After Ladsous Covers Up Darfur Rapes, Ban Asks Ghandour, "How Is Bashir?"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 11, more here -- With UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous still providing few to no updates on its UNAMID mission's November 9 covering up of rapes in Darfur, just as Ladsous stonewalled about mass rapes in Minova in the DR Congo, here, some soft on the UN try to raise the issue without blaming those responsible for the cover-up.

  So it began on February 11, when a report was issued and a set-aside first question was asked, purportedly about the Tabit rapes, with no mention of Ladsous at all.

 Inner City Press followed, asking about Ladsous' February 10 meeting which a Sudanese diplomat called "nice," and if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would be raising the issue of the rapes when he met later in the day with Sudan's Ibrahim Ghandour.  Video here. (UN Spokesman Dujarric said he'd try to get a read-out; by 5 pm there was none.)

 Inner City Press went to the photo opportunity at the beginning of Ban's meeting with Ghandour, who bought ten or so people. With Ban were his chief of staff Susana Malcorra and, instead of Herve Ladsous, his deputy Edmond Mulet.

  As the meeting started, as Inner City Press was being ushered out, Ban first asked if Ghandour had met met Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson, previously a envoy on Darfur ("tomorrow," was the answer).

  Then Ban asked Ghandour, "How is President Bashir?" Video here.

  "He is fine," Ghandour replied. (Online, one wag suggested "At large.")

  At the February 11 noon briefing,  Inner City Press asked again about UNAMID's November 9 press release which said that villagers get along fine with the Sudanese security forces -- will it be retracted? Dujarric, who had called UNAMID's findings "inconclusive," ended by telling Inner City Press it can call UNAMID directly. What, like Ladsous answers Press questions?

  The report put out by Human Rights Watch today has 48 pages, but does not mention UN Peacekeeping boss Ladsous once, nor his similar cover up of rapes in Minova in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, video here. What kind of report is this?

 Tellingly, in trying to "launch" this soft-on-Ladsous report inside the UN, Human Rights Watch instead of holding a regular press conference in the UN Press Briefing Room as other NGOs do has chosen to partner with the UN Censorship Alliance, a group whose board has tried to get investigative Press thrown out of the UN, including for its reporting on Ladsous.

 On February 11, added to the UN's "Media Alert" is a meeting between Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and this Sudanese government official: "Ibrahim Ghandour, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chairman of the National Congress, Republic of Sudan."

  So will Ban be demanded access -- second access, after Ladsous' initial cover up -- to Tabit?

  While some claim that Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping is trying to get back to Tabit, on Feburary 10 a Sudanese diplomat told Inner City Press he had met with Ladsous on February 9 and "it was nice." How's that, for Ladsous' supposed commitment to get to the bottom of rapes and rights abuses?

 Instead, in order to NOT move against the FDLR militia, Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping is now claiming to care too much for human rights to support the Congolese Army's supposed offensive against the FDLR -- which, the UN belatedly acknowledged to Inner City Press, has not even begun.

  But on the Tabit rapes, that the Sudanese diplomat without irony described his February 9 meeting with Ladsous has "nice" is telling.

  It is easy and appropriate, of course, to blame Sudan, as it was and is to blame the Congolese Army and government for the rapes in Minova. But there is a pattern, and until UN Peacekeeping's senior leadership's cover up of these incidents - and even silence on dead peacekeepers for more than a week -- nothing will improve.

  So why is Human Rights Watch, which alongside its detailed work goes out of its way not to criticize the UN and especially Ladsous, for example on Central African Republic, as Inner City Press reported here, partnering to hold a privatized event on Tabit, not in the UN Press Briefing Room but among friends, as they say?

 Why have HRW and its hosts said nothing about posts in UN Peacekeeping under Ladsous being sold for money, exclusively exposed by Inner City Press on February 7, asked about February 9, and partially answered by the UN on February 10, here?

  Any country can sponsor such a briefing in the UN Press Briefing Room. But HRW hides behind and in the clubhouse of the UN Censorship Alliance, Board members of which in the past have ordered changes to articles about Ladsous - and about Sri Lanka, more here. Human rights? Hardly.  Look how Human Rights Watch's selectively distributed invitation whitewashes UN Peacekeeping's and Ladsous' role:

"Between October 30 and November 1, 2014, Sudanese government forces entered Tabit, North Darfur, and carried out massive abuses against the town’s residents, including a mass rape of women and girls. Sudan responded by denying the abuses and has refused to allow international peacekeepers and other independent monitors to investigate the crimes."

  This is misleading - Ladsous' UNAMID was in Tabit on November 9, and put out a press release whitewashing the rapes and saying the people there like the government's security forces. This was shameful.

 More publicly, Inner City Press on January 26 asked Security Council ambassadors Mark Lyall Grant of the UK and Raimonda Murmokaite of Lithuania, "what happened with UNAMID going back for real investigation of rapes in Tabit?"

#Darfur Q for @LyallGrant: what happened with UNAMID going back for real investigation of rapes in Tabit? Thanks. @PRLTUN

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 26, 2015

  Lyall Grant replied, "We continue to press DPKO to encourage UNAMID to revert on the Tabit allegations."

.@innercitypress @PRLTUN We continue to press DPKO to encourage UNAMID to revert on the Tabit allegations.

— Mark Lyall Grant (@LyallGrant) January 26, 2015

   Murmokaite added, "have been raising the issue at consultations, will continue."

@LyallGrant @innercitypress have been raising the issue at consultations, will continue

— Raimonda Murmokaite (@PRLTUN) January 26, 2015

 And so Inner City Press at the January 26 UN noon briefing asked Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, video here:

Inner City Press: two of the Security Council ambassadors this morning said they continued to ask DPKO to ensure that the Tabit site of alleged mass rapes is revisited. I want to know has any action been taken on that? Has there been any move by UNAMID?

Spokesman Dujarric: The request to visit Tabit stands. There's nothing to report.

 Nothing to report? Back on January 8 Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, video here:

Inner City Press: what has the UN system done in order to get access again to Thabit in Darfur, where there were allegedly 200 rapes, and then the Government didn’t allow any inspectors. What have you done since we last spoke on it?

SG Ban: As for the first part of the question, as you know, we tried to have a thorough investigation. This report might not have been sufficient because of the lack of full cooperation of the authorities on the ground. That has really hampered our authorities to go into the field and get a thorough investigation. It is important that we have to have a thorough investigation and as a matter of principle, there should be a clear accountability process and justice. I am firm about this matter. And we will, in the course of time, have better information on this matter.

  While appreciated, it is widely recognized that the more time goes by, the more difficult a credible rape investigation becomes. So why did UNAMID issue a cover-up November 9 press release?
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