In
Congo, Protesters Stone UN Envoy's Car for Political Motives,
UN Confirms
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 19 -- While the UN Security Council met Tuesday about
Eritrea, a Council member came out and told Inner City Press that
Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative in the Congo
Roger Meece
had been attacked, in South Kivu: “look into it!”
Inner
City Press
immediately wrote to Ban's top two spokespeople then, getting no
response, to the spokesman for the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, who has just replied:
Subject:
Please
deny or confirm and describe to me SRSG Meece of MONUSCO being
attacked
From: [DPKO Spokesman] @un.org
To: Matthew.Lee [at]
innercitypress.com
Cc: Martin Nesirky
Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2011
at 5:41 PM
Mr.
Meece
and the team were meeting with a group of representatives of
the local authorities and civil society in a meeting area next to the
MONUSCO base which was fenced off. While the meeting was going on, a
crowd of some 100-150 people, mainly young persons, gathered outside
the meeting area.
They
appeared
to become quite angry and as the delegation was preparing to
leave, they blocked the exit to the meeting area. The Police and
MONUSCO troops were providing security. While the delegation was
sitting in the UN cars waiting to leave, some people in the crowd
threw some stones towards the cars for a few seconds. No one was hurt
but at least one of the cars was damaged slightly.
Roger Meece previously at stakeout, action on
Walikale not shown
Mr.
Meece
stressed that it had been a minor incident. He said that the
South Kivu Governor had received information indicating that the
people involved had been mobilized by certain individuals possibly
with political motives but that the reasons were unclear. The
departure of the delegation was delayed by about two hours because of
the incident.
The
town where this happened is Shabunda. Recently at the UN
in New York, Ban met with
a Congolese opposition figure; his
spokesperson's office declined to provide any read out of the
meeting. DRC's Ambassador tells Inner City Press that the upcoming
elections can't be held on time. Now this, which the UN minimizes.
We will continue on this: watch this site.
, 
