In
Rapporteur
Rundown, No
Sudan Traction
with Ruteere,
Belarus on
Assange
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 5 --
The ritual
reporting of
the UN Special
Rapporteurs on
human rights
was another
casualty of
Super Storm
Sandy.
On
Friday,
November 2 a
slew of
reports were
read out for
rapporteurs
who had to
leave. Monday
there was a
so-called
interactive
dialogue,
and then a
press
briefing, by
the Special
Rapporteur on
contemporary
forms of
racism, racial
discrimination,
xenophobia and
related
intolerance,
Mr. Mutuma
Ruteere.
It's
a long title.
Inner City
Press asked
him about a letter
addressed to
him and other
Rapporteurs in
January 2012
about the
plight of the
Ngok Dinka in
Abyei and
elsewhere in
Sudan.
Mutuma
Ruteere
indicated he
didn't
remember that
letter, he
gets a lot of
them. He said
that Sudan had
told him he
could visit,
but he hadn't
yet chosen a
date. One
wonders: why
not?
In
South Sudan,
too, there are
issues, for
example
between the
Murle and
Lou Nuer. Then
there's the
situation of
both Sudanese
and South
Sudanese
facing
deportation
from Israel.
What's Mutuma
Ruteere doing?
Since
he HAS issued
statements
about the
Roma, called
gypsies by
some,
Inner City
Press asked
Mutuma Ruteere
how European
countries are
doing, and of
the European
Union getting
the Nobel
Peace Prize.
He
laughed and
said he would
not address
the prize, but
that he found
European
countries very
open about the
Roma. Open?
Inner
City Press
covered other
Rapporteurs,for
example Heyns
(and Emmerson),
Ojea,
and on IDPs.
Of
some of the
other
mandates,
there are
questions.
Beyond those
above, from
another
position
inside the
Third
Committee on
Monday the
last
statement on
the agenda
item was by
Belarus,
trashing
Rapporteur
Frank La Rue
for not
looking into
threats
against Julian
Assange of
Wikileaks, and
crackdowns on
protests in
the West.
La
Rue had
apparently
been chased
from town by
Sandy. But the
ritual
will go on.
Watch this
site.
, 
