On
LRA,
HRW's Egeland
Dismisses
Rwanda
"Ambassador,"
US Vets for
Rights?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 26 -- Jan
Egeland, now
deputy
executive
director of
Human Rights
Watch, spoke
at the UN
about the
Lord's
Resistance
Army
on June 26,
the day after
Rwandan
Foreign
Minister
Louise
Mushikiwabo
said HRW puts
people in
Eastern Congo
at risk with
inaccurate
reports.
Inner
City Press
asked Egeland
to respond to
the Rwandan
Foreign
Minister's
critique,
since HRW
director Ken
Roth has not
responded at
all.
Video
here from
Minute 16:47.
Egeland said
categorically
that HRW
stands behind
all of its
reports,
given the
"rigorous
scrutiny...
before we
publish
anything,"
regardless of
what the
"Rwandan
Ambassador"
says.
Video
here, from
Minute 21.
Mushikiwabo
is, of course,
the foreign
minister.
On
a second round
of questions
Inner City
Press asked
Egeland, since
HRW
stands behind
all of its
reports, what
safeguards are
in place in
the
fight against
the LRA to not
include and
involve the
elements of
the
Congolese Army
which HRW
itself has
said are human
rights
abusers. Video
here, from
Minute 39:55.
Egeland
replied
that "the US"
are doing
training and
"vetting" to
"avoid that
one is
creating human
rights
violations."
Inner
City Press
asked if it
would be fair
to say that
this African
Union
high minded
endeavor is
outsourcing or
delegating all
of its human
rights vetting
to a single
member state,
the US. No,
Egeland said,
before the
African
Union's
Francisco
Madeira jumped
in to describe
dedicated
human rights
officers at
the "RTF," and
to picking
soldiers "one
by one,"
including
based on
"health."
This would
certainly be
different than
UN
Peacekeeping's
deployment of
cholera-infected
troops to
Haiti, a
question DPKO
chief Herve
Ladsous has
refused to
answer, like
why he accepts
as a senior
adviser the
alleged war
criminal Sri
Lanka General
Shavendra
Silva.
The
purpose of the
June 26 press
conference, it
seems, was to
beat the drum
for
more money to
equip and
supply the
5000 troops to
be deployed
against
the LRA.
Mention was
made not only
of the US but
also of
Germany,
which recently
authorized its
forces to bomb
up to two
kilometers
inside
Somalia.
At
the tail end
of the press
conference,
Angelique
Namaika of the
NGO
Mama Bongisa
told Inner
City Press
that there are
now two kinds
of
FARDC
Congolese
soldiers:
those who are
underpaid and
those who are
"well paid by
the
Americans."
Who knew? As
with Voice of
America, US
taxpayer
dollars at
work. Watch
this site.
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