UNITED
NATIONS, June
28 -- The
politicization
of the UN's
sanctions
process
is perhaps
most clear in
connection
with the
reports on the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo.
Usually
right before
UN Security
Council
meetings, this
time just
before the
full
deployment of
the
Council's
“Intervention
Brigade,” the
reports are
leaked to a
Western wire
service and
set the tenor
of the debate.
Rarely
are the
actually
documents put
online, only
the wire
service's
gloss.
In this case,
Inner City
Press
immediately critiqued that
gloss,
which for
example
ignored
Rwanda's
opposition to
two of the
Group of
Experts'
members,
Bernard Leloup
and Marie
Plamadiala, on
which Inner
City Press previously
reported.
But
now, after
receiving
copies from a
number of
Council
members, Inner
City Press is putting
the Annexes
online,
exclusively,
here. The
report itself
is, typically,
watermarked
each with the
name of the
Council member
to which it
was given. The
annexes do not
bear the
mark, and even
by a biased
Group of
Experts
undercut the
wire
service's
one-sided
summary.
The
Group's lack
of seriousness
is evident
even from the
first Annex,
in
which Uganda's
2012 letter is
labeled
“October 13,
2013.” Note to
Leloup and
Plamadiala --
that date has
not yet
occurred.
These
are followed
by
self-serving
“extracts” and
photos of
ammunition
looted, a
truck and tank
taken, photos
of the M23
headquarters
taken
by The Group
-- from a
helicopter no
less -- and
almost
pornographic
pictures of
bullets and
their
launchers. (In
the vein, in
Annex 44
the Group
includes some
stomping at
the “Hotel
Pygmy in
Mambasa
town.”)
Finally,
only
in Annex 50,
the Group gets
into the FDLR,
a militia
actually
linked to a
genocide.
There
is an annex of
509 names
provided by
the Rwandan
government --
portrayed by
Reuters as not
cooperating,
in an article
which uploaded
neither the
report nor its
annexes.
The
UN, Reuters'
partner (click
here to see
Reuters UN
bureau chief
leaking to the
UN,
against Inner
City Press,
leading to the
formation
of the new
Free UN
Coalition for
Access)
typically is
most concerned
with attacks
on itself. In
Annex 64 it
showed burned
trucks.
There
are screen
shots of SMS
messages --
never mind
that the UN
denied or
stonewalls on
documents
showing when
Bosco Ntaganda
was working
with
the FARDC they
supported. The
process is
entirely
politicized.
When
Inner City
Press published
internal
emails from
the MONUSCO UN
Mission on
this topic,
MONUSCO
replied
angrily via
press release
that
it was false.
Not that the
Group says it
too, will
MONUSCO attack
the
Group of
Experts?
MONUSCO
has
not responded
to a request,
in French no
less, by
the
Free UN
Coalition for
Access,
digging into
the UN
system's and
particularly
UN
Peacekeeping's
one-way social
media, to
clarify how
many FARDC
arrests there
have
been for the
135 rapes in
Minova in late
November.
Now
what of the UN
mission
MONUSCO
working with
Congolese Army
units
intertwined
with the FDLR?
After UN
peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous,
in his
previous
incarnation representing
France in the
Security
Council,
argued in
favor of
letter the
genocidaires
escape from
Rwanda into
Eastern Congo?
Ladsous,
of course,
hand his
information
to favored
scribes, at
least one
of which
returns the
favor to the
UN, as
recently shown.
And who did this
one? And now
what? Watch
this site.
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