By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 30 --
Just after the
gunfire in
Kinshasa, the
spokesperson
for Joseph
Kabila's
government
Lambert Mende
called it a
"terrorist
attack."
But twelve
hours later,
the UN
Security
Council under
its French
presidency had
not issues any
press
statement, as
it routinely
does for
terrorist
attacks and an
attempted coup
d'etat.
Inner
City Press
asked Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth French
head of UN
Peacekeeping
in a row, if
after this
attempted coup
or terrorist
attack it
still made
since to move
a battalion of
UN
peacekeepers
out of the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo.
Ladsous, who
as France's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
in 1994 argued
for the escape
of
genocidaires
from Rwanda
into Eastern
Congo,
replied, "I do
not answer you
Mister." UN
video here
from Minute
4:34; Inner
City Press YouTube video here.
And Ladsous
never did
answer about
events in the
DRC. The
UN's envoy Martin
Kobler
belatedly
tweeted his
deep concern
("2013 has
been the year
of new
hopes... I
strongly
condemn")
-- but he had
also re-tweeted
photos of
a Bangladeshi
formed police
unit which
had signed on
to preserve
international
peace and
security in
the DRC flying
out to
South Sudan.
Later
on December
30, even the
French
government
owned France
24 channel
reported that
DRC soldiers
had looted
people's
houses near
the Army
headquarters
in Kinshasa.
Inner
City Press reported
this, citing
France 24
-- but Kabila
defenders
rejected it,
blaming Rwanda
even for this.
Call it,
dysfunction.
And as to
Ladous, call
it
FrancAfrique.
The question
remains: will
France, which
holds the UN
Security
Council "pen"
on the DRC and
controlled
the Council's
recent trip
there now
draft a
Council press
statement on
the chaos?
While
this remains
to be seen --
France
has been
silent in the
Council of
last on the
breakdown in
its former
colony the
Central
African
Republic, even
as eight
African
peacekeepers
have been
killed --
it must be
noted that the
UN has
proposed
removing a
full battalion
of
peacekeepers
from its
MONUSCO
mission in the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo. Click
here for long
form analysis
on Beacon
Reader.
For a
week since
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
announced that
he would move
peacekeepers
and "assets"
including
attack
helicopters
from DRC,
Darfur, Abyei,
Liberia and
Cote d'Ivoire
to South
Sudan, Inner
City Press has
asked Ban's
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
about any UN
analysis or
recognition of
the potential
impacts on the
places the
peacekeepers
would be
removed from.
Nesirky
has
not answered
the questions.
None of them.
Another
question Inner
City Press
asked, about
tensions
between South
Korea and
Japan
including in
South Sudan
after Japanese
prime minister
Shinzo Abe's
visit to a
shrine for
Japan's World
War Two dead,
Nesirky
answered but first to
other media on
a regional or
politicized
basis, 13
hours before a
more general
"Note to
Correspondents."
These
practices are
being opposed
by the new Free UN Coalition for Access.
Mende's
use
of the word
"terrorist"
has
significance:
the Security
Council
routinely
issues fast
press
statements
condemning
terrorist
attacks. (See
yesterday's
Inner City
Press story here.)
So will France
propose a
press
statement now
on the DRC?
And will it
address, as
the UN
Secretariat
hasn't, the
pull out of a
battalion from
MONUSCO at
this time?
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
Meanwhile for
hours after
what Mende
called the
"terrorist
attack,"
nothing has
been heard
from the UN's
envoy to the
DRC Martin
Kobler. One
wag wondered
if Kobler was
"pulling a
Hilde Johnson"
-- the UN's
envoy in South
Sudan said
little in the
days after the
fighting and
killing in
Juba. Is
Kobler now as
aligned with
Kabila as
Johnson is
with Salva
Kiir?
Kobler's
MONUSCO
mission was blithely
tweeting out
photographs of
blue helmets
holding hands
with Congolese
children... in
Pinga in
North Kivu,
far far away.
This is the
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
under Herve
Ladsous, who
"has a policy"
of not
answering
Press
questions, video here, UK
coverage here.
This is the UN
of late: no
answers, just
spin.
, 
