At UN, Russia and Georgia Spar Again on Child
Rights, Genocide and Cover-Up Charged
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 16 -- Russia and Georgia,
which fought a war in August and pointedly did not
meet each other at
yesterday's planned meeting in Geneva, re-opened their war of words
on Thursday
night at the UN. At the end of a routine meeting of the General
Assembly's
Third Committee, on the protection of children, Russia's representative
took five
minutes to decry "the crimes of Georgia" in bombing South Ossetia on
August 8 "with the assistance of foreigners." The
allegation was made that Georgia's other
breakaway region, Abkhazia, was slated to face the same fate, which
Russia
called "genocide."
Georgia,
given its right of reply, said that the allegations were false and "we
ask
for an investigation." The chairman
then gave the floor back to the Russian representative, who read into
the
record stories about particular South Ossetian victims. A car was hit
by
Georgia tanks, it was recounted, and a mother was "catapulted out." A
14-year old was killed by snipers. An elder spent three nights in a
cellar
surrounded by dead bodies. "They
used knives on a pregnant woman, saying 'this child will fight against
us.'
Both died."
The Russian
representative concluded that there was more to say, but not in "this
lofty
sphere." The chairman, seeming
miffed, gaveled the meeting to a close.
Afterwards, the Georgian representative who had spoken in the session
emphasized to Inner City Press that the Russian had not responded to
her call
for an investigation.
![](verb1geneva.jpg)
Envoys on Georgia, UN 3rd Committee fireworks
not shown
Her colleague from
the Georgian mission added that Russia could say that anyone had been
killed,
even Inner City Press -- "but they have to prove it."
It seems
clear that the Russia - Georgia standoff will continue in all UN venues
and
elsewhere. On the aborted Geneva meeting of October 15, Inner City
Press on
October 16 asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson under what authority the UN
had
blocked the press from even covering the entrance and exit of officials
from
the meeting, held on UN premises. If the
UN just fully excluded the press in Geneva, might they not do it in New
York?
The spokesperson, as she had on October 15, promised to look into it.
We'll
see.
Note: Catch
this reporter on
Icelandic television, www.ruv.is
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs.
* * *
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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