DRC Conflict Minerals Asked About at NYC Bar Association by Inner City Press as French Led UNSC Trip Stops in Belgium, Samantha Power Q

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 3 -- The Democratic Republic of the Congo conflict mineral disclosure provisions of the US Dodd-Frank Act were debated Thursday night in New York. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council and scribes hand-picked by France headed to the DRC, by way of former colonial power Belgium.

  The law and 100-page SEC rule are being challenged by the US Chamber of Commerce in the DC Court of Appeal. Tom Quaadman of the Chamber, a former chief of staff for Rep Vito Fossella, mocked the law as having no "de minimus" exception; he said it would cost business from $6 to $8 billion. 

  He said gold is now being sold through Uganda; he referred off-handedly to "the M23 coming out of Rwanda."

  Julie Murray, representing Amnesty International, called the SEC's rule well reasoned. She regretted that Sasha Lezhnev of the Enough Project had not been able to make it up to New York from DC.

  Inner City Press asked the panel about UN Security Council sanctions, and the impact of the UN peacekeeping mission(s) there. Julie Murray said the case is only about administrative law and the First Amendment. Quaadman said the Chamber is pointing to a lack of clarity in cost / benefit analysis (something the UN rarely engaged in.) Video here and embedded below.

  A representative of Friends of the Congo pointed out that UN Peacekeepers in the Congo had, for example, sold guns for gold; he raised questions about the roles of the UK and the US (he specifically named Susan Rice.) We'll have more on this.

  Inner City Press, which applied through UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesman to go on and cover the Security Council trip, as it did in 2010 and 2008. But this time it was denied. Ban's Spokesperson Martin Nesirky told Inner City Press, on camera, that the decision was made "in consultation" with France, the lead mission on the entire trip.

  Why does the UN let a colonial powerhouse, alone, pick which media get to cover Central Africa and the DR Congo, where the UN has a billion dollar peacekeeping mission ultimately run by former French diplomat Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping?

  France, whose Permanent Representative Gerard Araud ended up not even going on the trip, chose Reuters, along with a procedural Council reporter and, ironically, Voice of America. John Kerry is on VOA's Broadcasting Board of Governors; a State Department official gushed about the VOA correspondent heading to Africa. For what?

  And while waiting for answer to those, and what information goes from the trip, we ask if for example US Ambassador Samantha Power will be checking on this issue while on the trip? Will the Security Council visit Minova, site of 135 rapes by the UN's partners in the Congolese Army in November 2012? Watch this site.

   

NGO's Report on Conflict Resources, Targeting Rebels, May Let Regimes Off the Hook, Is Reviled by UN's Doss

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1gwconflict020110.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- The UN is a club of governments. Even the seemingly idealistic things it does, it does for reasons of state and sovereignty.

A UK-based NGO with 45 employees, Global Witness came to the UN in New York to lobby about conflict resources. Two of its campaigners met with the EU, and later the Press. They talked about the Congo, about Angola, all Africa all the time.

Inner City Press asked about Myanmar, about the military regimes use of resources to fund its war on the Burmese. Global Witness is looking at Burma, but only rebel groups export of timber across the border.

It seems obvious that to merely crack down on rebel groups is just what governments would want. What about North Korea? What about Sri Lanka, where clamp downs on financing of the rebels was accompanied by debt relief to the Rajapaksa government and then a "bloodbath on the beach" in 2009? What about Zimbabwe? Asked these question by Inner City Press, Global Witness' campaigner Amy Barry said another side of their work is anti-corruption.

But that doesn't line up with squarely with human oppression. And Equatorial Guinea, which she cited, is not on the Security Council's agenda. Nor is Sri Lanka: even during the peak of 2009's bloodbath, inclusion on the Council's agenda was opposed by China and Russia, and not pushed for by the UK and others.

Japan, she said, indicated it would need more evidence that in a UN Experts' report to go after companies trafficking in conflict resources. The UK said it could not rely entirely on reports by the UN Group of Experts. But few countries can afford to do their own research. If the UN reports are not credible, according even to an ostensibly human rights sensitive P-5 member, why are they being funded?

While many in the UN open their ears to Global Witness, the head man in the Congo Alan Doss showed only anger, it was said. As Inner City Press has reported, to solve his nepotism scandal he has rolled the dice with the ex-CNDP. Doss has called Human Rights Watch short sighted. He was even more brusque with Global Witness.

