On DRC
Journalist
Jailed, UN
Slowed by
Anti-Press
Reactions,
Silent on Sri
Lanka
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 16 –
When the
Congolese
government,
the UN's
partner, locked
up journalist
Joachim Diana
Gikupa,
what did the
UN
say? Nothing.
The
UN is
hamstrung not
only by the
degree to
which it
partners with
the
government of
Joseph Kabila,
to the point
of now
allowing at
least a
rape
“grace period”
for Kabila's
FARDC soldiers
who committed
at
least 126
rapes in
Minova in
November. (Click
here for that
story.)
In
the media
sphere, the
UN's MONUSCO
mission on
January 30
issued a
press release
denouncing
the
publication by
Inner City
Press of a
leaked MONUSCO
document
reflecting
knowledge of
FARDC support
for the
FDLR militia.
MONUSCO,
then
as now, does
not even have
an e-mail
address on its
“Contact
Us” page. At
the UN
in New York,
Inner City
Press asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokespeople
to confirm or
deny the
authenticity
of the MONUSCO
leaks.
But Ban's
deputy
spokesman
Eduardo
Del Buey said
that the UN
won't comment
in any way on
leaked
documents.
It
seems more
than a little
strange for
the UN to
refuse to
provide any
comment or
guidance on
detailed
documents head
“MONUSCO,”
then to
publicly
denounce their
publication.
The goal seems
to be to make
publication of
leaks
impossible, or
automatically
condemnable.
And
now, what
position is
MONUSCO in to
meaningfully
speak out
about its
Congolese
government
partner's
arrest of a
journalist for
a story
they didn't
like? Birds of
a feather.
Footnote:
The
Committee to
Protect
Journalists,
to its credit,
further
amplified the
protests of local DRC media and
press freedom
groups.
But in a UN
press
conference
last week, CPJ's
Rob Mahoney
declined to
answer
Inner City
Press'
question about
the UN's
accreditation
rules
barring
journalists
based on
geography and
“principles,”
calling
these
“in house”
matters.
Asked
about Sri
Lanka, Mahoney
answered about
the
disappeared
cartoon
Prageeth, but
not on the
more recently
death threats
Inner City
Press
asked about.
He noted that
CPJ's Asia
expert Bob
Dietz was sick
and
therefore not
present at the
UN.
Now
with Sunday
Leader
reporter Faraz
Shauketaly
shot in
Colombo, the
threats there
are more
serious. Will
CPJ not only
issue a
statement
but look
beyond and
into its
corporate
media partners
and
acknowledge
that the UN's
silence in Sri
Lanka, back to
2009, and inside
(“in
house”) the UN
in 2012,
plays some
role in and is
related to
this
climate? Watch
this site.
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