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UN
"Concerned" that Hutu Rebels in Congo and Burundi's FNL Collaborate,
Trip by PBC Is On, to Meet FNL
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May
8 -- The UN says it is concerned that a group charged with the Rwanda
genocide
is now assisting the main rebel group in neighboring Burundi. In a sparsely attended meeting Thursday of
the UN Peacebuilding Commission, UN peacekeeping official Kevin Kennedy
expressed "grave concern" that "the FDLR may be collaborating
with the FNL." The FDLR, in English the Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda, is comprised of ethnic Hutu from Rwanda, and is a
group blacklisted
by regional countries and the U.S. as a terrorist organization. The FNL
is the "Party
for the Liberation of the Hutu People - National Liberation Forces,"
which
just last month attacked the Burundian capital, leading the UN
Peacebuilding
Commission to cancel its visit planned for April 19 through 24.
At Thursday's meeting, the PBC's
chairman for Burundi, Johan Lovald of Norway, proposed proceeding with
a visit
from May 13 to 16, including possible meeting with the FNL. The
representative
of South Africa, which has for some time been facilitating the
unconsummated peace
talks in Burundi, discouraged any meeting with the FNL. Others called
the FNL a
"stakeholder," which is hard to dispute. Whether the UN's expressed
concerns that the FNL may be collaborating with the FDLR, which the UN
is
supposed to be chasing out of Eastern Congo, remains to be seen.
In the Great Lakes region, misidentifications?
Inner City Press asked the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and then the UN Spokesperson's
Office, for a copy of Mr. Kennedy's remarks, but
none was provided by deadline. His comments, however, were taped, along
with
his disclosure that on May 6, the UN Department of Safety and Security
raised
Burundi to threat phase 4. Still the visit will proceed, Ambassador
Lovald
said, urging Committee members to check for their "tickets and per
diem" with the director of the Peacebuilding Support Office, Eloho
Otobo.
The UN's head of Peacebuilding, Carolyn McAskie, is slated to leave
soon. In a
potentially troubling sign, her replacement has not been named, nor has
the
replacement of the head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno, with whom
Inner City
Press caught up later on Thursday, praising Kevin Kennedy's
not-provided
presentation. Developing.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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[at] innercitypress.com
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