At
UN Roed-Larsen
No Comment on
Bahrain, Rajab
& Kawaja,
Even
Shab'a Farms
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 8 -- After
a closed door
briefing to
the Security
Council about
Lebanon, heavy
on Syria, part
time UN envoy
Terje
Roed-Larsen
said he would
answer
questions from
the Press.
But
when Inner
City Press
asked
Roed-Larsen
about Bahrain,
which he has
visited
accompanied by
his UN paid
staffer,
and that
Kingdom's
arrest of
Abdulhadi Al
Kawaja and now
Nabeel Rajab,
Roed-Larsen
refused to
comment.
This
seemed
strange, since
Roed-Larsen
had just
quoted himself
about the
winds of
change in the
entire region,
and what he
called the
"death of
dance."
Even
directly on
Lebanon,
Roed-Larsen
insisted that
the Security
Council is no
longer
seize of the
matter of
Shab'a Farms
and would not
explain
paragraph
16 of his own
Resolution
1559 report,
about
restrictions
on the
freedom of
movement of
the UNIFIL
peacekeepers.
What
kind of UN
official is
this, who
won't
elaborate on
restrictions
on the UN's
own
operating arm,
and has
nothing to say
about the
arrest by a
monarchy
of human
rights
advocates and
bloggers?
Roed-Larsen,
like
a few other
"UN" officials
like Alexander
Downer on
Cyprus and
Tony Blair on
the Quartet,
does not work
full time for
the
UN.
While this
situation
cries out --
like the hot
wind that
Roed-Larsen
referred to
and channeled
-- for public
financial
disclosure of
the type that
Ban Ki-moon
claims to have
implement, no
such
disclosure is
available for
Roed-Larsen.
Roed-Larsen
made
a point of
calling Ban
Ki-moon, who
permits all
this, a
"principled
man." (He also
uses his
position of
moderator at
the
International
Peace
Institute,
which he
heads, to make
pronouncements
about what
"the whole
international
community"
believes.)
Refusing to
comment on the
Bahraini
monarchy's
treatment
of political
prisoners,
Roed-Larsen
told Inner
City Press to
put
this question
to Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson.
While
Roed-Larsen
refused to
answer these
questions,
other sources
say that in
the meeting,
it was again
proposed to
have a single
report, under
Resolution
1701,
Roed-Larsen
said no, he
wants to keep
coming to the
Security
Council on his
own every six
months.
Among
other things,
this
increasingly
indefensible
and wasteful
role is what
allows
Roed-Larsen to
take UN paid
staff to
Bahrain, have
it be reported
as a
celebratory
trip by a UN
official, and
then refuse to
comment on it
or make
disclosures.
Watch this
site.
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