On LRA, HRW's Egeland Dismisses Rwanda "Ambassador," US Vets for Rights?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- Jan Egeland, now deputy executive director of Human Rights Watch, spoke at the UN about the Lord's Resistance Army on June 26, the day after Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said HRW puts people in Eastern Congo at risk with inaccurate reports.

  Inner City Press asked Egeland to respond to the Rwandan Foreign Minister's critique, since HRW director Ken Roth has not responded at all. Video here from Minute 16:47.

  Egeland said categorically that HRW stands behind all of its reports, given the "rigorous scrutiny... before we publish anything," regardless of what the "Rwandan Ambassador" says. Video here, from Minute 21. 


  Mushikiwabo is, of course, the foreign minister. 


  On a second round of questions Inner City Press asked Egeland, since HRW stands behind all of its reports, what safeguards are in place in the fight against the LRA to not include and involve the elements of the Congolese Army which HRW itself has said are human rights abusers. Video here, from Minute 39:55.


Egeland replied that "the US" are doing training and "vetting" to "avoid that one is creating human rights violations." 
 
   Inner City Press asked if it would be fair to say that this African Union high minded endeavor is outsourcing or delegating all of its human rights vetting to a single member state, the US. No, Egeland said, before the African Union's Francisco Madeira jumped in to describe dedicated human rights officers at the "RTF," and to picking soldiers "one by one," including based on "health."


  This would certainly be different than UN Peacekeeping's deployment of cholera-infected troops to Haiti, a question DPKO chief Herve Ladsous has refused to answer, like why he accepts as a senior adviser the alleged war criminal Sri Lanka General Shavendra Silva.


    The purpose of the June 26 press conference, it seems, was to beat the drum for more money to equip and supply the 5000 troops to be deployed against the LRA. Mention was made not only of the US but also of Germany, which recently authorized its forces to bomb up to two kilometers inside Somalia.

At the tail end of the press conference, Angelique Namaika of the NGO Mama Bongisa told Inner City Press that there are now two kinds of FARDC Congolese soldiers: those who are underpaid and those who are "well paid by the Americans." Who knew? As with Voice of America, US taxpayer dollars at work. Watch this site.

At UN, Ban Censors His Own Eritrea Report, "Not What We Had in Mind"

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 26 -- Earlier this month the "Report of the Secretary General on Eritrea" was circulated and was put on the UN Security Council's web site, dated June 8, assigned symbol S/2012/412.

  Then, as Inner City Press exclusively reported on June 15, there were rumblings that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would change his 44-paragraph Eritrea report, like

"the two versions of the last report on Western Sahara were watered down to drop allegations against Morocco of limiting freedom of movement of the peacekeepers.

"Inner City Press exclusively learned on Friday that a similar amateurish post-publication is taking place on the forthcoming report on Eritrea. The report already has a number (S/2012/412) and has been on the UN's ODS Official Document Service.

"But unlike the Western Sahara watering down, in this case it's a matter of watering UP -- Ethiopia and others are said to want the report to be more damning of Asmara. And so it goes at the UN."

  Now, Inner City Press can report that while "Report of the Secretary-General on Eritrea, S/2012/412, 8 June 2012" is still LISTED on the Security Council's web site, the S/2012/412 link has done dead, leading to a message on the UN's ODS Official Document Service that "There is no document matching your request / Pas de reponse a votre demande."

  Well, no document anyMORE. As circulated, Ban Ki-moon's report for example quoted Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki telling Ban in September 2011 that "the border issue with Ethiopia was a 'closed chapter' and that there was 'nothing to negotiate.'" See, Paragraph 17.

  It recited Ban's July 24, 2011 meeting with "Eritrean Foreign Minister and Political Adviser to the Eritrean President" on Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur. (See Inner City Press video of Yemane Ghebreab at that time, here on Inner City Press' YouTube channel with 28,000 views and counting.)

  The June 8, 2012 report recited Eritrea's objections to Security Council manuevers in late November and early December 2011, exclusively reported by Inner City Press, which even after protest would only have allowed Isaias Afwerki, President of a country facing unprecedented sanctions, to speak to the Council AFTER the resolution was put in blue and finalized for a vote.

