Exclusive: UN Congo Sanctions Annex Shows DRC Army Raping, Torturing & Arming FDLR, Now What?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- The UN's Congo sanctions annex which Inner City Press exclusively published late yesterday reflects the UN's unwillingness or inability to report honestly on itself or act according to its stated principles.

  The UN provides military support to the Congolese Army, but states that this is conditional on compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law. 

  When UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous chose to continue supporting the 41^st and 391^st Battalions after they were implicated in 135 rapes in Minova (and only two soldiers have been arrested), the policy was undercut to say the least.

  But the new report showed other Congolese Army units and commanders engaged in torture, rape and even attacks on the UN. (These last are given detailed treatment, down to the looting of a UN bar and the pulling of air conditioners out of the wall.)

The 812th FARDC regiment commanded by Col. Mudahunga committed mass rape, and targeted ethnic Hunde civilians, in Kitchanga earlier this year. But all the report says is that the 812^th was later re-deployed. Annex 61; Report at Paragraph 124.

  The FARDC 905th Regiment, under the command of Col. John Tchinyama, committed torture at Mambasa earlier this year. Annex 44. But the Group of Experts merely put the video in the UN's archive. 

  Col. Faida Fidel Kamulete, the commander of FARDC 2nd battalion of 601st Regiment based at Tongo, said the 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. 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. (This is confined to a paragraph, admitting only two arrests contrary to the "nine" figure given by MONUSCO's new force commander.)

  Still, the Group of Experts takes its estimate of FDLR strength from MONUSCO, while leaving to an aside FARDC providing ammunition to the FDLR.

  Col. Willy Bonane Habarugira led the looting of the UN in Bunia, but nothing has been done. Annex 65, Report at Paragraph 138.

The report runs through child soldiers, including a MONUSCO travel document in the Annex -- but Ladsous' DPKO is on the verge, in two days, of putting a listed child soldier recruiter, Chad, into a UN Peacekeeping mission.

As noted, 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. Watch this site.

Footnote: The UN's and Ladsous' non-enforcement of human rights due diligence and conditionality policies were air brushed from Reuters gloss on the 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? And so it goes.

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.

  

Arab League Report Blames Opposition for French Reporter's Death, Decries Media Hype

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- Outside the UN Security Council Friday afternoon, Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari repeatedly told the press to find and read the Arab League monitors' report, which was supposed to have been annexed to the League's letter to the Council but was not. (Click here for Inner City Press' first coverage of this "Annex amateur hour".)

Attached for any reader who might not otherwise have access to it is the "Report of the Head of the League of Arab States Observer Mission to Syria for the period from 24 December 2011 to 18 January 2012," as Inner City Press obtained it.

As Ja'afari said, in the main example he gave, this Report says in Paragraph 44 that "Mission reports from Homs indicate French journalist was killed by opposition mortar shells."

Of that, Ja'afari pointedly said, "you'll never hear the French Ambassador [Gerard Araud] or BanKiMoon say that."

The Report, signed by Sudanese General Al Dabi who was active in Darfur, the locus of International Criminal Court indicted war crimes, also says at Paragraph 29 that "the media exaggerated... the number of persons killed." Is Dabi or the Arab League also saying that of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and UNICEF?

On the other hand Al Dabi's report recites for example down in Paragraph 74 that "The Mission was informed by the opposition, particularly in Dar‘a, Homs, Hama and Idlib, that some of its members had taken up arms in response to the suffering of the Syrian people as a result of the regime’s oppression and tyranny; corruption, which affects all sectors of society; the use of torture by the security agencies; and human rights violations."

Ja'afari's argument on Friday was that the Arab League is split, but Qatar and some others came to the UN before or without regard for the Arab League Report.

Tuesday, the Security Council will hear from the Qatari minister and the Secretary General of the Arab League -- and not from Al Dabi. Still, will this split be brought up?

We will have more about the Report, but for now we are putting it online, here.

In the list of media reportedly granted accreditation to enter Syria (but not yet entering) are two reporters "from the agency Roberts." Oh, Dabi!

At UN on Syria, Arab League Annex Amateur Hour Delays Briefing Request

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 25, updated -- The request for the Arab League to brief the UN Security Council on Syria was the subject of back and forth inside and in front of the Council on Wednesday.

A Council source emerged and told Inner City Press "there is a problem with the annexes" to the Arab League's letter. The UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant came out and told assembled reporters that "it is agreed," that the month's Council president, South Africa's Baso Sangqu, will contact the Arab League and set up the briefing.

Lyall Grant said the UK wanted the briefing to be Monday (though given the request that it be "ministerial," getting by then Ministers Hague, Juppe, Clinton, Westerwelle, for example, not to mention Lavrov seems unlikely. One Council wag noted, "as she does," that US Ambassador Susan Rice is a minister.)

Finally Council President Sangqu emerged. Told of what Lyall Grant said, Sangqu said "he jumped the gun." Inner City Press asked him about the annexes. He replied that one was only in Arabic, which he can't read, and the other isn't here yet, they've said it's coming "by courier." He said that if Syria asks to also speak, it should be granted.

Sangqu also said he would tell the Arab League that "some members" want the briefing to include Sudanese military official Al Dabi -- who had responsibility in the Darfur conflicts, for which the International Criminal Court has indicted president Omar al Bashir. Can you say, amateur hour? Watch this site.

Update of 3:50 pm -- a Western diplomat says Al-Arabi tells them he's willing to brief the Council on Monday, and in person. One problem, it seems, is that Ban Ki-moon "as is so often the case" will be out of town. Apparently it would be violate protocol to have the Secretary General of the Arab League some and not meet the UN SG. So, video only?

French - Turkish Update: Tuesday morning Inner City Press reported that attendees to the French convened meetings on Syria included Turkey.

But on Wednesday in front of UN Secretary General's question and answer session with member states, which was closed to the press and public, Inner City Press was told by two diplomats that Turkey had declined France's invitation, citing the "Armenian genocide law" and, they said, French arrogance.

Will this impact that side's coordination on Syria? We'll see.