Ms. Barry recounted the founding and history of Global Witness: three guys concerned about timber sales in Cambodia. Lo these many years later, all three are still involved: two working from homes in the warmer part of Europe, the third and last still in London. They are still active on Cambodia, urging donors to impose conditions of transparency and human rights.

What sad is that despite all this heartfelt effort, when Inner City Press quizzed Security Council Ambassadors at the Chinese end of presidency shindig on the night of January 28, few had heard of the visit of Global Witness. Even spokespeople of EU Council members said they were not aware. Pearls to swine, it seems, at the UN Security Council.

Footnote: another too ignored NGO, International Commission on Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation, re-released its report "Eliminating Nuclear Threats" last week. The first launch was during the Copenhagen climate change summit, and was largely ignored. Gareth Evans appeared at the UN last week, saying the report will have a long tail.

Inner City Press asked about North Korea, Reuters about Iran. Then Ambassador Gary Quinlan, the Permanent Representative of Australia who was moderating the press conference, called on an Italian diplomat, who gave a speech which cut off journalists' questions. So it is with NGOs, even those sponsored by governments, at the UN.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1gwconflict020110.html

As UN's Strategy Fails in Eastern Congo, No Accountability for Alan Doss or UK Mining Firm, "Enough Already"

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/doss7boot112609.html

UNITED NATIONS, November 26 -- On its enabling of rape and murder in the Congo, the UN is either in denial or doesn't care, close observers increasingly conclude. On November 25 the UN's Congo sanctions experts leaked their report which concludes among other things that the UN Mission in the Congo is adding to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Kivus and is a failure.

Long after news and extensive quotes from the report were disseminated all over the world, Inner City Press asked UN Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq for the response of Ban Ki-moon and his scandal plagued Congo envoy Alan Doss.

Haq replied that the report is not yet official and so there will be no comment. He went on to say that the UN will continue with the military operation Kimia II, even moving into an undefined "new phase" in December. Video here, from Minute 13:48.

Inner City Press asked a simple yes or no litmus test question: is MONUC still supporting the Congolese army unit led by Colonel Zimulinda, named by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston as responsible for murder and at least 10, but probably 40 or more, rapes?

Haq said he didn't know, but claimed that Alain Le Roy's -- and he emphasized, Alan Doss' -- November 1 unrelated suspension of assistance to some units of the 213th Brigade made it clear the UN's hands are clean, in essence. Apparently, after Alston's detailed report on Zimulinda, nothing has been done.

The Security Council had a meeting on November 25 about Congo Sanctions. But members said they did not discuss the report, only the "regime" of sanctions.

Sources tell Inner City Press that it is because the report accuses not only the UN Secretariat but also member states of complicity in death in Congo that the report is being delayed, and the experts saw fit to selectively leak it. Only at the UN.

Combined with Alan Doss' nepotism scandal and mis-management of MONUC, this report would an most credible organization lead to the dismissal or removal of the manager at issue.

But Alan Doss is British, and the UK is a Permanent Member of the Security Council. If the past is any guide, a new UK post of similar power would have to be arranged and even delivered before the clearly needed change at MONUC could be made.

Beyond the lack of accountability within the UN system, there is a lack of corporate responsibility. As highlighted, Malaysian Smelting Corporation and Thailand Smelting and Refining Company, which is part of the UK metals group AMC, are among the companies again identified by the Group of Experts as sourcing minerals from suppliers who have links with killers and rapists.

The report among other things concludes that the CNDP, even after purported integration into the Congolese army, still maintains a network which now uses the army and UN to take mines over from the FDLR. That is, the UN has allowed itself to get sucked into favoring one criminal enterprise over another, and the denying this to the world. The UN experts group cut through the veil, but are so far being ignored. Watch this site.

Footnote: Days after the coordinated leak of the report, U.S. television network CBS' 60 Minutes show of November 29 will show the Enough Project's John Prendergast in the DRC tracking conflict minerals, relating them to cell phones and mp3 players. While we intend to watch, one wonder why the Enough Project, not unlike its response to the mass killing in Sri Lanka, has been retiscent to make the needed criticism of the compromised leadership of the UN Mission MONUC. Even those who are supposed to bring accountability don't, for their own reasons. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/doss7boot112609.html