As
Sudan
Summarizes
Bashir Meeting
with Ban, UN
Says It Was
Only a
Handshake
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 30 --
Of UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's time
in
Iran for the
Non-Aligned
Movement
summit, the UN
has provided
descriptions
of a range of
meetings, with
leaders
ranging from
Burkina Faso
to Mali,
Palestine to
Iran, even
North Korea's
Kim Yong
Nam.
But
no mention was
made by the UN
of Sudan's
president Omar
al Bashir.
Inner City
Press went to
the UN's
August 30 noon
briefing in
New York
and asked if
Ban had met
with Bashir,
and what had
been
discussed. Video
here, from
Minute 8:43.
Ban's
associate
spokesman
Farhan Haq
replied that
there had
merely been a
hand shake,
not a meeting.
"There was no
meeting per
se, no," Haq
said, just "a
brief greeting
and handshake
between the
Secretary
General and
President
Bashir."
But
Sudanese
Foreign
Minister Ali
Karti provided
this read out
to his own
state media:
Bashir's
meeting with
Ban "discussed
ways to
implement U.N.
resolution
2046, the
continued
violations by
South
Sudan and the
controversy
that has
arisen about
the new map
issued by
the African
mediator to
operationalize
a
demilitarized
zone between
the two
countries."
Hard
to discuss all
that during a
handshake.
Inner City
Press asked
Haq,
is this read
out false? But
Haq would only
say, it was
not a meeting,
only a
handshake.
Bashir
has been
indicted for
genocide by
the
International
Criminal
Court. Ban
routinely
calls for
"accountability,"
but here had
this
encounter with
a person
already
indicted for
genocide and
war crimes.
The
UN has a
policy of only
meeting "as
necessary."
There are
many questions
about the
policy -- the
UN
flew indicted
Ahmad Harun
to Abyei,
and now
departed
Darfur mission
chief Ibrahim
Gambari took
photos with
Bashir at a
reception for
the wedding of
Chad's Idriss
Deby and the
daughter of
the founder of
the Darfur
janjawiid
militia.
In
connection
with the
General
Assembly's
most recent
resolution on
the ICC,
there was much
discussion of
no UN money
being spent on
such contacts
with ICC
indictees.
View:
If
the UN's
policy is to
be credible,
it should be
applied
publicly to
the encounters
the UN has
with ICC
indictees,
especially
when the
encounter is
by the
Secretary
General
himself. We
will have more
on this -
watch this
site.
, 
