UN
Cites Rape
Probe As
Reason to
Withhold List
of Congo
Army Units It
Supports
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 11 --
After the UN
belated
admitted that
Congolese
Army units
committed at
least 70 rapes
in Minova, but
has refused to
name the
units, now the
UN Department
of
Peacekeeping
Operations has
hit a deeper
low.
DPKO
is refusing to
make public
which units or
regiments of
the Congolese
Army FARDC it
works with or
supports.
Inner
City Press has
requested this
information in
writing, and from DPKO
chief Herve
Ladsous,
without
receiving any
of it.
At Tuesday's
UN
noon briefing
Inner City
Press asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
again about
the FADRC
units at
Minova and,
separately,
the units
DPKO's mission
MONUSCO works
with or
supports.
Nesirky
said
Minova is
still under
investigation.
But for the
first time he
indicated that
no list of
units or
regiments
supported by
MONUSCO --
with public
funds, and
under the UN's
supposed Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy -- will
be provided.
Inner
City Press
asked, and
asks, how then
can this Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy,
announced by
Ban Ki-moon
and cited for
example in
his recent
report on
Mali, be
assessed by
the public?
Nesirky's
response
was that since
some --
unnamed by the
UN --
regiments of
the
FARDC are
being
investigated,
the wider
world of FARDC
units should
not be opened
up. Nesirky
said, "if
something's
under
investigation,
you don't then
open up the
entire FARDC
to the same
allegations."
This
is a lack of
transparency,
and also
illogical. If
some FARDC
units
were not
supposedly
being
investigated
by the UN,
would the UN
then
be willing to
produce a list
of units it
spends global
taxpayers
money
supporting?
While
DPKO chief Herve
Ladsous
refused on
November 27 to
answer any
Inner
City Press
question about
the rapes in
Minova, and instead summoned
handpicked
Correspondents
into the hall
to speak to
them, as
an
experiment in
this article
we are not
saying more
than that.
Supposedly,
Ladsous
understands
that answering
factual
questions like
this is
part of his
job at DPKO.
We'll see.
Watch this
site.
, 
