Before
Kenya ICC
meeting,
France &
UK Locked Out
of P5 Room, AU
Arguments
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 30 --
The evening
before the UN
Security
Council's
interactive
dialogue on
the African
Union's
request that
the Council
defer the
Kenya cases of
the
International
Criminal
Court, two
groups
huddled in
rooms next to
each other,
planning the
morrow's
action.
French
and UK
Permanent
Representatives
Araud and
Lyall Grant
arrived, but
were unable to
get into their
P5 clubhouse,
along with US
Ambassador
Jeff de
Laurentis and
representatives
of Australia,
Luxembourg,
Guatemala.
Inner City
Press photos
here, here
and here.
Some joked
this was a
form of Security
Council
reform, at
least of Working
Methods, of a
kind unlikely
to be seen for
while.
Finally
UN
Security was
summoned -
nothing had
been scheduled
- and they
were
let in.
Next
door in the
Security
Council's
suite
ministers from
Ethiopia,
Uganda
and elsewhere
waited.
Several came
out and spoke
exclusively
with
Inner City
Press. Not to
defer, they
said, would
threaten peace
and
security.
Kenyan troops
in in Somalia.
There was the
mall attack.
One
said it would
be "like
putting Bush
and Cheney in
front of the
ICC right
after 9/11."
Some might not
have minded
that - but it
would never
happen. The US
is not a
member of the
Rome Statute
of the
ICC, and the
US has a veto
on the
Security
Council.
How
can the West
say no? Watch
this site.
, 
