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UN
Sanctions
Annex Shows
DRC Army
Raping &
Arming
FDLR, Now
What?
UNITED
NATIONS, June
29 -- The UN's
Congo
sanctions
annex which
Inner City
Press exclusively
published late
yesterday
reflects the
UN's
unwillingness
or inability
to report
honestly on
itself or act
according to
its stated
principles.
The
UN provides
military
support to the
Congolese
Army, but
states that
this is
conditional on
compliance
with human
rights and
international
humanitarian
law.
When UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous chose
to
continue
supporting the
41st
and 391st
Battalions
after they
were
implicated in
135 rapes in
Minova (and
only two
soldiers have
been
arrested), the
policy was
undercut to
say
the least.
But
the new report
showed other
Congolese Army
units and
commanders
engaged in
torture, rape
and even
attacks on the
UN. (These
last are
given detailed
treatment,
down to the
looting of a
UN bar and the
pulling of air
conditioners
out of the
wall.)
The
812th FARDC
regiment
commanded by
Col. Mudahunga
committed mass
rape,
and targeted
ethnic Hunde
civilians, in
Kitchanga
earlier this
year. But all
the report
says is that
the 812th
was later
re-deployed.
Annex 61;
Report at
Paragraph 124.
The FARDC
905th
Regiment,
under the
command of
Col. John
Tchinyama,
committed
torture at
Mambasa
earlier this
year. Annex
44. But the
Group of
Experts merely
put the video
in the UN's
archive.
Col.
Faida Fidel
Kamulete, the
commander of
FARDC 2nd
battalion of
601st
Regiment based
at Tongo, said
the FARDC and
FDLR do not
fight each
other.
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. (This
is confined
to a
paragraph,
admitting only
two arrests
contrary to
the "nine"
figure given
by MONUSCO's
new force
commander.)
Still,
the
Group of
Experts takes
its estimate
of FDLR
strength from
MONUSCO,
while leaving
to an aside
FARDC
providing
ammunition to
the FDLR.
Col.
Willy Bonane
Habarugira led
the looting of
the UN in
Bunia, but
nothing has
been done.
Annex 65,
Report at
Paragraph 138.
The
report runs
through child
soldiers,
including a
MONUSCO travel
document in
the Annex --
but Ladsous'
DPKO is on the
verge, in two
days, of
putting a
listed child
soldier
recruiter,
Chad, into a
UN
Peacekeeping
mission.
As
noted, Ladsous
in his
previous
incarnation as
French deputy
permanent
representative
at the UN
during the
Rwanda
genocide
argued for the
escape of the
genocidaires
into Eastern
Congo.
When asked by
Inner
City Press
about it, he
started
talking about
“innuendo” and
refusing
to answer
questions.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
The
UN's and
Ladsous'
non-enforcement
of human
rights due
diligence
and
conditionality
policies were
air brushed
from Reuters
gloss on
the report --
not
surprising,
not only
politically
but also in
light
of recent
evidence that
Reuters
gives the UN
information
the UN
should not
have, here:
quid pro
quo? And
so it goes.
* * *
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are
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