As UN Enables Rapists in Congo, Supports Guinea's Dictator, Ban Preaches Without Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 24 -- Speaking about rape on November 24, the UN and its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on governments and particularly men to stop condoning violence against women.

There's a major problem, though: the UN's own peacekeeping Mission in the Congo, MONUC, continues to work with army units which have been accused of mass rape by the UN's own human rights experts. The UN's own Department of Political Affairs has advised keeping in power Guinean dictator Moussa Dadis Camera, even after public rapes by his troops in September 2009.

When Mr. Ban held a forty minute press conference on Tuesday -- with the questions explicitly limited to the topic of violence against women -- one would have expected the controversy about the UN's engagement with Congolese army units accused of rape to be asked about, and Mr. Ban to give an answer.

Before the press conference began, a staff remember from the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General asked for the names of journalists who wanted to ask questions. Inner City Press went up and put itself on the list, the third name on the list.

But during the question and answer session, Ban's outgoing Spokesperson Michele Montas skipped over Inner City Press on the list, took four other non-UN questions ranging from Lebanon to Iran and finally a softball question about why donors don't give the UN more money for this issue. Could it be a lack of credibility?

UN's Ban and outgoing Montas, on MONUC and rape, no questions

Waiting in the hall outside the briefing room were Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar and his counterpart for Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose Migiro. Apparently, the Ban administration thinks it is well served by openly seeking to exclude questions about its and the UN's own performance. And it is not yet clear things will improve.

On November 23, Ms. Montas successor Martin Nesirky came to the briefing room to make a statement downplaying his Korean language skills and their role in his selection, and then refused to take any questions, including afterwards by e-mail (while responding to other journalists' more supportive e-mails).

To Mr. Nesirky Inner City Press has opined, in writing, that if you are going to come make a statement in the UN briefing room, you should be prepared to answer questions on it. Likewise, if the UN is going to preach about not condoning violence against women, it should answer questions such as this one, which Ms. Montas jumped out of the order on her Office's own list not to take:

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston issued a report that, for example, a unit of the Congolese Army under Colonel Zimulinda abducted and raped more than a dozen refugees. The DRC government said Zimulinda's unit will continue in the Kimia II operation, and MONUC under Alan Doss has yet to stop assisting Zimulinda's unit. (The Alain Le Roy announced did not concern this unit). In Guinea, Inner City Press understands that the UN Department of Political Affairs is advising that Moussa Dadis Camera remain in power, at least for now, despite the very public rapes committed by his troops. What can the UN do to make sure it does not continue to enable rogue army units named as abusing woman by the UN's own Special Rapporteurs?

Will the UN ever answer this? Watch this space.

Footnotes: in fairness, we note that Mr. Ban himself once made a point of taking a question from Inner City Press, about Afghan election related security, even as Ms. Montas sought to exclude the question. Emphasis on: once.

On the issue of sexual violence and courts, we highly recommend Jina Moore's recent writing about such courts in Liberia, on problems of evidence collection and due process. On the flip side, it is widely acknowledged that the UN staffer in Liberia who recently died or committed suicide had long been involved in video taping sex acts with minors. The UN appears to have covered it up. Watch this site.