museum of the attack, including on civilians, of the Justice and Equality Movement rebels. Likewise, whether UNAMID's Rodolphe Adada is using what credit he has with Khartoum to plead for extended no-bid contracts for Lockheed Martin.

In Chad, MINURCAT's Victor Angelo demanded off-the-record treatment for his answers to questions about JEM, about alleged French domination of the peacekeeping in Chad and the Central African Republic, including through EUFOR. On the ongoing question of the UN's closeness with Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, where Angelo served, he pointed at the retraction of one of the allegations, while saying even it it was true, it was "the Cameroonian," not him. At the end of the Chad leg, he asked Inner City Press for a review. Decidedly mixed.

In Congo Alan Doss, while viewed as more of a post-conflict specialist than might be needed, at least had an answer, however canned, to questions of peacekeeper abuse, the trading of guns for gold. This stood in contrast the ONUCI's Choi Young-Jin, who went asked by Inner City Press about a less than two week old report of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, of which senior ONUCI leadership was informed but did not nothing, merely referred to his earlier statement, which ONUCI sources say involved a largely dismissive buying of time to respond. Still, Chad was the low point of the trip -- a "lost cause," as Ambassador Kumalo put it -- and its high point, at least for this reporter, was the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where people who have suffered too much war are still scrappling in the street, selling fruit and avocados and photocopies from machines run by generators, rolling enormous propane canisters of self-made wooden bikes, striving for better lives. When the UN can help that, it does well. But it does much that works against it, which should and will be covered.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1postafrica061108.html

Eastern Congo Violence Allowed by UN, Fancy Uvira Camp as Council Visits Goma, Gold and Guns Denied

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1goma060808.html

EN ROUTE TO GOMA, June 8, updated Kigali June 9 -- As Security Council members head to Eastern Congo, the UN's own performance in the Congo has been called into question. It has emerged that during the fighting in December in North Kivu in which the forces of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda soundly thrashed the Congolese Army, the UN Peacekeeping battalion in the area, Indian nationals, stood down and did not fight. Worse, the orders to take no chances are said to have come from New Delhi, which continues to cash big UN checks for providing peacekeepers to UN mission. But what's the value, in a place like Eastern Congo, if the troops refuse to fight?

Inner City Press at a Thursday news conference in Kinshasa asked the UN's Alan Doss, head of the UN Mission in the Congo, what he is doing about documented allegations that Indian peacekeepers in Eastern Congo traded for gold, with rebels, and that a Pakistani contingent did the same, according to new interviews given by militia leaders Dragon and Kung Fu from prison in Kinshasa. Doss off-handedly questioned how anyone could interview them, since they are in prison. Then he repeated the party line from the UN in New York, that these allegations have already been investigated, and only a few of them found true. But even for those found true -- for example, the Pakistanis who drove illegal gold traders around in UN vehicles -- no punishment has been issued. The Pakistanis were sent back to their country, but despite a "note verbale" from the UN, Pakistan has refused to say what discipline, if any, has been imposed on them.

In fairness to the Pakistanis, many in the region marvel at the way they have transformed the Eastern Congo town of Uvira, or at least their forward base there. An officers' club serves the best Punjabi food, there are Christmas lights on the trees and even swimming and light surfing, when the crocodiles allow. The physical improvements, it is said, are characterized as quick impact projects in the UN's budget. But quick impact for who?

