HRW
Belatedly
Appends
Correction to
its DRC
Report, Still
Silent on
Ladsous
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
23 -- After
Human Rights
Watch rushed
out a report
focused almost
entirely on
the M23 during
Monday
afternoon's
Security
Council
consultations
about the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo,
Inner City
Press and
others noted
an obvious
mistake in it.
HRW
wrote that
"M23 officers
told Human
Rights Watch
that some of
the Rwandan
fighters in
their units
told them they
had served in
Somalia or
Darfur as part
of the Rwandan
army’s
peacekeeping
contingent."
But
as Inner City
Press reported,
with link to
the Somalia
peacekeeping
mission's
website, there
have been no
Rwandans in
that mission.
Inner
City Press
published it
and noted,
Maybe HRW will
explain this
-- and
their failure
to even
mention the UN
Human Rights
Due Diligence
Policy, of
which UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous
has made
a
mockery, with
the 391st
Battalion
and otherwise.
What
HRW did was
append a
correction to
their online
report -- they
did
not send out
the correction
by the same
social media
they used to
publicize the
original
erroneous
report. They said:
"Correction:
Human
Rights Watch’s
news release
of July 22 on
the Democratic
Republic of
Congo
contained an
error. It said
that Rwandan
soldiers
had served
with the
peacekeeping
contingent in
Somalia and
Darfur. In
fact, Rwandan
peacekeepers
served in
Darfur but not
in Somalia.
"Only
one of those
we interviewed
mentioned
Somalia
(whereas
others
mentioned
Darfur). We
erred in
including it
because we
ordinarily do
not rely on
only one
uncorroborated
witness in our
publications.
This
was a mistake
on our part.
However, more
than 50
witnesses,
corroborated
and
cross-checked,
confirmed the
key findings
of our
press release
about
continuing
Rwandan
support for
the M23. These
findings are
accurate and
we fully stand
behind them."
In
front of the
UN Security
Council
Tuesday
morning, Inner
City
Press
asked Rwandan
Permanent
Representative
Eugene-Richard
Gasana about
HRW and he
laughed. There
were some
attempts to
defend HRW's
error
-- without any
reference to
them being
exposed in
December 2012
as
making
payments in
connection
with
"testimony"
about M23.
"They
should correct
the entire
report,"
Gasana said.
"They
have," one
media claimed,
falsely (see
above). Gasana
continued,
"They need it
for their
business,
Rwanda is
their
niche
market... They
need Rwanda to
have their
raison
d'etre." He
concluded that
HRW has "zero
credibility."
Again,
it is telling
that HRW, with
Human Rights
in its name,
issued a
report with
recommendations
to the UN that
did not even
mention the
UN's Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy and
Ladsous'
glaring
failure
to implement
it, from rape
to
desecration.
On that, the
credibility
meter of both
HRW and
Ladsous and
their
knee-jerk
defenders and
coterie is
running low.
Watch this
site.