As
US Envoy,
What'll
Feingold Do on
DRC Army's
Minova Rapes,
UN
Inaction?
UNITED
NATIONS, June
19
-- Amid
advocates'
congratulations
and advice for
Russ Feingold
as US
President
Barack Obama
named him US
envoy to the
Great Lakes
yesterday,
several issues
were missing.
While
there was much
urging of
Feingold to
focus on
external
support to the
M23, little
was said of
the Congolese
Army's
UN-enabled
abuses, such
as the mass
rape of 135
women and
girls at
Minova in
November 2012.
The
US is the
largest single
funder of the
UN, but has
done little as
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous first
stonewalled
about the
rapes
for four
months (click
here for
Inner City
Press video
compilation),
then
failed to
follow through
on the UN's
stated
conditionality
or
Human Rights
Due Diligence
policy.
In
fact, one of
the two FARDC
units
implicated,
the 391st
Battalion, was
US trained.
This is an
issue that
Feingold
should work on
very
quickly. It
will be
something of a
litmus test.
Meanwhile,
Inner
City Press on
June 18 asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo Del
Buey to
comment on the
DRC government
of
Joseph Kabila
ending talks
with M23 in
Kampala,
and if sending
an
"Intervention
Brigade" led
by Tanzania
whose
president has
said Rwanda
should
negotiate with
the
historically
genocidal FDLR
militia has
not, in fact,
made things
worse.
Del
Buey said he
would check
with Mary
Robinson, who
as Inner City
Press
first reported
is based in
Dublin. Where
will Feingold
be based? What
will he do
about the
Minova rapes
and the UN's
failure to
follow
through? Watch
this site.
* * *
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reports
are
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News and on Lexis-Nexis.
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for Sept 26, 2011 New Yorker on Inner City
Press at UN
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