At
UN, Bachelet
Admits
Walikale
Warning Signs,
Cites Cell
Phones,
Bangura
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 25
-- Amid a mass
rape scandal
in Walikale in
the
Democratic
Republic of
Congo in 2010,
response was
slow from the
UN
peacekeepers
in the MONUSCO
mission led by
Roger Meece,
and from then
envoy on
Sexual
Violence
Margot
Wallstrom.
Afterward
the UN pledged
to do better,
including
using and
distributing
mobile
communications.
On
Tuesday at the
UN, Inner City
Press asked
the head of UN
Women
Michelle
Bachelet what
has in fact
been done. She
said that the
UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
(DPKO) is
"working to
provide mobile
phones" and
"trying
develop early
warning
signs" or
signals.
To
her credit,
she admitted
that as to
Walikale,
"there were
warning
signs, we need
to work on
that." There
is a new envoy
on Sexual
Violence and
Conflict,
Zaibab
Bangura,
Wallstrom
having
returned as
predicted to
Sweden.
Some
were pushing
to merge the
mandate of
Sexual
Violence and
Conflict into
that on
Children and
Armed
Conflict, now
taken over by
Meece's deputy
Leila
Zerrougui. But
that
was fought
off. Can the
UN,
particularly
its
Peacekeeping
unit headed
by the less
than
communicative
Herve Ladsous,
now do better
than a
Walikale?
We'll see.
Watch this
site.
, 
