TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE #30: CONGO MISSION END REPORT, CHAPTER 3

March, 2010:  There were many rumors regarding Kevin’s successor, but most of us were surprised to see the late Olamide Adedeji become Acting Director in early 2010. Former HO in Bunia, Ms. Adedeji was a charming and very literate woman who told us she had been asked by Mr. Doss to run PID until a new director could be found. She freely admitted she had no background in communications, and would be reliant upon us as communications professionals. As weeks became months, this proved to be a very  difficult arrangement as Ms. Adedeji in reality had the Spokesperson, Madnodgje Mounoubai  giving us orders. When he began to attack MONUC REALITES in meetings, I objected, pointing out he was the same rank as I was, and was certainly not my supervisor.

We did do a special for The 50 th Anniversary of DRC Independence titled L’ONU ET LA RDC – 50 ANS DE PARTENARIAT, intended to introduce MONUSCO and the Country Team to the Congolese, and produced versions in 5 local languages, True to her word, Olamide let us in Video carry on the work we had started with Kevin Kennedy, but the stress of the job combined with her own poor health proved catastrophic. Olamide suddenly passed away in August of 2010, leaving behind an understandably traumatized but also a very divided PID.  I shall elaborate in a further section.

September, 2010- October, 2010: Deputy Director Madnodge Mounoubai, the Spokesperson, became OIC, and immediately asserted his authority, shouting down anyone who refused to toe the line in PID Meetings., such as when I  dared to ask if we might discuss PID strategy. Instead, he gave us a mysterious document written by an unknown Anglophone which presented a reactive, damage control approach completely at odds with the approach advocated by SRSG Roger Meece in his first meeting with us.  At that time, I seriously considered resigning. Life is too short to work with abusive idiots. However, a new director suddenly materialized.

 November, 2010 – 24 December, 2011 : When George Ola-Davies became Director PID in November of 2010, he met with Video Unit and made us many promises, saying, “ Give me 6 months!” and we gave him our full support. Unfortunately, by the time of his departure on Christmas Eve, 2011, he had broken most of them.

During his tenure, we had no communications strategy, no work plan, no editorial meetings, no internal communications, no transparency, and no respect for chain of command or previously established SOP. As journalist Fawaz Gerges said of Moammar Qaddaf:“ He destroyed all state institutions and replaced them with a cult of personality.” The same might be said of Mr. Ola-Davies, who signed his internal emails  “god” and who seemed to have such faith in his supreme judgement and ability that he never had to listen to mere mortal professionals like the rest of us.

 The ensuing chaos created a division run on his whim, and when he did not get his way, he turned mean and personal.  One of the casualties was our flagship MONUSCO REALITES, which died when Mr. Ola-Davies’ friends in Budget suddenly decided we could not hire freelance Congolese talent as reporters,. Over two years, we had done over 100 episodes, Now, suddenly without support for reporters, as well as without support for travel to cover MONUSCO activities on the frontlines, we were forced to create a new program on short notice. The result, ONU NEWS, was a glossy, Fox News- style program featuring our excellent cadre of presenters from Radio Okapi covering more or less the same VIP soundbites we had been covering with LA SEMAINE EN BREF.  In short, the same tired old steak with a new sauce.

The big event during this period was the disastrous Presidential election, described by a WASHINGTON POST editorial page as a “ political failure.’ PID’s contribution to these elections was to provide unconditional support to the CENI, a position I found both ethically dubious, and aesthetically appalling.

Rather than trying to set a positive example with quality product, Video Unit was ordered to serve as a production entity for scripts written entirely by the CENI without any input by us- with predictably lamentable results. However, Mr. Ola-Davies reign was inexplicably cut short in the weeks after the elections, and he mysteriously vanished on 24 December, 2011.

24 December, 2011- 21 January,2012 : As senior professional at the time of Mr. Ola-Davies’ exit, I was appointed OIC by COS Ola Almgren . The post electoral period proved particularly sensitive, as many Congolese accused us of helping the government run what had been an obviously rigged election. The challenge was  to explain that, while  nearly all international observer agreed that the elections had not been credible our mandate explicitly limited our role to one of logistical support .

The Congolese Governement  did us no favors by suggesting  that MONUSCO had actively participated in every aspect of the elections, thereby giivng them some credibility. Under these conditions, I arranged for a Radio Okapi interview with DSRSG Leila Zerrougui to explain the MONUSCO Mandate as it pertained to the elections, and Madame Zerrougui was superb, clearly explaining what our job was, and what it was not. I then had the interview translated into all the national languages and distributed around the country by our Outreach Unit.  Madame Zerrougui was well aware that we did not want to be in the position of defending the elections themselves, thereby defending the indefensible., which would have made matters even worse,All we could do was hope that the moment would pass, and that public attention would return to the bulwark of our mandate, which was Protection of Civilians.  As my tenure as OIC /PID was coming to an end, we were expecting the arrival of yet another new Director PID.