At
UN As
Ban Ki-moon
Taps Eliasson,
G77
Complaints,
Maged
Auditions,
Africa
Excluded,
Khare to DFS?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 2 --
When UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
dropped
Asha-Rose
Migiro as his
deputy in
January and
Inner City
Press
reported it,
Ban's office
refused to
confirm it,
leaving that
to the
UN in Migiro's
native
Tanzania.
After
Ban
on March 2
named as
Migiro's
replacement
Jan Eliasson
of Sweden,
Inner City
Press was
pitched by
Nordic
diplomats to
"please
write
something
positive about
Eliasson."
Okay -- in his
time
as President
of the General
Assembly, he
mediated a few
conflicts
such as on
disability
rights, and
was more
active than
some of his
successors.
But
later
on March 2, a
number of
developing
work diplomats
approached
Inner City
Press with
outrage at the
appointment.
Not only on
what
Inner City
Press
immediately
reported --
that Ban was
dropping an
African for a
Nordic, after
having defied
the African
Group and
General
Assembly by
refusing to
name a full
time Special
Adviser on
Africa -- but
about what
Eliasson did
while PGA.
They
say
Eliasson was
central to an
attempt to
move UN reform
out of the
Fifth (Budget)
committee,
where
developing
countries have
relatively
more strength,
to the plenary
where better
staffed
developed
world
Permanent
Representatives
have the edge.
"Eliasson
can
call meetings,
sure," a
developing
world diplomat
told Inner
City Press,
"but who will
be invited?"
With
Argentina's
Susana
Malcorra --
more on her
anon -- moving
to Chief of
Staff to
replace Vijay
Nambiar of
India, and
"Ban's brain"
Kim Won-soo
being parked
in the Change
Management
position
previously
held by
India's Atul
Khare, Inner
City Press now
predicts based
on sourcing
that Khare
will be moved
to Malcorra's
spot atop the
Department of
Field Support.
Only at Ban's
UN: musical
chairs.
Meanwhile
to
belatedly fill
the Special
Adviser on
Africa post
Ban is
considering,
or
auditioning,
Mubarak era
Egyptian
Permanent
Representative
Maged
Abdelaziz, who
delivered a
defense of Ban
in the General
Assembly
Friday
afternoon.
Things go
lower every
day in Ban's
UN, where
Ban's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
won't even
allow
questions on
these topics.
Watch this
site.
, 
