At
UN,
Amid Congo Vote
Delays, Ban's
Shadowy Meetings,
Of Rape & Swedish Tweeting
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 24 -- With elections in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo scheduled for November, on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's
schedule for June 24 at 9:15 am appeared candidate Etienne
Tshisekedi.
When
Inner City
Press asked Ban's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq for a readout or
summary of the meeting, and if the UN believes the elections are on
track to be held in November, Haq would not answer either question.
He said that the UN doesn't give readouts of meetings like this.
Nor
does the UN
appear to give notice. The Permanent Representative of the DRC Atoki
Ileka complained to Inner City Press that he was never told that Ban
was meeting with DRC candidate Tshisekedi, nor the topic of the
meeting.
It
has emerged
that in order to hold the elections in November, the voters register
would have had to be completed by May. But it has still not been
completed, bills about it still stalled in the parliament.
When
Roger
Meece,
the head of the UN Mission in the Congo MONSCO, was recently in New
York, he spoke about the elections without giving notice of this
delay. He painted a happy picture, including rejecting calls that the
UN more closely track human rights violations related to the upcoming
elections.
Some
also found
Meece's presentations in New York “a little light,” as one
observer put it, on the issue of sexual violence and rape.
Amb. Ileka in UNSC with Araud of France, Nov
election not shown
Now on
June 23 the UN announced at its noon briefing that
We
have
received several worrying reports about incidents of an unknown
number of alleged rapes and looting committed in the Nyakiele area in
South Kivu, some 40 kilometres north of Fizi town, between 9 and 12
June. Investigations to confirm these reports are ongoing in
consultation with local authorities. The United Nations Organization
Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(MONUSCO) and partners are dispatching an assessment team to
Nyakiele, a remote village located 8 hours by foot from the nearest
UN military base. The humanitarian NGO [non-governmental
organization] Médecins Sans Frontières has separately
reported
treating over 100 victims of rape and other forms of trauma since
accessing this small village on 21 June.
As
Inner City
Press reported earlier this year, from the previous mass rape scandal
that confronted Meece from his first days atop MONUSCO, only Mayele
is still in jail, and even he may be released. Now what?
Ban
Ki-moon's representative on sexual violence and conflict Margot
Wallstrom, was Tweeting
during this period. Here are four in a row:
Swedish
speaker?
Read "Viagra vapen i Libyen" in today's Dagens Nyheter @
http://t.co/4NXELgG. Monday, June 20, 2011 10:30:44 AM via web
More
for
Swedish speakers: "Viagra är Gaddafis vapen", op-ed in
today's NSD @ http://t.co/xDDXd6Y. Monday, June 20, 2011 11:13:28 AM
via web
Attending the
ceremony for the appointment of Ban Ki-moon as Secretary-General of
the UN for a second term. Tuesday, June 21, 2011 4:04:28 PM via web
I
condemn
in the strongest possible terms the mass rape of over 150
civilians, mainly women and girls, in the area of Minembwe, South
Kivu about 19 hours ago via web
And
so it goes at
the UN. Watch this site.
* * *
For
Congo,
A
Single South African Copter, Meece Concedes, DRC Says UN Can Stay
Because It Needs the
Money
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
10 -- The UN's envoy in the
Congo, Roger Meece, told
the Press on Friday that any time he can ask a member state for
helicopters for his Mission MONUSCO, he does. But facing the
impending loss of the third of three tranches of helicopters, only
one aircraft has been secured, from South Africa.
Others
talk
about
offers from Ukraine and even Sri Lanka, which used its craft in the
killing of civilians detailed in the UN Panel of Experts' recent
report, on which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has declined to act.
Inner City Press asked Meece on June 10 about these offers. Meece
said he wouldn't discuss particular states' offers.
Nor,
asked
for the second
time
in two days if he will deploy UN peacekeepers to Lord's
Restance Army impacted areas like Bas Uele, did Meece make any
commitment. He did say that Joseph Kony “to speak frankly should be
neutralized one way or another.”
Inner
City
Press
asked him about a critique of his work, that he seeks to ingratiate
himself to Joseph Kabila. Meece took issue with the word, and spoke
of MONUSCO's integrated human rights reporting function.
The
International Peace Institute spokesman said the critique was mostly
of Meece's predecessor Alan Doss, who left amid a nepotism scandal in
which he urged the UN Development Program to show him “lee way”
and give a job to his daughter.
Roger Meece previously at stakeout, action on
Walikale not shown
Later
on
Friday,
Inner City Press asked DRC Permanent Representative Atoki Ileki about
the same critique. He called it strange, saying “when the war is
over you have to change your approach.” He said DRC does not mind
the UN stay: “we need the money.”
And
so the UN uses
the Congo, and the Congolse government uses the UN. But are civilians
served? Watch this site.
, 
