Film
as Journalism,
CAR Worse Off
After "The
Ambassador,"
French
Connection
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 25 -- A
film about the
Central
African
Republic,
"The
Ambassador"
by Mads
Brugger,
opened in New
York a year
ago.
Using hidden
cameras it
cover efforts
to purchase
diplomatic
credentials
from Liberia
and to deal in
conflict
diamonds in
the CAR
under the
Bozize
government.
A
year later,
Bozize has
been thrown
out --
although he
has resurfaced
in
Paris. He was
not ousted due
to his
corruption,
but by the
Seleka
rebels,
now themselves
accused of
child soldier
recruitment
and other
abuses.
While
there is much
hand-wringing,
for example
from European
Union official
Kristalina
Georgieva and
the UN's
Valerie Amos,
about the
crisis in
the CAR, the
UN Security
Council has
not this month
as expected
passed any
resolution
about the
country.
As
first
covered by
Inner City
Press, the reason for
inaction is
that
French
Permanent
Representative
Gerard Araud
and others in
the French
Mission are on
vacation for
the month,
and France
"holds the
pen" to draft
all
resolutions in
the Council on
the CAR, as it
does on other
former French
colonies like
Cote d'Ivoire
and Mali.
In
"The
Ambassador" --
trailer
here, 1.6
GB download
for $8.50 here
-- the CAR's
head of state
security
Guy-Jean Le
Foll Yamande
says on
hidden camera
that it is
France which
"taught
corruption"
in the CAR. He
is later
tortured and
killed.
In
full
disclosure,
Inner City
Press appears
in the film,
in connection
with exposing
the reasons
and results of
the UN
pulling out of
Birao.
Due to lack of
planning by
the UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
troops from
the MINURCAT
mission thrown
out of Chad
also
left Birao in
CAR -- and
rebels took
over the town
immediately
after
that.
The
UN's DPKO has
been run, for
times in a row
now, by
Frenchmen. The
current head
of
DPKO Herve
Ladsous
refuses to
answer
Press
questions
about his
past,
including
during the Rwanda
genocide in
1994, when he
was France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
to the UN,
arguing for
the escape of
the genocidaires
into Eastern
Congo.
Now
Ladsous
commanders an
all-African
Intervention
Brigade to
"neutralize"
armed groups
like M23 which
Congolese
leader
Joseph Kabila
doesn't like.
Plus ca
change.
While
Liberia fought
back against
the film -- see
for example
Toga
McIntosh's
speech, here
-- and while
Brugger may
have played a
bit
fast and
loose,
troubling
questions
remain about
the head of
Ellen
Johnson
Sirleaf's
Unity Party
Varney
Sherman.
A
promise was
made to
Brugger,
playing Mr.
Cortzen, that
he could get
his credential
when Johnson
Sirleaf
returned to
Monrovia from
the UN
General
Assembly in
September
2010, and that
the money he
paid would
go toward her
re-election.
What
is amazing
almost two
years after
that General
Assembly, and
a year
after the film
opened in New
York, is how
little has
been done.
While again
noting some
unresolved
question about
whether some
of the
purported
hidden camera
video was in
fact agreed
to, we and the
Free
UN
Coalition for
Access
recommend the
film,
including as
journalism.
Watch it.
, 
