|
At UN, Amid Congo Castration and UN Buckpassing, UK
Denies Dithering
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 11 -- To explain his
government's refusal to speak with renegade general Laurent Nkunda, the
Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ambassador to the
UN Atoki
Ileka told the Press on Tuesday that Nkunda's forces "rape women and
castrate the men." These words were spoken, in French, at the
microphone
in front of the UN Security Council, inside which the Department of
Peacekeeping was asking for 3000 more peacekeepers.
Since
reports of war crimes
dog the government at least as much as Nkunda's rebel forces, Inner
City Press
asked both Council President Jorge Urbina and head Peacekeeper Alain Le
Roy if
the UN's MONUC force can use force against the Congolese army if they
attack
civilians. Both men said yes, along earlier in the game a non-governmental
organization's expert on the ground in Goma told Inner City Press that
in
practice, MONUC won't.
UK
Ambassador John Sawers said that a key is that the Hutu rebels known as
the
FDLR have to be disarmed and repatriated to Rwanda, or relocated
elsewhere in
the Congo. Inner City Press asked him if Rwanda has done enough to
provide
assurance that these rebels can go home.
Sawers said that Rwanda should do more.
UN's Alain Le Roy with Minni Minawi in Sudan,
France-Rwanda issues not shown
Inner City
Press asked Sawers to compare the UK's fast and active response to
strive in
Sierra Leone in 2000, when the UK sent special forces troops, to what's
been
called its "dithering" and even blocking of a European Union mission.
Each situation is difference, Sawers said, you know that. Then his
Congolese
counterpart spoke of rape and of castration.
The
question of France's role, in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and since, is
one
that three NGOs at the UN on Tuesday admitted means France is a
problematic
role, in the Security Council and elsewhere, on these issues. Inner
City Press
asked Alain Le Roy, who was named head UN peacekeeper after France made
it
clear it considers the post, won in exchange for voting for Kofi Annan,
to be
permanently its property, what he thinks of France's role, and the
arrest this
week of Rose Kabuye, an aide to Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. "You'll
have to ask France," Le Roy said. But French Ambassador Jean-Maurice
Ripert was nowhere to be found...
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