More seriously on the war crimes and military fronts, the International Criminal Court's indictment and arrest of Jean-Pierre Bemba has caused reactions from other powers on the ground. Nkunda, it is said, sealed off the areas he controls in the days after Bemba's arrest. A senior member of Joseph Kabila's government who hails from Eastern Congo is said to be re-forming his own militia, in case he needs to hide there. One can never be too prepared. The ICC has promised, and for consistency's sake must bring, indictments about the Kivus. Who'll come first? And are the investigating claims that Rwanda has supplied Nkunda, specifically through Ugandan territory? And what of the colleague of still-free Peter Karim, who was in a U.S. training program? If responsibility were truly followed to the top, the Permanent Five members of the Council would not be sitting so pretty. They do, however, have veto rights on Council votes and all of its Chapter VII resolutions like those aimed at Sudan. This Council power over the ICC process was again denied at the Saturday night press conference in Kinshasa's Grand Hotel, when Inner City Press asked Amb. Ripert how Bemba had come up in the earlier meetings in the Palais du Peuple. "The ICC is a completely independent body," Ripert said, the Council is not to interfere with the ICC. But the Rome Statute itself allows the Council to refer cases to the ICC, and even to freeze and put on hold indictments that have been issued by the ICC.

The Council members' program starts in Goma, with a meeting at the Governor's office then "lunch with Malu Malu" at the Stella Hotel. The risque part is set for Sunday afternoon, a visit to the Mugunga I camp for internally displaced people. An earlier version of the program, shown to Inner City Press, said to have security ready to extract the Council members if the IDPs get violent. It also urged proper behavior by the Congolese National Police (in French the PNC), at least during the few hours that the Council is in Goma. After that...

The Council is not visiting Sake, the town repeatedly taken by Nkunda. Nor will they visit the Rutshuru camp, which the FDLR recently attacked. The group's press release after the attack, issued by an ex-UN Development Program employee who used UNDP equipment to kill Tutsis, was circulated for response within MONUC's highest reaches. Don't dignify it with a direct response, was the decision. Ridicule it obliquely and really drive the FDLR crazy. But is that what's needed now? Crazier behavior?

Some in the Congo whisper that Alan Doss, though a nice guy, is not the right man for the task. He did well in relatively post-conflict situations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire. But the Congo is not truly post-conflict at this time. William Lacy Swing, for all his other bluster for example on Kazana, the town torched by the Congolese Army under the watchful eye of UN peacekeepers then denied, was a hands-on guy, who went out to hold meetings even while fighting raged around him, as in March 2007 in Kinshasa. He moved in an armored personnel carrier and had to be extracted from Jean-Pierre Bemba's house. This is not Alan Doss. His approach in the East seems to involve throwing money at the rebels. The so-called Kisangani process, the Goma accord, all of it, has given rise to the hand-out of per diems to purportedly rebels, some of them imposters. The idea is that if you're paying them, there will not be as much fighting. But close observers of the Kivus note for example that sexual abuse has gone up as fighting has done down, as rage and violence is displaced as people are. The number of IDPs has increased, a troubling fact that Doss and MONUC try, rather than addressing, to spin away by saying the higher count is attributable solely to having more access.

Speaking of access, or the lack thereof, the French have gotten worse. On the flight from Chad to Kinshasa, there was not a word from Ambassador Ripert. It's said that Sarkozy's public face of human rights, Ms. Rama Yade, was in town. But again no questions were allowed. As with Chad, missing opposition leaders and Deby's mass evictions, she's got some 'plaining to do about the Congo. Back in March 2007, after hundreds were killed in Kinshasa, France arrived with an aid package and new cooperation agreement, replete with secret clauses. As Inner City Press reported on the way from Sudan to Chad, French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert bristled at questions about France's deal with Chad, insisting it is not for defense but only... ammunition. So where are these agreements?

Footnote: Also on the security front, it has emerged that back when the Council was still considering visiting Somalia, the UK offered MI6 as protection but was rejected by the UN. UK Ambassador John Sawers left the delegation on Saturday night, whisked to the airport from the Palais de Peuple in a four-by-four flying his country's flag. More and more Ambassadors are leaving; even some still in Kinshasa were said to stay poolside and not venture to Goma. In fact, the remaining Ambassadors flew to Goma, although some forewent the IDP camp visit for an NGO briefing that one Ambassador afterwards characterized as same-old, same-old, even "canned." By the time the trip gets to Abidjan, it may be only Burkina and the Press. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1goma060808.html

In Congo, UN Controls Radio Content But Will Not Show the Contract, Journalists in Danger

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
and see, www.innercitypress.com/un1mediaokapi040308.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 3 -- While espousing commitment to press independence, transparency and freedom of information, the UN has a secret memorandum of understanding with the largest radio station in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under which disputes about content are be to be decided by the UN, not the journalists or editor at the station, Radio Okapi.

