On
Rwanda Aid to
DRC Mutiny,
Meece Lied on
May 22,
BBC Shows,
Credited
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 28,
updated --
Regarding
whether Rwanda
has assisted
the mutiny
in Eastern
Congo, Inner
City Press on
May 22 asked
UN envoy Roger
Meece on the
MONUSCO
Mission to
disclose his
knowledge of
Rwandan
support for
the breakaway
factions.
Meece said, "I
have not
seen and I am
not aware."
Video here,
from Minute
13:57.
But
this was
false. Now
MONUSCO's
chief for Goma
in Eastern
Congo Hiroute
Guebre-Sellassie
has told BBC
on camera
of defectors
from the
mutineers who
say they were
recruited to
fight in the
Rwandan army
but in fact
deployed in
Congo for the
mutiny. This
include at
least
one child
soldier.
So
Meece was
lying
or
ill-informed;
either way,
what will the
UN do? On May
22,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
cut Inner
City Press off
from acting
any follow up
question. Video
here at
17:59.
The
UN's own press
release of
Meece's
appearance did
not
mention Inner
City Press'
Rwanda
question, or
Meece's
answer, as
Inner City
Press wrote
about, here.
BCC's follow up
was brought to
Inner City
Press'
attention by Vincent
Harris on
Twitter;
both are being
credited here.
This stands in
contrast to
Reuters'
and its Louis
Charbonneau's
May 21
uncredited
theft of
Inner
City Press' March 28
exclusive that
US official
Jeffrey
Feltman would
come to work
at the UN,
which Foreign
Policy's The
Cable
credited.
Earlier
in the
Meece press
conference on
May 22,
Reuters'
Charbonneau
asked about a
statement on
the Lord's
Resistance
Army provided
to him and "a
colleague from
Agence Frence
Presse," on
information
and belief Tim
Witcher of
Agence France
Presse, who
was used by
the French
Mission to
target Inner
City Press for
reporting how
out of touch
the Mission
was with Paris
that it
didn't even
know, the day
of the
announcement,
that Herve
"The
Drone" Ladsous
would replace
Jerome
Bonnafont as
the
intra-French
replacement
for Alain Le
Roy at UN
Peacekeeping.
Witcher and
Charbonneau
are part of an
old-media
scam in which
they steal
stories
withour credit
from smaller
less corporate
reporters then
seek to have
these expelled
by abusing
what power
they have.
This is being
opposed.
Update:
hours after
publication of
the above,
Reuters
promoted a story
mimicking the
BCC story
-- but failed
to say that on
May 22 at the
UN Meece
denied the UN
knew of Rwanda
support for
the DRC rebels
in the UN noon
briefing on
May 22 when
Reuters' UN
"bureau chief"
was there
(albeit asking
about the
LRA). So it is
a lame wire
where the left
hand doesn't
tell the right
hand what it
had seen and
done? Or is it
soft on the
UN?
To
bylined
editor Joe
Bavier's
credit,
his story does
credit the BBC
-- so it's not
that no one at
Reuters knows
how to credit,
it's that
Reuters has
allowed its UN
bureau chief
Charbonneau to
adopt what he
has announced
as a POLICY of
not crediting
Inner City
Press, and
seeking to
have it
expelled. What
kind of news
organization
is this? Watch
this site.
, 
