On
DRC, UN Report
on Impunity
for Violence
"Did
Not Come Up"
in UNSC
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 11 --
After the UN
itself issued
a report
calling
on the "the
international
community to
urge Congolese
authorities to
combat
impunity
and prosecute
those
suspected of
human
rights
violations
committed
during the
election
process,"
Inner
City Press
asked French
Ambassador
Gerard Araud
about it, at
the
conclusion of
the UN
Security
Council's DRC
session on
Wednesday.
Araud
replied that
the issue had
not come up
during the
more than two
hour
meeting just
concluded. One
must ask, why
not? The report
was issued
by MONUSCO,
the UN
Peacekeeping
mission. Herve
Ladsous, the
chief of
UN
Peacekeeping,
was in the
meeting
(though he did
not speak to
the
press
afterward).
The
head of
MONUSCO,
Martin Kobler,
did come and
speak to the
press.
Inner City
Press asked
him two
accountability
questions:
about the
above-quoted
report, and
also about the
Minova rapes
by the 391st
and
41st
Battalions of
the Congolese
Army, and when
the UN's Human
Rights
Due Diligence
Policy might
be applied to
them.
Kobler
answered about
Minova, that a
trial has
begun but so
far only the
40
(or 41)
charged
soldiers have
been
interviewed.
He said that
the
HRDDP is
implemented,
but it is
still unclear:
why did
MONUSCO
continue
working with
the 391st and
41st
Battalions
after their
mass
rape, for a
full year
before any
kind of trial
began? Are the
commanders
being held
accountable?
Araud
also spoke
about the
Minova rapes,
after saying
that the MONUSCO
report
on electoral
violence, here,
had not come
up. He made
much of
the trials,
not mentioning
the limitation
on interviews
that Kobler
had mentioned.
But Araud is
coming to take
questions
after many
sessions this
month - it is
Ladsous, of
the three
briefers on
Wednesday, who
did not come
to the
stakeout.
There are many
questions
that he should
answer his
next time. But
will he? Watch
this site.
, 
