At UN,
E. Congo Envoy
Search Passes
Through
Buyoya, of ICC
& Slim
Pickings
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
4 -- Amid
expanding
fighting in
Eastern Congo,
talk at the UN
in New York on
Monday morning
turned to the
identity of
the Special
Envoy that
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon is
slated to
name.
With
the idea that
the person
should both be
high profile
and speak
French, focus
turned to
former heads
of state from
Francophone
Africa. As one
wag joked,
there aren't
many of them.
A name
pushed or
floated from a
non
Francophone
African
position is
that of Pierre
Buyoya, former
Burundian
president and,
some point
out, coup
leader in
1987. But, the
argument goes,
who else? And
why couldn't
he handle
what's left of
Mali and the
Eastern Congo
at the same
time?
Another
wag
joked that
there is
another
Francophone
former head of
state who is
unemployed:
Laurent
Gbagbo. OK,
he's in the
Hague. But
it's said in
Kenya that a
country could
be run from
there in a
pinch. So why
not a
mediation?
Meanwhile
the
ACPLS militia
is said to be
in control of
Kitchanga.
Where did the
Congolese Army
run to this
time? And who
was it,
really, who
shelled the
hospital?
Watch this
site.
, 
