On
DRC, Araud
Says France Is
Not a
"Snitch,"
Wants Deal
with Rwanda
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 17 --
As French
Ambassador
Gerard Araud
entered the
Security
Council
meeting his
government
called on
Saturday not
on
Gaza but in
support of a
push back
against the
M23 mutineers
by the
DR Congo army
assisted by UN
"Peacekeeping,"
he said a
solution
requires an
agreement
between the
DRC and
Rwanda.
"We
are not
snitches," he
claimed, but
in the "real
world"
there is "no
solution
without an
agreement
between the
DRC and
its neighbors
including
Rwanda."
Rwanda
was elected in
October to
take over a
Security
Council seat
on
January 1.
Under the
Council's
precedents, it
should be able
to
attend closed
door
consultations
from today
onward. Inner
City Press
witnessed a
Rwandan
diplomat
entering the
Council just
before 3 pm.
Outside
there
were many
questions why
the meeting
was not about
Gaza.
Morocco's
Ambassador
Loulichki
confirmed what
Palestine's
Mansour
told Inner
City Press
late Friday,
that there
would be a
meeting of
Arab
Ambassadors.
It will be at
4 pm, and
Loulichki said
if the Arab
League foreign
minister want
an urgent
Security
Council
meeting, he
will ask for
it.
It
seems clear
that the
majority of
Security
Council and
certainly
General
Assembly
members would
like a
statement
urging Israel
to
stop, just as
a draft French
statement
would tell the
M23 mutineers
to stop in the
DRC.
A cynic or
tactician
might say,
link the two
together: a
DRC statement
as well as a
Gaza
statement.
Could be, but
very probably
won't. Watch
this site.
, 
