Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

ICP Asks Gordon Brown of Syrian Children on the Move, Double Shifts in Schools

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 10 -- When Gordon Brown held a press conference by phone to the UN promoting funding for the schooling of Syrian refugee children on September 10, Inner City Press asked Brown about how to help and school those children now on the move, through Turkey and Greece, Serbia and Hungary, Austria and Germany -- but not Denmark (click here about Denmark's candidate to head UNHCR.)

  Brown said that refugee children, those seeking asylum, should be well treated (he declined a question about any particular connection to the UK); he emphasized that most Syrian refugee children remain in the region.

  Inner City Press asked if the funds sought were essentially budget support for Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan, for their schools to take in more students, or for schools in large camps like Za'atari.

  Brown said it is a question of running two shifts of schools in Lebanon and Turkey, he said there are teachers and space, it's funding that is needed.

Back on May 21 Brown was at the UN promoting a new fund for children's education in emergencies, he cited the plight of youths in internally displaced persons camps.

  Inner City Press asked Brown about the alleged sexual abuse of IDP children in the Central African Republic by French soldiers in the Sangaris "peacekeeping" force, which French chief of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous is listed as trying to cover up by firing the whistleblower, in a UN Dispute Tribunal ruling finding that was not contested. Video here.

  Brown first said, I think you know what I'd think of that. Then he said he understands there is a "report" being prepared on that.

 But as Inner City Press has exclusively reported, that "report" - by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, whose director Michael Stefanovic has recused himself from the investigation - is itself beset by problems. Shouldn't Brown, the self-styled UN point man on problems of IDP youth, know and say about this?

 (When BBC's Nick Bryant prefaced a question with a reference to Brown's previously incarnation, Brown cut him off and said he was only at the UN to answer "international" questions. What could be more international than the abuse of children in CAR by French "peacekeepers"?)

 Inner City Press also asked Brown if he had followed up on the child soldiers in South Sudan he had brought up in his last UN appearance. Since then, General (or "warlord," as Brown put it) Johnson Olony has been in the news for more mayhem. But Brown answered only generally, that if he'd had his Fund, none of it might have happened. Perhaps.

 Back on  March 18 Brown's first line was “It has been one month since the kidnapping of 89 South Sudanese boys from their classrooms to train them as child soldiers.”

  Inner City Press has previously asked the UN why it was so slow to report that abduction, and reluctant to acknowledge that the abductors are linked with the Salva Kiir / SPLA government in Juba. So Inner City Press asked Gordon Brown about this, video here.

  Brown cut in and replied that the abductor is a “war lord” and that the connection with the government is just something Inner City Press was speculating about. (This despite the government in Juba summoning SPLA Maj-Gen. Johnson Olony about the abduction.)

  Brown went out to say that the “terrorist group” -- the SPLA? -- had cynically offered to let the boys return to sit exams, then return to being child soldiers.

   Despite the material in the public record about the abductor's connection to the South Sudan government the UN talks and works with, Reuters took Brown's answer to Inner City Press and reported or retyped it at face value without analysis under the headline “South Sudan warlord offers abducted boys sit exams.”

  This is how Reuters mindlessly - or cynically - supports the UN, from Herve Ladsous covering up rapes in Minova in the DR Congo and Tabit in Darfur, to in this case channeling Gordon Brown about South Sudan. Brown also called Olony's SPLA a “terrorist group” -- we'll have more on this.

 On March 3 after the UN Security Council voted unanimously to create a South Sudan sanctions committee and Panel of Experts, Inner City Press asked the country's Permanent Representative Francis Deng about the vote, and about children abducted to become soldiers, allegedly by a government-aligned militia.

    Deng replied that sanctions rarely help and that the reasons the US had waited still applied.

   Inner City Press asked if Deng thought the Security Council should have waited until its meets with the African Union Peace and Security Council on March 12. Deng replied that the Council talks about coordinating with and even deferring to regional bodies and Africa, but then doesn't.

  On child soldiers, Deng said that their abduction violates the country's cultural traditions. We'll have more on this.

 On February 27 after UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric read out a vague summary of the UN's investigation into the deadly downing of one of its helicopters in South Sudan last August, Inner City Press asked for specifics:

Inner City Press: you said that they were unable to determine who did it, that it came from an area between In Opposition and the Government.  But there was this audiotape of Peter Gadet threatening the UN to shoot down helicopters that was… you know, days before it was shot down.  So, can you say or find out whether these Board of Inquiry people listened to the audio and whether they found it not credible or… why it's not part of the report?

Spokesman Dujarric:  They had all the information that was available to them.  As a general point, a threat is a threat.  I think what they were looking at is for hard evidence to figure out who had shot the helicopter, they were not able to come in with any conclusive information.

Inner City Press: Do they use a different standard of proof than even a court because usually like it seems like --

Spokesman:  A Board of Inquiry tries to establish what happened.  Obviously, they looked at the helicopter and all the information they had.  That's the conclusion they came up with.

  But why? Beyond Gadet, the International Crisis Group, for example, implies that the government itself shot the copter down:

"an UNMISS helicopter was shot down on 26 August, killing three. Although the results of its investigation have not been released, initial reports suggest this was done from territory controlled by the government and by a weapons system know to be in the hands of the government [n. 100:  Crisis Group interviews, UN officials, Nairobi, November 2014; defence and security adviser, Nairobi, December 2014.]"

  For UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous to remain silent is consistent with its approach to the Tabit rapes in Darfur, the Minova rapes in November 2012 by the DR Congo Army, and the shooting at unarmed protesters in Haiti (to say nothing of the killing by cholera there.)

  On an abuse in South Sudan on which the UN was slow and partial in reporting, Inner City Press on February 24 asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric:

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask first about South Sudan.  There was this very kind of high-profile kidnapping of dozens of children, and what I really wanted to ask you about is, although it was initially said it was unclear who did it, there are now reports that the militia that is responsible for it is basically part of the army of South Sudan.  And I wanted to know what Ellen Løj or the human rights component of UNMISS, what they say about those allegations that seem to be serious?

Spokesman Dujarric:  We’ve seen increased reports of kidnapping of children and forced enrollment into units, whether it’s the report you stated which our colleagues at UNICEF have flagged for us, or other reports, and I know it’s something that is of concern to all of us here.  It is being looked at both by the Mission and by different departments here.  But it’s obviously a big concern.  We have worked very hard to ensure that children are freed from such activity, and we will continue do so.

Inner City Press:  But do you expect the UN system to say who is responsible?

Spokesman Dujarric:  I know they’re looking into these — we’ve seen these reports.  We’re looking into them.

 Now Radio Tamazuj reports on this, citing Inner City Press' questions under the headline, "UN refuses to name abductors of 1000+ men and children in South Sudan."

  We'll have more on that, as well.

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