At
UN on
Tunisia, Pillay Considers Visit But Ban Does Not, Double Standard
Alleged
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January
17 -- While in Tunisia Ben Ali's foreign minister
Kamel Morjane, who served for years as deputy to the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, still remains in his post, in New York on
Monday
Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman
Martin Nesirky if there is any discussion of sending a UN team to
Tunis.
“Not to my
knowledge,” Mr. Nesirky said. Video here,
from Minute 19:48.
Sources
tell
Inner
City Press that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights contacted Ban Ki-moon's office to say that it is
considering sending a mission to Tunisia and wanted to know if Ban's
Secretariat is also making such plans, in order to coordinate.
Ban's
Office
according
to sources within it subsequently answered no, no plans for
a mission to Tunisia.
The
sources describe a background memo to Ban about Tunisia, urging that he
support efforts to override a two month Constitutional period to form a
new government, granting six months so that "Communists and Islamists"
don't have an advantage over "moderate forces."
At
Monday's noon
briefing Nesirky was asked why Ban has been so weak in his response
to Tunisia. While Nesirky contested this, some compare the response
to that in Cote d'Ivoire, where Ban urged the UN General Assembly's
credentials committee to remove recognition for Laurent Gbagbo's UN
ambassador.
Inner
City
Press
asked President of the General Assembly Joseph Deiss if any similar
move is afoot in the GA's credentials committee regarding Tunisia.
“Not so far,” Deiss answered, explaining that the Ambassador
appointed under Ben Ali had yet to be contested. Video here,
from
Minute 19:57.
UN's Ban & Mohamed Ghannouchi, still Prime
Minister of Tunisia
Last
month
Inner
City Press questioned Tunisia's Ambassador in press conference at the
UN after he bragged about human solidarity and banking in his
country. Inner City Press asked about the youth conference Tunisia
had said that it would hold. The Ambassador blamed other states for
not coming through on financial pledges.
In
New York over
the weekend, while there was rally in Union Square, Tunisia's elegant
Mission just north of the UN was not targeted. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
on
France's Cote d'Ivoire Resolution, Russia Objects on Sanctions,
China "Flexible;" Kabila's DRC Change
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
January
14
-- The UN Security Council was slated to vote on
January 14 on a peacekeeping resolution about Cote d'Ivoire. But the
vote has been delayed, until January 18. Why?
Inner
City
Press
is
told by Council sources that “the Westerners” -- drafter
France and the United States -- loaded the resolution up with “too
much politics,” getting back into the same issues which caused a
long delay in issuing a mere press statement about Cote d'Ivoire.
And
so, with the
clock ticking, on the January 14 day scheduled for voting France
circulated another version of the resolution, with “some of the
politics” removed, aiming to have this voted on January 18.
After a
Council experts meeting broke up at 5 pm on January 14, sources told
Inner City Press that the remaining problem is a paragraph about
sanctions that Russia is objecting to. "China is being more flexible,"
one said.
Meanwhile,
beyond
Angola's
President
coming out in favor of Gbagbo, there are rumblings
of other changes. A Congolese UN staffer approached Inner City Press
on Friday morning to ask that Ban Ki-moon be asked what he thinks of
Joseph Kabila's move to change his country's Constitution to avoid
the type of run off that allowed the UN in Cote d'Ivoire to reach out
and certify a winner.
UN's Ban: why rely on Gbagbo if UN certified as illegitimate?
All
told the UN's
handling of Cote d'Ivoire makes it less likely, many diplomats say,
that the UN will be invited in for any substantive role in their
elections. Merely logistical, one African Permanent Representative
told Inner City Press. “The UN should move the ballots around and
pay for things, but say nothing.” We'll see.
* * *
In
Cote
D'Ivoire,
as
UN
Retreats
from Gbagbo Turf, Talks Tough in NY
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January
11
--
While
at the UN in New York the new Ambassador
of Alassane Ouattara says the UN is ready
to “be firm” to remove
Laurent Gbagbo from power, in Abidjan the UN peacekeepers drove
away
from a crowd of Gbagbo supporters, leaving behind four civilian UN
employees who were then disappeared.
Inner
City
Press
asked
UN
spokesman
Martin Nesirky on January 11 about an incident the
previous day, in which the UN “withdrew” from a neighborhood with
Gbagbo supporters in it. What are the UN's rules of engagement? How
can the it protect civilians if it retreats in this way?
From
the
UN's
transcript:
Inner
City
Press:
In
Côte
d’Ivoire,
there’s this report of the
peacekeepers retreating, as some headlines put it, or turning around,
leaving a neighborhood described as being under Gbagbo’s loyalist
security concerns. Can you say, is that true, and what are the terms
of engagement, and are they going to return to this area? Or is that
an area they’re no longer policing or able to protect people in?
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky:
Well,
generally,
obviously
the Mission has a mandate
to protect civilians, and has been regularly patrolling. It also has
to exercise discretion where necessary. I can tell you that,
referring to an incident or an instance on 10 January — in other
words, yesterday — this was a logistics convoy from the Mission
that comprised four civilian trucks, and it was stopped at the
checkpoint near the American embassy on its way to re-supply the Golf
Hotel in Abidjan. And then a few minutes later, three vehicles with
some 20 defense and security force, FDS [Defence and Security Forces]
elements, arrived at the location. And then a crowd of several
hundred, which included five additional vehicles with 50 people from
the FDS, the police and the gendarmerie, and then four civilians who
were part of this convoy were taken into custody. And then, in the
meantime, the crowd started looting the items from the vehicles. The
peacekeepers, the UNOCI elements, left to bring reinforcements, and
when they returned the three civilian trucks and the four drivers
were missing.
Choi Young-jin with peacekeepers, retreat &
legislative elections not shown
And
UNOCI
is,
as
I’ve been informed, is in direct
contact with the FDS leadership to ascertain their whereabouts and
the mission is investigating the incident and is also putting in
place measures to try to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring
in the future.
Inner
City
Press:
They
said
13
trucks, that seems to add up, it sounds like
[inaudible] the incident that’s being --
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well,
I’m
telling
you
– this is from the Mission. Okay?
No,
it's NOT okay.
Watch this site.
Click
here
for an Inner City Press YouTube channel 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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
earlier
Inner
City
Press
are
listed
here,
and
some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08
Inner
City
Press,
Inc.
To
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