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At UN, India's Sen Slated for UN's Responsibility to Protect
Post, Diplomats Say, "Demeaning," Wondering, For or Against R2P?
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, April 3, updated April 6
-- The
diplomatic corps at the UN in New York was abuzz Friday with word that
the UN seeks to appoint Nirupam Sen, the outgoing Ambassador of
India, as
a Senior Special Advisor on three issues, including the so-called
"Responsibility
to Protect" or R2P. As one African ambassador told
Inner City Press, Sen was opposed the the UN's R2P proposals when they
were
made. "This demeans the value of Ambassadors," the African diplomat
said. But his comments were apparently based on the misapprehension
that the appointment was by Ban Ki-moon, to be a proponent of
R2P. In fact, the quiet appointment was by the President of the General
Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, seemingly to raise questions about
R2P.
The other two issues, he said, are the global
financial crisis and the
revitalization of the General Assembly. Sen was highly critical of
Ban's plan
for Nepal, in an open session of the Security Council. Might this explain in part d'Escoto's
willingness to hire him on so quickly?
India's Sen as Ambassador, R2P not shown
Or, as another Ambassador made a point of
saying to
Inner City Press, if
Responsibility to Protect has any meaning, it must apply in northern
Sri Lanka.
And who is more responsible to apply it than India?
Another instant
adviser, UNDP's previous Administrator Kemal Dervis, was given a post
by Ban Ki-moon in the run-up to the three day G-20 meeting, without the
UN announcing
it until Inner City Press asked at a noon briefing about it. Click here
for that story.
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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