  But now all of that has been taken off line, as if it never existed. A diplomat from one of Eritrea's neighbors explained to Inner City Press that the June 8 report just "wasn't right," that it was not like other sanctions reports and not what his country has in mind.

  This was the approach taken when Department of Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous changed and watered down the most recent Western Sahara report. 

  As many noted, but only Inner City Press explicitly emphasized, Ladsous is the fourth French chief of DPKO in a row, whose previous job was to serve discredited French foreign minister Michele Aliot-Marie including arranging her flights on planes of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali. 

  Since then, Ladsous refuses to answer Inner City Press' questions; Big Five media have moved to expel Inner City Press, now led by US government owned Voice of America asking the UN to review Inner City Press' accreditation status.

   But who -- not which countries, which is obvious, but which UN official beyond Ban Ki-moon -- is responsible for taking off line the Eritrea report, and what will happen and be issued next? Watch this site.

Rwanda's Mushikiwabo Calls UN Mission a Failure, HRW a Fraud

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told the Press on Monday that she and Major Patrick Karuretwa, Security Adviser to President Paul Kagame are in New York and Washington "on UN business."

  When Inner City Press asked Minister Mushikiwabo for her view on the MONUSCO mission and its chief Roger Meece, her answer made it clear that radical change at MONUSCO, the Department of Peaekeeping Operations and even the Security Council which sent the mission 13 years ago are on Rwanda's agenda.

  Minister Mushikiwabo said that MONUSCO, spending $1.3 billion a year, has failed to protect civilians and may have "become local."

  Inner City Press asked Minister Mushikiwabo to respond to charges that the M23 mutineers in the Congo are assisted by Rwandan Defense Minister James Kaberebe, chief of defense staff Charles Kayonga, and General Jacques Nziza, a military adviser to Kagame.


  Minister Mushikiwabo said that she is a reader of Inner City Press, and likes independent investigation. She told Inner City Press, "I've seen some of your writings on this conflict, I used to be minister in charge of media, I always like to see reporters doing their own investigations instead of repeating reports." Video here, from Minute 12:54.

She denied categorically that these officials have assisted the mutiny, saying that in fact they had urged the mutineers not to break away, but rather to press the government in Kinshasa to live up to its commitments of March 23, 2009. 
 
  Inner City Press asked Minister Mushikiwabo what changes Rwanda would like to see to the mandate of the MONUSCO mission. 


  She said it should be rethought after 13 years, then gave the floor to Major Patrick Karuretwa, who proceeded to say that Human Rights Watch is a problem.

  Minister Mushikiwabo said that Human Rights Watch has "no credibility," that they think "because it's Africa, anything goes... a few exotic names and acronyms [then] fundraising dinners." 


  She blamed the media which, essentially, ask Human Rights Watch about HRW's own flawed reports and then use the quotes.

At the UN we can say: the HRW representative is a former journalist from Le Monde who is routinely quoted by those he used to know as fellow correspondents. Yet when he and HRW boss Ken Roth were confronted with a rare case of a journalists in Headquarters facing death threats from extremists triggered from within the UN itself, HRW has done nothing.

  Inner City Press asked Minister Mushikiwabo about the status of Rwanda's run for a Security Council seat next year, with the election in October 2012. 


  She said the campaign is on track in East Africa and the African Union, and that outreach has been made to Beijing and Moscow, Washington, London and Paris and other countries too.
  She said Rwanda is a major peacekeeping contributor, with 4000 soldiers in Darfur and others in South Sudan, Liberia and Haiti. Twenty years after the genocide, she said, Rwanda should be on the Security Council.

  Afterward Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky for his or DPKO chief Ladsous' response. First Nesirky referred the question to the Security Council.


  When it was made clear Rwanda is questioning MONUSCO's implementation of the mandate given to it by the Council, particularly on protection of civilians, Nesirky said maybe there will be an answer later. He cut off the briefing without allowing a question for which Inner City Press long had hand raised. Video here.


