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Finland Will Not Vote Against Serbia's Kosovo
Resolution, Bolivian Silence and Italian Vacillation
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
September 23 -- "If Kosovo was
not quite perfect," Finnish President Tarja Halonen told Inner City
Press
on Tuesday at the UN, "then the Georgia situations, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, are much less perfect."
Inner City Press had asked for Finland's position on
Serbia's
resolution
to get the General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice
for an
advisory opinion on the legality of Kosovo's independence. After Ms. Halonen said "we support the
court," Finland's foreign minister Alexander Stubb made clear what that
means. "Finland will not vote against" the Serbian resolution, he
said. "If the EU is to have a unified position, it can only be to
abstain."
Video here,
from 21:32.
This
principled stand is contrasted to that of France, which while holding
the EU
Presidency has said that Serbia's request causes "turbulence," and
also of Italy. Inner City Press on September 23 asked Italian foreign
minister
Franco Frattini for his country's position. He said that while he
"personally" would prefer to abstain, Italy will follow whatever the
EU does. Video here.
Halonen, at right, with Messrs. Ban
and Bush, Kosovo independence not shown
Frattini
gave the same answer on how Italy will vote if
asked to suspect the International Criminal Court proceeding against
Sudan's
Al-Bashir. To some, this seems to be an
argument for having only one veto-wielding seat on the Security Council
for the
European Union.
Inner City
Press also asked embattled Bolivian president Evo Morales about his
country's
position on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the independence of which
Nicaragua has
recognized. Morales gave a long answer about throwing out the U.S.
Ambassador,
but did not answer on breakaway republics, perhaps for obvious reasons:
he has
breakaway provinces of his own.
On the
other hand, Finland "won" the Aland Islands from Sweden in a long-ago
court proceeding, which perhaps explains Finland's ongoing respect for
the
right to go to court. Still the position is more principles than one
usually
sees at the UN, and we commend it.
Watch this site, and this Sept. 18 (UN) debate.
* * *
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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[at] innercitypress.com
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