In
DRC, UN Vows
Murky Shelling
"Will Not Go
Unpunished,"
General Ban?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 24 --
After the UN
bragged that
the M23 rebels
have been
pushed back so
their
artillery
can't reach
Goma, it
continues to
ascribe the
shelling to...
the M23.
But even more
symptomatic of
the UN further
losing its way
is a comment
by UN envoy
Martin Kobler,
perhaps
through this
spokesperson,
that the
shelling "will
not go
unpunished,"
that the UN
and its
Intervention
Brigade should
launch an
"energetic"
response...
and
punishment.
When did the
UN get into
the business
of military
punishment?
WHO got it
into this business?
It is tempting
to refer,
ultimately, to
Secretary
GENERAL Ban
Ki-moon, who
seems ready to
encourage, if
only after the
fact, some
sort of
punitive
military
strike on
Syria.
But in DRC,
the UN's
decline has a
more specific
"genetic
signature," to
turn-about the
troubling
phrase the DRC
foreign
minister
used in
front of US
Secretary of
State John Kerry
at July's UN
Security Council
debate on the
Great Lakes.
Inner City
Press has
tracked this
shift in UN
Peacekeeping
under its
fourth French
chief in a
row, Herve
Ladsous.
Given that Ladsous
as France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
at the UN
during the
Rwanda
genocide
argued for the
escape of the
genocidaires
into Eastern
Congo, his
Department of
"Peacekeeping"
Operations'
vow now of
"punishment"
is even more
striking. We
will have more
on this.
For now
this remains
outstanding: at
Friday's noon
briefing, video
here from
Minute 10:15,
Inner City
Press asked
the UN's
outgoing deputy
spokesperson
Eduardo Del
Buey about the
answer, when
Inner City
Press and
another
journalist
asked UN
Peacekeeping
acting chief
Edmond Mulet
Thursday if
the M23 rebels
had entered
the security
zone
established
around Goma.
"No,"
Mulet said.
"Just
mortars." He
went on to
refer to the
separate "red
line"
established
when M23
agreed in
Kampala
to pull out of
Goma. (The
portion of
that agreement
that gave M23
one
third of the
security force
at the Goma
airport
remains
unimplemented.)
But
later on
Thursday, the
wire service
Reuters reported
"a senior
U.N. official,
who asked not
to be named,
said that on
Thursday the
rebels entered
a security
zone
surrounding
Goma" -- which
Mulet,
the acting
chief of DPKO,
had just
denied. Inner
City Press and
the
other
journalist
waited to ask
Mulet again,
and got the
same answer.
So
who is this
"senior UN
official who
asked not to
be named"? In
UN
Peacekeeping,
only Herve
Ladsous is
senior to and
could
over-rule
Mulet.
Ladsous
has
in the past
spoon-fed
answers of
dubious
veracity to
this same
Reuters
UN bureau
bragging for
example about
the Congolese
Army
imposing
accountability
for the 135
rapes in
Minova in
November 2012.
But with only
a few
arrests for
the 135 rapes,
Ladsous' DPKO
continues
supporting the
391st
Battalion,
even as it is
now
implicated in
corpse
desecration.
That
the UN would
try to use
Reuters,
willingly,
resonates with
a
documented
instance in
June 2012 when
Reuters
UN bureau
chief Louis
Charbonneau
gave to UN
official
Stephane
Dujarric an
internal UNCA
anti-Press
document,
three
minutes after
saying he
would not do
so.
Story
here, audio here,
document
here, in
which
Charbonneau
tells
Dujarric, "You
didn't get
this from me."
So
is Reuters'
"senior UN
official who
asked not to
be named"
someone junior
to Mulet, or
as another
journalist
suggested, no
one
at all?
On August 23,
Del Buey said
he knew what
Mulet had
said, and has
"seen other
reports." He
said he'd have
to check. But
August 23 was
his last day
at the UN (the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access
wished him
well, video
here at
Minute
9:55).
So we'll see.
Watch this
site.
* * *
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are
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