Amid
Guinea Bissau
Threats, Togo
Dropped
Footnote,
Until
Portugal Off
UNSC?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 7 --
When in a
country
already on the
agenda of the
UN Security
Council
journalists
are openly
threatened
with death
after a failed
counter-coup
to what's been
called a
cocaine coup,
one
might expect
it to be in
the next
month's
Security
Council
Program of
Work.
But for Guinea
Bissau, that
has not been
the case.
On
October 30,
according to
Reporters
without
Borders, the
Guinea Bissau
army chief of
staff told the
press, "Any
journalist who
asks
questions
about former
President Nino
Vieira's
assassination
will not
leave this
barracks
alive. I will
kill him."
On
November 2,
Inner City
Press asked
Security
Council
president
Hardeep
Singh Puri why
Guinea Bissau
was not in the
Council's
just-released
program of
work for
November. He
said the
footnote had
been in until
last night,
when the
requester
agreed it
could come
out.
Inner
City Press has
since learned
that "the
requester" was
Togo,
on behalf of
the Western
African
grouping
ECOWAS.
Portugal
argued
that having
Guinea Bissau
listed on the
agenda and
having a
session might
not be
helpful, given
attempts
between the
Lusophone
grouping CPLP
and ECOWAS to
come to a
meeting of the
minds.
Others
wonder if
Guinea Bissau
is on ice
until Portugal
is off the
Security
Council on
December 31,
similar to the
way decisions
on the Somalia
mission AMISOM
were on
Wednesday put
off for four
months --
until
South Africa,
which was
fighting for a
maritime
component for
the
mission, is
off the
Council.
Even
though Guinea
Bissau
reversed its
position on a
European
journalist,
it reportedly
on Tuesday
arrested a
local radio
reporter. And
here is
UN envoy
Mutaboba on
all this?
Watch this
site.
, 
