In
DRC, UN Won't
Answer M23
Charges,
Kobler Skips
Presser, Being
Asked to Kill
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 16 --
The
dysfunction
and capture of
the UN Mission
in the Congo
MONUSCO was on
display at its
weekly press
conference on
Wednesday
morning.
In
order to make
itself
relevant and
try to stay
in the
country, the
UN has created
a venue to be
publicly asked
why
it is not
killing more
rebels.
That way when
the UN veers
from its
previous
principles and
deploys and
shoots with
attack
helicopter, it
can say this
is what the
people wanted.
But what
people? And
does the
UN really do
what people
want -- for
example in
Haiti?
At
Wednesday's
presser held
in Kinshasa,
question
questions
taken from
Goma as well,
the UN's own
theater
appeared to
blow up in its
face.
The session
kept getting
extended after
"last
question" was
announced,
because the
questions
asked, "Are
you afraid of
the
M23?" and
"Have you
failed the
people of
Eastern
Congo?"
To
this, MONUSCO
reminded that
it had killed
and been
killed in July
and
August.
MONUSCO
refused to
answer on,
saying it
somehow hadn't
seen, M23's
statement
a day ago in
Kampala
that MONUSCO
"'continuously
allows FARDC
to use their
planes for
espionage
activities and
dropping DRC
soldiers near
M23
territory'...
one of the
planes that
recently
violated the
M23
territory’s
airspace was
carrying
President
Joseph
Kabila’s spy
chiefs...
FARDC and UN
were mixing
their emblems
on planes,
giving the
rebel group
difficulty in
distinguishing
the DRC forces
from
humanitarian
elements."
That's
a serious
allegation.
But MONUSCO
chief Martin
Kobler, who
has become
like his new
boss Herve
Ladsous in
not
answering
questions
(click
here for UK
coverage),
did not
come to the
MONUSCO press
conference.
Kobler's flaks
tweeted he
will meet
(Mary)
Robinson
today. And
talk attack
helicopters
with this
Elder?
How far the UN
has fallen.
Imagine
the
UN in Sri
Lanka in 2009
holding a
session with
supporters of
the
Rajapaksa
government and
asking them
what they
wanted the UN
to do.
Using UN
attack
helicopters in
the north, of
course.
Now
at UN
Headquarters,
the UN
is purported
to review
what
it did wrong
in Sri Lanka
in 2009 --
while bungling
into uncharted
"kill for
the
government"
territory in
the DRC.
Holding staged
press
conferences as
which it makes
a public show
of being ASKED
to kill
does not make
it any better.
(The
analogy to
Syria could be
made - it has
been by Inner
City Press, when
the French-led
Security
Council gave
its blessing
to Joseph
Kabila's
national
dialogue which
opposition
boycotted.)
As
Inner City
Press first
reported,
Eastern Congo
is to be a
topic for
the UN
Security
Council in New
York on
Wednesday,
after their
discussion on
another
French-led
mess, Mali.
Watch this
site.
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