At
UN,
Kuwait Denounced for Human Rights Council But Only 2 Contests
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 19 -- On the eve of the UN General Assembly vote for 15
seats on the UN Human Rights Council, Nicaragua proudly predicted it
would win, and human rights sources described to Inner City Press on
background
how and why Syria dropped out of the race.
They
said Syrian
Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari was urging Damascus to drop
the run, so he could focus on defending Syria in the Security
Council.
While calling
replacement Kuwait is “better,”
they would have preferred a Pacific Island country for the Asia
Group, pointing out that Switzerland had offered to help such small
nations cover costs to come to Geneva.
At
a lunch briefing
thrown by Geneva-based UN Watch, Republic of
Congo and Kuwait were denounced as “unqualified,” among with Nicaragua.
The recent
coverage by Inner City Press of
Nicargua's former foreign minister Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, blocked
from even speaking at the UN, was cited.
Other
predicted winners India, Indonesia, Burkina Faso and the Philippines
were called “questionable.”
Of
these, only
Nicaragua faces a contested election, vying against three other
countries for only three Latin American and Caribbean Group seats:
Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.
While UN
Watch and also the US have
denounced that so-called “clean slates” in which a Group presents
the same number of candidates as seats, that is the case with the
Western European and Others Group of which the US is a member:
Austria and Italy will be elected.
Inner
City Press
asked why WEOG has not practices what it preaches, and presented a
competition of some kind. Why this happened has yet to be explained.
UN's Ban & Kuwait minister, human rights not shown
The
other contested
election is in Eastern Europe, in which of Georgia, Romania and the
Czech Republic, one will have to lose. The Czechs recently held a
party at the Beer Garden in Astoria, and the Georgia's throw a party
on May 23 at a hotel in Midtown.
Romania, needing help from the
International Monetary Fund under now resigned Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, has perhaps been distracted. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN,
Syria
“Postponing its Candidacy” for HRC to 2014, No Dera'a Answers
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May
11 -- The Asian Group met Wednesday morning in the UN's
North Lawn building, with whether
Kuwait would replace Syria as its
candidate for the Human Rights Council on the agenda. The Press
watched through the wide windows of the ECOSOC Chamber as Syria and
Kuwait both spoke.
It's
done,
a
Deputy Permanent Representative exiting the Chamber told the Press.
All they have to do is gavel it.
But
before they
did, UN Security moved the press away from the windows, and then from
the Chamber as a whole.
When
finally
the
ambassadors emerged, Syria's Permanent Representative Bashar Ja'afari
put the best face on his stand-down. It's just a postponement of our
candidacy, he told the press.
Why?
To
focus on
other priorities, he said, not without irony.
Inner
City
Press
asked about Dera'a, and whether the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs will be allowed in to assess needs. But
Ja'afari did not answer. His Kuwaiti equivalent said they would take
the seat from 2011 to 2013, then Syria will run for 2014 to 2016.
We'll see.
, 