   Then Inner City Press asked US Ambassador Susan Rice, back at the Security Council, about Minister Mushikiwabo's critique of MONUSCO. She said, "It's not on their territory." 


  But it seems clear that Rwanda will be joining the Security Council that sets such missions' mandates, and considers Group of Experts' sanctions reports and annexes or addenda. So what will happen with the current annex in limbo? Watch this site.

After NYPD Arrests UN Official, UN Withholds Report & Its Action, Silva Fallout

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- Even after the NY Police Department has arrested the head of the UN's Emergency Preparedness unit for sexual abuse, the UN has just refused to tell the complainant what discplinary action it has taken.

  In a June 22 letter obtained and now first reported by Inner City Press, the officer in charge of the UN Office of Human Resources Management Martha Helena Lopez has told the complainant that despite a June 14 request to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, neither the fact-finding report nor information about the disciplinary measures taken will be provided.

  The UN tells the complainaint "it is the practice of the Organization not to publicly disclose the discliplinary action(s) imposed on a given staff member." And the administrative instruction about releasing fact finding reports has been repealed or "superseded" under Ban Ki-moon, in UN-ese.

  Inner City Press is choosing not to publish the letter itself, to not identify the complainant.

  Back on June 14, after reporting the arrest and after confirmation by NYPD the name of the arrestee, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky

 

about an incident at 380 Madison Avenue, which initially I was asking about because of the Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping and General Shavendra Silva...  now it’s been confirmed to me by the New York Police Department, a UN official, who will remain unnamed, the head of the Emergency Preparedness Unit submitted himself to the 17th Precinct and was, in fact, arrested for sexual abuse... So, I wanted to know... [if] this individual has been downgraded from P5 to P4 at the same salary and with the same job, which some people see as not consistent with the zero tolerance policy?

  Nesirky replied that "I can’t comment on what may or may not have transpired at the New York Police Department; that’s for them to comment on. I cannot comment on that. On the second part, there was an internal procedure, which is confidential in nature, and therefore I cannot comment further on that."


  But, Inner City Press asked, "Is immunity going to be sought?"


   Nesirky said, "my answer in two parts will suffice there. And I am just checking on other questions."


  No further information has been provided; now, the UN denies the infromation to the complainant herself.

  Since February 22, Inner City Press has covered this sexual abuse complaint. on June 12 Inner City Press was reliably informed that the abuser, whose name we knew throughout, was called into the 17th Precinct on 51st Street to surrender to police, with his lawyer. Inner City Press went and staked it out, in the rain. Later, Inner City Press obtained the file number: 2011-017-3670.

  NYPD spokesman Lt. John Grimpel told Inner City Press that yes, he was arrested on June 12 for a complaint filed in October 2011 of sex abuse in the Keats bar at 842 Second Avenue. So after having withheld the name since we first reported on this case on February 22, 2012, we ran his name: Dushyant Joshi, the head of the UN's Emergency Preparedness unit.

  Back in on February 22 when Inner City Press went to the UN-rented building at 380 Madison Avenue to see if alleged war criminal Sri Lanka general Shavendra Silva attended Ban Ki-moon's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, it witnessed the NY Police Department being barred from entering the building to arrest a UN staffer.

  While Ban's spokesperson's office on March 1 and thereafter denied that the NYPD was at 380 Madison to arrest any UN staffer, based on a case of abuse filed by a female UN contractor, this was multiply confirmed to Inner City Press.

   The UN's Office of Human Resources Management under Catherine Pollard has belatedly "found cause" in the female contractor's complaint, and has (merely) demoted the abuser from P5 to P4 level, but with the same job: head of the UN's Emergency Preparedness unit.  Now the stonewalling continues.

Footnote: As we tweeted at the time, hat tip to the work on this of UN Justice, including on June 21 regarding the June 14 request. May the struggle for accountability from the UN on these matters, and those like the introduction of cholera into Haiti and role in the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka, report already delayed for months, continue.

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.