UNITED
NATIONS, June
29 --
Yesterday,
Inner City
Press
exclusively
put
online the
Annexes to the
new Democratic
Republic of
the Congo
sanctions
report,
zeroing in as
others haven't
on Congolese
Army
torture,
looting and
rape, beyond
the 135 Minova
rapes the UN
has
failed to act
on.
Today,
Inner City
Press puts
online
exclusively as
an HTML file
the 215
paragraph
report itself,
here.
Usually right
before UN
Security
Council
meetings, this
time just
before the
full
deployment of
the
Council's
“Intervention
Brigade,” the
reports are
leaked to a
Western wire
service and
set the tenor
of the debate.
Rarely
are the
actually
documents put
online, only
the wire
service's
gloss.
In this case,
Inner City
Press
immediately
critiqued that
gloss,
which for
example
ignored
Rwanda's
opposition to
two of the
Group of
Experts'
members,
Bernard Leloup
and Marie
Plamadiala, on
which Inner
City Press
previously
reported.
But
now, after
receiving
copies from
even more
members of the
Security
Council, Inner
City Press is
putting not
only the
Annexes
online, but
also the report,
as an HTML
file, here.
Along
with the new Free UN
Coalition for
Access,
Inner City
Press believes
that the
public,
particularly
the impacted
public, has a
right to see
the actual
documents, and
not only
Western wire
services' spin
of them.
Readers
will
of course
focus on the
parts most of
interest to
them. Inner
City Press'
focus, in the
Great Lakes as
in Haiti, Sri
Lanka and
elsewhere, is
the UN at
least
purporting to
try to live up
to its
stated
principles.
The
135 rapes in
Minova by two
units of the
Congolese Army
have not
resulted in
any suspension
of UN support,
despite only
two arrests
being made for
the rapes.
This, like the
inclusion of a
listed child
soldier
recruiter into
the new UN
mission in
Mali, is the
responsibility
of Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth French
head of UN
Peacekeeping
in a row.
Ladsous
in
his previous
incarnation as
French deputy
permanent
representative
at the UN
during the
Rwanda
genocide
argued for the
escape of the
genocidaires
into Eastern
Congo.
When asked by
Inner City
Press about
it, he started
talking about
“innuendo” and
refusing
to answer
questions,
video here.
The
UN's and
Ladsous'
non-enforcement
of human
rights due
diligence and
conditionality
policies were
air brushed
from Reuters
gloss on this
report -- not
surprising,
not only
politically
but also in
light of
recent evidence
that Reuters
gives the UN
information
the UN should
not have, here:
quid pro quo?
For
now, consider
these:
107.
The Group
interviewed 10
FARDC soldiers
in Tongo, in
North Kivu,
who
reported that
FARDC and FDLR
regularly meet
and exchange
operational
information.
These same
sources stated
that FARDC
soldiers
supplied
ammunition to
the FDLR. Col.
Faida Fidel
Kamulete, the
commander of
FARDC 2nd
battalion of
601st Regiment
based at
Tongo, denied
such
collaboration,
but declared
to the Group
that FARDC and
FDLR do not
fight each
other.
When
Inner City
Press published
internal
emails from
the MONUSCO UN
Mission on
this topic,
MONUSCO
replied
angrily via
press release
that
it was false.
Now that the
Group says it
too, will
MONUSCO attack
the
Group of
Experts?
, 
