In DR Congo, Some Applause for UNSC, But Why? As French Picked Scribes Go Silent, Genocide Joyride

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 5 -- The UN Security Council is in Kinshasa and there is a lot of happy talk. As of Friday night it was unclear if President Joseph Kabila would hold a direct meeting with the Council. By Saturday some Council diplomats were tweeting about Kabila's speech to the closing of the national consultation, and noting that they or the UN received applause.

It's nice. But what does it mean? If the SADC Intervention Brigade had killed more M23, or even just Rwandaphones, the Council members might be applauded. Would that be good?

Inner City Press was on a previous 2010 Security Council trip to Africa -- France banned it from this one -- and saw the Council applauded in South Sudan, and protested in Sudan. Did the cheering in Juba mean that everything was going to work out? Just ask people in Jonglei.

  The Council met with DR Congo foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda, who in the Council in New York in July said that all rebellions in Eastern Congo bear the same "genetic signature." Was this troubling line clarified? Or was the applause too loud?

  In 2013 many of the diplomats are doing their own tweeting, which is all to the good. Shocking is that the journalists that France hand-picked for the trip have send out NOTHING.

For Reuters, the last two tweets were October 2 and 3, both before the trip. The first was about humanitarian aid to Syria, blaming all blockages on the Assad government with no mention, for example, for the ISIS rebels' threats against aid workers in Jarabulus, which the EU's Kristalina Georgieva has acknowledged to the Free UN Coalition for Access@FUNCA_info (by twitter, no less).

The second was about child soldiers, a swipe at Rwanda. Maybe that's why Reuters will finally start reporting: to trash Rwanda and focus only on the M23, nothing on the FDLR. 

  That's how Reuters presented the last Group of Experts report on the DRC, until Inner City Press obtained and exclusively put the full text online, showing DRC Army involvement with the FDLR, in illegal mining and, yes, recruitment of child soldiers.

The Security Council wouldn't get applause in Kinshasa for that part of the report. So should they not have reported it?

Voice of America's last tweets are not even about news - they are about the UN Correspondents Association, through which VOA tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, citing its coverage of Sri Lanka and, yes, France and the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, with his own troubling history in the Great Lakes region, here.

  Could that be why they were hand picked by France for this trip, which some for that reason call France's Genocide Joyride. But report, at least.

Inner City Press has asked the UN if there will be any meetings with opposition in the DRC, and to name the civil society groups to be met with in Goma. The UN won't respond - but Rwanda's foreign minister sent a response, about her countries hope for the trip.

But apparently some in the Council, and UN, measure the success of their trip by what applause they got. That is not the measure. Watch this site.

Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson Martin Nesirky on camera admitted that the decision on which media would be allowed to go on and cover the UNSC's Africa trip was made "in consultation" with the lead mission for the trip: France. Inner City Press YouTube channel video here:http://youtu.be/N_nn8lToeUU

This was sent to Inner City Press:

From: Jerome Bernard [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: Security Council trip to Africa
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at] InnerCityPress [dot] com
Cc: Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info

Hi Matthew,

I am sorry but because of the very limited number of seats in the UN plane it won't be possible for you to travel with the Security Council for this trip to the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

I am sure there will be other opportunities for travel in the future.

Best regards,

Jerome Bernard
Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General

Inner City Press was told that Bernard would be providing information from the trip. Then not. Watch this site.

   

On DRC, France Won't Answer If UN Brigade Is a Combatant, Ladsous Limit in Reporting on FDLR Reversed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 29 -- After the UN Security Council issued  a French-drafted press statement on the Democratic Republic of the Congowhich tried to distinguish among "peacekeepers" between those entitled to protection as civilians under the international law of armed conflict and those not, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Alexis Lamek a question about it, repeatedly. But there was no answer.

  Inner City Press asked if the UN's Force Intervention Brigade is a party to an armed conflict -- it has flown attack helicopter sorties against the M23 armed group. Lamek did not answer this yes or no question. Are members of the FIB "combatants"? Again Lamek would not answer.

  When Rwanda's Deputy Permanent Representative Olivier Nduhungirehe followed Lamek to the UN TV microphone, Inner City Press asked him if he thought the UN has become less than impartial in this conflict. 

  His answer included noting that while UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous on July 11 said his mandate does not include Rwanda or the attacks on Rwanda attributed to the FDLR militia, now UN Peacekeeping reverses or ignores that limit and is quick to say the M23 rebels fired on Rwanda.

