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As UN's Obasanjo's Accused of Bias, UK's Milliband
Due in NY for Zim, Blair Won't Talk Until February
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 10 -- As the UN's
attempted mediation in Nairobi of the troubles in the Congo hit, by all
accounts, a brick wall, in New York Rwanda's mission was demanding a
copy of a
UN report which accuses them of financially supporting the rebels of
Laurent
Nkunda. That this report, prepared by UN
experts and circulated to the Security Council's DRC Sanctions
Committee, was unavailable
to the country concerned while being available full-text to a British
news
organization was a cause of African outrage Wednesday night. Rwanda, a
country
abandoned by the UN while hundreds of thousands were being killed, is
now left
out of the loop of UN reports, while the UN sidles up to the Congolese
government because it is welcome and has invested there.
The talks
have broken down, Nkunda's spokesman says, because Ban Ki-moon's chosen
envoy,
former Nigerian general and president Olusegun Obasanjo, is not
objective. In
interviews in Nairobi, Obasanjo has admitted the stand-off. But the
statement
issued in his name by the UN in New York is decided more upbeat.
Inner City
Press has exclusively reported on Obasanjo's seeming conflict, accused
as he is
of a side-deal with China for a $8 billion railroad in Nigeria, just as
Congo's
president Joseph Kabila made a side $9 billion deal for the resources
of
Katanga. Could this explain the bias the
CNDP sees? Who vetted Obasanjo as mediator? A senior UN official has
admitted
to Inner City Press that no review was done, since Obasanjo was so high
profile. Only after the fact has even the UN asked the question. But
perhaps it
is too late.
UN's Ban and Tony Blair, "I won't speak until February," come what may
Footnote: At a
reception Wednesday night at the
Indonesian mission, talk turned to the Security Council's agenda for
next week.
Somalia pirates, led by Condi Rice; a discussion of Zimbabwe, featuring
the
UK's Milliband. Inner City Press on Wednesday asked Ban Ki-moon's
spokesperson
Michele Montas to confirm what the UK's Gordon Brown said about his
conversation with Ban -- namely, that Zimbabwe will be discussed next
week.
Video here.
The
UK mission confirms Milliband's attendance, not at the Mideast
Quarter of which the UK is not a player, but for a Zimbabwe meeting.
Tony
Blair, who sits on the Quartet, has reportedly rebuffed briefing the
Security
Council until, at earlier, February. More and more people ask, who is
signing
his UN checks? Would JPMorgan Chase, another of his employers, put up
with such
delays?
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
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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