On UN, Congo Says All or Nothing, Silence on MSF "Bait" Accusation, New P-5ers

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 9 -- While the UN Mission in the Congo will stop assisting some units of Congo's 213th Brigade because they killed 62 civilians, according to top UN Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy, evidence mounts of far more extensive murder by other brigades and units of the Congolese army.

In this context, Inner City Press on November 5 asked the DRC's Ambassador to the UN Atoki Ileka what he thought of Le Roy's announcement. Ambassador Ikeka turned the question around, asking "how can you work with only parts of an army?"

Inner City Press noted to him that this was similar to Human Rights Watch's position, that MONUC should stop working with the Congolese Army as a whole, at least as regards the Kimia II operation. Yes, Ambassador Ileka said, on that we have the same position. Only at the UN.

Unprompted, standing outside the UN General Assembly after the debate and vote on the Goldstone report on Gaza, Ambassador Ileka told Inner City Press, Alan Doss, he has his own problems, I'm not going to add to them.

At the November 6 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked

Inner City Press: Medecins sans frontieres has said in great detail that a vaccination campaign they conducted in October in FDLR-control areas of [the Democratic Republic of] the Congo was used as “bait” -- that is the word they used. So that FARDC [the Congolese Armed Forces] attacked the vaccination sites, killed some civilians and sent others into the bush. It’s such a graphic allegation on their part, I’m wondering what is MONUC -- is this a unit MONUC works with? Does MONUC deny that it happened? What’s MONUC going to do about that?

Spokesperson Michele Montas: I’m going to get more information -- in fact, we are going to have someone from [MONUC] coming to brief you on the Congo shortly. Mr. Ross Mountain [Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo] is supposed to come next week and he will be briefing you on the Congo, so I would suggest that you ask him the questions.

Ross Mountain will immanently leave the MONUC mission, and more and more people say Alan Doss should. Is there accountability in the UN system?

In DRC, Obasanjo arrives, FARDC civilian abuse not shown

On November 9, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo strode into the Security Council with an entourage, to brief about the Great Lakes region: how many trip to how many heads of state. Some mused that one of his last times at the UN, he was questioned about his role in now controversial Chinese infrastructure deals in Nigeria, if that gave him a conflict in deal with Congo's similar -- although now somewhat shrunken -- deal. Didn't he get mad? a correspondent asked Inner City Press, the poser of the Chinese dealing question. He should have seen it coming. And this time? Watch this site.

Council footnotes, or bookends: The grandly named new UK Permanent Representative, Ambassador Mark Lyall "No Hyphen" Grant, is said to have arrived in New York "at the weekend." He will get accredited, some face time with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and then assume his position in the Council. There are some hoping he's adopt a less exclusive approach, at least to the media, than those before him.

France's Gerard Araud, who's said in French-only briefings to rebuff questions about poverty and spending, for example Sarkozy's on his EU Presidency stint, is still settling in. And so Russia, with the longest serving Ambassador, and China, which reportedly blocked consensus on the most recent Sudan sanctions report, will some say have the P-5 upper hand for a while. We'll see.