On
Minova Rapes,
UN Cites 2d,
“Final” Feb 18
Letter to DRC
Army, Ladsous'
Lapdogs AFP
& Reuters
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 8 -- For
three and a
half months,
Inner City
Press has
been asking
the UN, from
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon on
December 19
and March
5, to his
head of
Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, about the 126
rapes in
Minova by the
Congolese
Army, the UN's
partners.
On March 8,
Inner City
Press asked
again, video
here at
4:10.
After
the most
recent
question to
Ban, on March
7 Ladsous'
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
gave vague
answers not to
Inner City
Press,
but to a
select group
of more
friendly
journalists.
The resulting
reports, in
Reuters, AFP
and elsewhere,
made DPKO look
good, but
falsely.
On
March 8, Inner
City Press
calmly told
the AFP and
Reuters
scribes, Tim
Witcher
and Michelle
Nichols
respectively,
what it
thought of
their
“reporting.”
Both then
showed up at
the day's noon
briefing -- to
suddenly ask
questions
about the
Congo rapes.
But
their
questions
showed how
little they
knew about the
case they had
just praised
the UN about.
Witcher
confused the
number of
witness
statements
with the
number of
rapes. Video
here, from
Minute 8:54.
Nichols, who
could have
asked her
handlers at
DPKO before
typing her
story, asked
how many
Congolese
soldiers may
have been
involved. Video
here, from
Minute 9:56.
Weeks
ago Inner City
Press asked
the UN how
only two
soldiers, the
number
then and now
arrested for
rape, could
have committed
126 rapes.
At
the March 8
noon briefing
Ban's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
announced
that there was
a second,
“final”
injunction to
the FARDC on
February 18.
He called this
initiating the
process to
suspend
support
under Ban's
stated Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy, not
the
suspension
itself.
Inner
City Press
asked which
two Congolese
units, and
what the
deadline is.
Nesirky did
not answer
either
question,
saying he did
not have the
information.
Clearly DPKO
knows - but
either its
favored
scribes
didn't ask, or
it didn't
answer -- and
the scribes
neglected to
mention this
stonewalling,
so eager to
lazily praise
DPKO and
Ladsous
to get this
easy access.
There
are among the
reasons this
UN does not
improve. There
are others.
Watch this
site.
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