This emerged in response to questions after a screening Thursday at the UN in New York of a film about the station, Ondes de Choc. The documentary, called "Shock Waves" in English, profiles three courageous radio journalists, but does not mention the UN's financial and editorial control. Inner City Press asked if the station had ever for example put rebel general Laurent Nkunda on the air, and whether it has recently put on the air Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose life was threatened during last year's elections. "We don't have his phone number," the station's editor replied. Other questions arose about whether and how Okabi can cover sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers and reports of UN peacekeepers trading guns and gold in the Eastern Congo.

Three UN officials spoke after the screening. Inner City Press asked Kevin S. Kennedy, in charge of Africa for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, where to get a copy of the memorandum of understanding which he had described. Mr. Kennedy shook his head, saying that it is not a public document, that the UN Office of Legal Affairs would have to get involved. (The head of that Office has recently declined to answer questions following coverage of his omission from the public financial disclosure which he filed of housing subsidies paid by the Swiss government.)

Mr. Kennedy suggested that perhaps the counter-party to the MOU agreement, the Swiss-based Hirondelle Foundation, could show its copy. No, said the Foundation's executive director Jean-Marie Etter. He described a range of other engagements with the UN, including at least one other, in Sudan, that appears governed by an editorial Memorandum of Understanding. Etter said that the UN station, Radio Miraya, should have the right to broadcast throughout Sudan, but is being confined to the southern part of the country.

Given that the UN refers to national sovereignty whenever it wants to dodge an issue -- for example, the recent pardon in Chad and release in France of the Zoe's Ark staffers who kidnapped 103 children -- Inner City Press asked for the basis of the claim that the UN can broadcast throughout Sudan. "The Security Council," Etter said, referring to Council resolutions which set up the UNMIS mandate and mission. But if, as Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said earlier this week, the Security Council is not an Elections Board, how much less is it a media licensing body?

It cannot be emphasized enough that the front-line reporters who work for Okapi do so at great risk and with the goal of helping their country, as evidenced by the film, which despite some missing issues is well worth seeing.

Even after the panel discussion, it remained unclear how much the UN spends on Radio Okapi. A glossy hand-out in a DPKO file folder made available at the auditorium entrance listed, as "operating budget for 2008," $4.5 "million (Fondation Hirondelle's contribution)." No UN contribution was listed. During the panel discussion, a UN official said that the station's budget is $10 million a year, which would make the UN's contribution $5.5 million. Afterwards, one UN staffer put the UN's pay-out at $8 million, while another called it "incalculable," given that the UN provides premises, travel, security and other services.

An Okapi journalist was killed in Bukavu last year, Serge Maheshe, and the government's purported investigation and trial of his killers has left organizations such as Reporters without Borders skeptical, as well as noting the death of non-UN journalists such as Patrick Kikuku Wilungula, in Goma.

William Orme, who served as spokesman for the UN Development Program through 2006, praised Radio Okapi as "objected and balanced," and later added that another Hirondelle radio station is housed within the UNDP compound in Bangui in the Central African Republic. Given the refusal to provide a copy of the Okapi MOU in the Congo, it is an open question what editorial control Hirondelle is subject to in Bangui.

Press analysis: For media to be built-up in war-torn countries is important. If the UN is to be involved, it should be more honest and transparent about the control it exercises, directly and indirectly under memoranda of understanding. It should immediately make public such MOU agreements. It is not healthy to be surrouned by media which is tempted -- here, legally required -- to produce positive coverage. The antidote is critical coverage.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1mediaokapi040308.html