On
Children &
Conflict Four
Abstentions,
Colombian
Diss, Indian
Explanation, Zerrougui
Reply
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 19,
updated
-- Children
and Armed
Conflict votes
in the UN
Security
Council have
been
unanimous,
until today.
Before a
daylong debate
on the topic,
there were no
fewer than
four
abstentions:
China, Russia,
Pakistan and
Azerbaijan.
Colombia,
which voted
for the
resolution,
complained
about it
afterward.
India, which
has in the
past expressed
the same
concerns,
voted for the
resolution but
did not
deliver an
explanation of
vote.
Later, Inner
City Press
came to
understand
that while
India would
have drafted
the resolution
differently,
they did not
see the nexus
between the
resolution and
being listed
in the same
way that
Pakistan did.
In his speech,
India's Deputy
Permanent
Representative
After
Wednesday's
vote, a
proponent of
the resolution
and mandate
told Inner
City Press,
this is the
opponents'
high water
mark, in
December India
and Colombia
leave the
Council.
Still, the
proponent
said, the new
SRSG will have
to be careful
with anything
put before the
Council.
"Maybe that's
good for us,"
the proponent
said. Maybe it
is.
Yesterday
after speaking
with three of
the abstainers,
Inner City
Press
predicted the
three, and as
many as five,
abstentions.
However, the
initial
explanations
of vote did not
include the
March 2012
shooting -- by
the U.S. -- in
Afghanistan in
which of 16
killed, nine
were children,
nor the
complaint that
the Special
Representative
of the
Secretary
General on
Children and
Armed
Conflict,
Radhika
Coomaraswamy,
did not speak
out against
it.
This may come
up in the
Council
member's
speech during
the debate,
Inner City
Press is
informed.
Watch this
site.
Again
NGOS have
sounded the
alarm that for
the first time
the eight
years of the
mandate, the
resolution was
not unanimous.
They might
also want to
consider the
push back from
last week when
Gerard Araud
of France said
in closed
consultations
that he is
proud to be
able to
denigrate
religion, as
quoted by
several of the
opponents. Click
here for
more on that.
Update
of 12:50 pm
-- when
Pakistan's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
spoke, he
criticized the
former SRSG
for turning a
"blind eye" to
the killing of
children in
"real
situations of
armed
conflict," and
for making
respectable
"terrorists
and
criminals."
How will the
new SRSG read
this?
Update
of
6:45 pm
- Inner City
Press asked
new SRSG Leila
Zerrougui
about
the four
abstentions.
She replied,
"every country
explained why,
you have the
reason. We
will see how
we can
interact with
governments
to bring the
consensus
again. It is
important
Council work
united --
important
because you
have a
resolution, as
a signal that
you send to
perpetrators
and victims
that the whole
international
community and
this body is
united to say,
no violations
against
children."
Of
course, there
remains the
issue of who
has an armed
conflict and
who
doesn't. Watch
this site.
, 