  He noted that a Joint Verification official from Uganda was banned from entering the DRC. He noted that the UN's Group of Experts, while acknowledging attacks on Rwandaphones in and around Goma, tried to blame these on Rwanda.

  Has the UN lost its way in this conflict? For now we'll note that France, the country that "holds the pen," drafting all Security Council output on DRC, refuses to answer basic legal questions. To this has UN Peacekeeping, led four times in a row now by a Frenchman (in this case one with history in the Great Lakes, in 1994) descended.

  When a Tanzanian soldier in the UN's new Force Intervention Brigade in the Congo died in battle this week, the statements of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his envoy Martin Kobler did not call it a war crime. (Click here for Inner City Press story and "Rest in Peace.)

On August 29 the UN Security Council agreed to a press statement on DRC with this convoluted paragraph:

"They recalled that intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the UN, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict, constitutes a crime under international law."

So if a member of the FIB is attacking to "neutralize" armed groups, can he or she be " entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict"? The answer appears to be no.

For week Inner City Press has asked the UN to clarify its understanding of the applicability of the international law of armed conflict to its FIB, without success. In a UN basement conference room an expert, on camera, told Inner City Press it is not a war crime to shot at a combatant. Click here.And that is what the FIB has become. But how far does the slippage go?

Inner City Press on the August 29 noon briefing asked about Rwanda getting bombed, and how did it. Spokesperson Haq said couldn't confirm most recently bombings; then his office sent this:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 12:52 PM
Subject: re: question on DRC
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Regarding your question on DRC, here is our answer:

The Mission reports that it can confirm firing incidents into Rwanda territory originated by M23 positions between 22 and 29 August. The Mission further reports that it has not witnessed any FARDC firing into Rwanda territory during this period.

We'll see.

While the UN deploys attack helicopters in Eastern Congo, and bombs from inside the DRC have reportedly killed a woman in Rwanda, France has called an emergency UN Security Council session on the DRC on Thursday.

The idea is to strong-arm Rwanda on a draft press statement France proposed. Actually, Rwanda is proposing adding the fact that the "repeated mortar shells and bombs landing in Rwandan territory" come "from the DRC." How controversial. Without that change, Inner City Press has obtained the draft and puts it online here.

The modus operandi is to hand information to Reuters. 

  At last Friday's noon briefing, video here from Minute 10:15, Inner City Press asked the UN's outgoing deputy spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey about the answer, when Inner City Press and another journalist asked UN Peacekeeping acting chief Edmond Mulet Thursday if the M23 rebels had entered the security zone established around Goma.

  "No," Mulet said. "Just mortars." He went on to refer to the separate "red line" established when M23 agreed in Kampala to pull out of Goma. (The portion of that agreement that gave M23 one third of the security force at the Goma airport remains unimplemented.)

  But later on Thursday, the wire service Reuters reported "a senior U.N. official, who asked not to be named, said that on Thursday the rebels entered a security zone surrounding Goma" -- which Mulet, the acting chief of DPKO, had just denied. Inner City Press and the other journalist waited to ask Mulet again, and got the same answer.

  So who is this "senior UN official who asked not to be named"? In UN Peacekeeping, only Herve Ladsous, long absent from UN Headquarters, is senior to and could over-rule Mulet.

  Ladsous has in the past spoon-fed answers of dubious veracity to this same Reuters UN bureau bragging for example about the Congolese Army imposing accountability for the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

   But with only a few arrests for the 135 rapes, Ladsous' DPKO continues supporting the 391st Battalion, even as it is now implicated in corpse desecration.

That the UN would try to use Reuters, willingly, resonates with a documented instance in June 2012 when Reuters UN bureau chief Louis Charbonneau gave to UN official Stephane Dujarric an internal UNCA anti-Press document,three minutes after saying he would not do so. Story here,audio here, document here, in which Charbonneau tells Dujarric, "You didn't get this from me."

  So is Reuters' "senior UN official who asked not to be named" someone junior to Mulet, or as another journalist suggested, no one at all? 

  On Friday, Del Buey said he knew what Mulet had said, and has "seen other reports." He said he'd have to check. But last Friday was his last day at the UN (the Free UN Coalition for Access wished him well, video here at Minute 9:55).  So we'll see. Watch this site.