UNITED
NATIONS, April
22 -- A week
after Chad's
ambassador
Ahmad Allam-mi
told Inner
City Press his
country won't
stay in North
Mali to
“protect the
MNLA,” the
International
Crisis Group's
Comfort Ero
said, “Kidal
is a special
case.”
Inner
City Press
asked Ero to
assess the
performance of
the UN's Sahel
envoy Romano
Prodi, and
what ICG
thinks should
or will be done
with the
wannabe
breakaway
Azawad.
On
Prodi, Ero
said “we're
disappointed
it's been
slow.” Perhaps
relatedly, as
Inner City
Press has
reported,
Prodi while
ostensibly a
full time UN
employee put
his name in
competition to
become
president of
Italy. It that
because the
Sahel is slow?
Or do Prodi
and his
distraction,
even conflict
of interest,
MAKE the UN
slow?
Ero's
answer on
Azawad was
that “there
must
be a
willingness to
include all
armed groups
at table if
they
are willing to
end armed
struggle." She
said that
France's
“initial draft
demanded
preconditions
that amounted
to surrender.”
It's a good
point. But
isn't this
what
is
simultaneously
being demanded
of the M23 in
Eastern Congo?
There, the DRC
government has
said the
Security
Council
resolution
means M23 must
“cease to
exist” as a
military “and
political”
entity. If
that's not
surrender,
what is?
The caution
ICG expressed
about the
dangers of UN
peacekeepers
in Mali seems
to also apply
to Eastern
Congo in light
of the
intervention
brigade.
Ero said
repeatedly
that ICG met
with people
“in this
building,”
seeming to
refer not only
to country's
diplomats but
also to
Secretariat
officials.
What was the
role of these
officials,
like Herve
Ladsous, in
drafting
France's
resolution?
What will it
be in
implementing
it - for whom?
Did ICG not
have similar
access or
interest on
the Eastern
Congo
resolution?
One wanted to
ask their
views, but the
press
conference was
over.
Footnote:
The presser
began with
Inner City
Press thanking
the panelists
including
the Swiss
Mission and
Scott
Malcomson,
Director of
Communications
of ICG, on
behalf of the
new Free UN
Coalition for
Access; UNCA
then did the
same. One also
wonders what
ICG thinks of
the withholding
from the
public of UN
reports, for
48 hours or
more, and
on big
media
colluding to
ask the UN to
throw out
smaller, more
investigative
media: because
that's what
UNCA, at least
its Executive
Committee, has
come to
represent.
We'll have
more on this.
Watch this
site.
, 
