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In UN's Silent CAR Alarm, Civilians Unprotected, Impunity for
Assassinations, Mistaken for Burundi
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 2 -- "In northwest
Central African Republic, we have no force there and the rebels are in
activities," UN envoy Francois Lonseny Fall told Inner City Press on
Tuesday. It has been that way in CAR for some time now, and the UN
appears to have given up on trying to protect civilians there.
Fall
had been leaving his briefing to the Security Council, not
planning to speak with reporters, many of whom had mistaken acronym of
his
mandate, BONUCA, as concerning Burundi rather than CAR. Some jokes, a
country
so poor it cannot afford a name. Others commented how the MINURCAT
peacekeeping
force, stationed in northeast CAR, is only about Darfur, not about the
locals.
Who cares about the the people of the Central African Republic? In the
northwest, fighting has forced them in their thousands into the bush.
Even
the
UN's envoy Fall is dismissive, pitching an upbeat vision of peace talks
this
week in Bangui. But at what cost? The UN's report on CAR recites
without
criticism an amnesty agreement for CAR's former leaders Ange-Felix
Patasse and
others "and their accomplices for embezzlement of public funds and
assassinations, among other offences." This is in a UN document,
S/2008/733 at Paragraph 7, without any criticism.
If
such an arrangement were
proposed in Darfur, for example, their would be worldwide outcry. But
this is
the CAR. Impunity, mass displacement, none of it seems to matter. It is
not a
high profile conflict, the wrongdoers don't fit into into wider global
template. And so the suffering continues, with the pretense of UN
caring.
Inner City
Press asked Fall four questions on Tuesday. Has there been an upsurge
in
violence, and areas to which the UN cannot go? Yes, he said, in the
northwest.
The report under staff security says that "following an attack on the
north-eastern town of Sam Oundja on 8 November, one UN staff member and
either
humanitarian workers were evacuated by EUFOR on 9 November. UN
activities are
currently suspended in that part of the country."
UN's Fall, impunity and suffering in Northwest CAR not shown
Note that
is the north-east: when such
attacks occur in the north-west
of CAR, there is
no EUFOR to evacuate the workers, and no inclusion in the report.
Inner City
Press also asked about the Lord's Resistance Army, reportedly rampaging
in from
the DRC. Fall acknowledged the incursions, but played them down,
nothing since
the end of the year. Nothing but hopeful upcoming talks, all based on
impunity.
Where is Luis Moreno Ocampo now? The toolbox of double-standards adds
new
drivers every day.
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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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