UNITED
NATIONS, July
25 -- Hours
before US
Secretary of
State John
Kerry
kicks off the
Great Lakes
meeting of the
UN Security
Council, the
underlying
Presidential
Statement is
still "under
silence"
until 9 am,
following last
minute changes
to the draft.
The
desecration of
corpses by the
Congolese Army
has been
added, along
with a more
expansive
reference to
increased
attacks on
Rwanda by the
FDLR militia.
Still, much
of the debate
and coverage
is sure to
focus on
external
support to the
M23 --
ironic to
some, given
that
Kerry by 4:20
pm is set to
meet with the
Syrian
opposition,
which is
openly
supported and
influenced
from outside
of Syria.
But
while Rwanda
ultimately
compromised on
this
Presidential
Statement or
PRST, it seems
like most of
the Security
Council's
deliberation
to
let the UN's
own Department
of
Peacekeeping
Operations
under Herve
Ladsous off
the hook.
The
desecration of
corpses was by
the 391st
Battalion of
the Congolese
Army, which
Ladsous' DPKO
supports.
Under the UN's
Human Rights
Due
Diligence
Policy, this
UN support
should have
stopped after
the 391st
Battalion was
implicated in
135 rapes in
Minova in
November 2012.
But
Ladsous
first covered
up the rapes
for months,
repeatedly
refusing
questions
from Inner
City Press on the topic, video here. Then he
decided to
rely on what
most say are
only two
arrests for
the rapes,
and a dozen
"suspensions."
Is suspension
enough for
mass
rape?
Now,
after this
non-enforcement
of the UN's
Human Rights
Due Diligence
Policy, the
same UN
supported (and
US
trained)
391st
Battalion
continued with
abuses
including but
not limited to
the
desecration of
corpses. Is it
any surprise?
(The
US
Mission the UN
did give Inner
City Press a written
response about
the 391st
Battalion,
which we published
in full here.)
On
July 24 Inner
City Press
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
outgoing
deputy
spokesperson
Eduardo Del
Buey about the
Congolese
Army's (or its
mercenaries'
according to
local
accounts)
aerial
bombardment of
Rumangabo and
the adjoining
village of
Kavodo, which
gave rise to
gruesome
photographs of
children
killed.
The
UN answer it
didn't know
anything about
this fighting
-- this on the
eve of the
Security
Council's big
Great Lakes
debate.
Under Herve
Ladsous,
who as
France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
at the UN in
1994 argued
for the escape
of
genocidaires
from Rwanda
into Eastern
Congo, UN
Peacekeeping
has betrayed
what the UN
says it stands
for.
But
who is on
this? Human
Rights Watch
on July 22
issued a
report almost
entirely about
the M23, not
even
MENTIONING the
UN's Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy. It had
to correct the
report, but
continues to
pump
it out without
the correction
appended, for
example on the
Huffington
Post.
HRW brags that
it primed the
US
State
Department and
Jen Psaki
to deliver --
the State
Department run
Voice of
America --
and canned
quote on July
23 about
Rwanda and the
M23.
Did
State
Department run
Voice of
America asked
about the US
training of
the 391st
Battalion?
Will anyone
ask US envoy
to the Great
Lakes Russ
Feingold, said
to be at the
UN on
Thursday?
Watch this
site.
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