As
India
Joins UNSC It Questions Myanmar Threat & Bashir Indictment
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 10 -- On issues ranging from Sudan to Myanmar,
India joining the UN Security Council next month may work counter to
what an Indian diplomat on Friday characterized as “Western”
goals.
Responding
to a
question from Inner City Press about Sudan, the Indian diplomat said
his country is sympathetic to African countries' request that the
International Criminal Court indictment of President Omar al Bashir
for genocide be “suspended for six months or a year.”
Pressed,
he predicted that the matter would be taken up by the Council before
or in connection with the South Sudan secession referendum, scheduled
for January 9.
Thursday
in
Council consultations, Gabon challenged what ICC prosecutor Luis
Moreno Ocampo said about genocide. Later, Sudan's Ambassador trashed
Ocampo at the Council stakeout, with no response from the US or any
other Council member.
On
the fight this
week in the Security Council about whether the UN should have
certified challenger Ouattara as the winner of Cote d'Ivoire's
election, the India diplomat echoed Russian in questioning whether
getting involved in elections and constitutions is a good precedent
for the Council.
Inner City
Press can again report, based on
interviewing later on Friday, that China shares this position
regarding Ivory Coast.
Asked
about
Myanmar, the Indian diplomat questioned whether the situation there
-- “bamboo, rice and fish” as he put it -- is a threat to
international peace and security.
On the other
hand he pointed out
that India this year did not oppose, but rather abstained from, the
country specific human rights resolution on Iran. We don't favor
stoning women, he dryly pointed out.
UN's Ban and Manhohan Singh - abovenamed "Indian
Diplomat" not shown
Inner
City Press
asked the diplomat how India's growing economic interests in Africa
will interplay with its votes on the Security Council. The diplomat
replied grandly that he sees very little connection, that his country
and he hopes others take “a broader view.”
But,
Inner City
Press pointed out using the example of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, India could vote with or against President Joseph Kabila of
the DRC, where India has more and more interests. No, the diplomat
disagreed, India would be voting for or against other Council member,
not Joseph Kabila.
Even
before
joining the Security Council -- for the first time in 19 years,
following what he called a depressing past loss to Japan -- India has
been a major force in the UN budget process, especially on questions
regarding peacekeeping.
On
the topic of
Security Council reform, the Indian diplomat predicted that a
proposal for up or down voting will emerge in six months. He was
dismissive of the so called UFC, United for Consensus, which he said
has 12 members at most. He contrasted it to Africa with 54 (he
singled out Morocco, Algeria and Egypt as important), Asia with 54,
small island states and Least Developed Countries.
People in
India
will say I've lost my mind, in predicting action in six months, the
diplomat said, they will know who I am. We'll see.
* * *
On
Darfur,
As
UNAMID Covers Up Killings by Sudan, ICC Reports Them
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
9 -- After the UN refused
to release what it knows
about the killing of civilians at Tabarat and the destruction of
Soro
and other villages in Darfur in September, the International Criminal
Court's report unveiled in the Security Council on December 9 names
13 other destroyed villages (with Soro transliterated as “Souroo”),
and has witness quotes what it calls the government sponsored killing
in Tabarat (which it calls Tabra).
After
ICC
prosecutor
Luis Moreno Ocampo's presentation to the Security Council
on Thursday, Inner City Press on camera asked both him and Sudan's
Permanent Representative to the UN Dafallah Osman about the Tabra
killings and the destruction of villages.
Sudan's
Ambassador
said
that the killings were “tribal,” involving
kidnapping and promises to pay blood money. He praised UNAMID and its
leader Ibrahim Gambari (calling him a “seasoned diplomat”).
Inner
City
Press
asked if he thought UNAMID should release what it knows about the
Tabra killings. This, he did not answer, instead ranging from saying
that Ocampo's report shows NGOs were engaged in “espionage” to
claiming that Radio Dabanga was disseminating destabilizing and even
“genocidal” information.
Ocampo
had
stood
several yards away, unlike with the previous Sudanese Ambassador
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, whom Ocampo stood right next to
during their final stare down. When Ocampo came to the microphone,
Inner City Press asked him if he thought UNAMID was in essence
covering up Sudan's and Bashir's acts by not reporting on them.
Ocampo
said
that
UNAMID is under threat, that's why it doesn't report. This means
that UNAMID is not reporting, which is its job. What will Ban
Ki-moon, the Security Council and Obama administration do?
ICC's LMO close to Sudan's last Ambassador,
new backing away mirrored by UN- & US?
Earlier
on
Thursday,
Mark Hanis of the Genocide Intervention Network / Save
Darfur Coalition on a press conference call said Obama, Hillary
Clinton and Joe Biden campaigned on (among other things) protecting
civilians in Darfur, and named Samantha Power and Susan Rice as
officials. Hanis called them “disappointing” so far. Inner City
Press asked what UNAMID should do. Report, Hanis said. But UNAMID
does not.
On
both December
8
and 9, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin
Nesirky about
fighting and death in Darfur, including in Tabarat / Tabra:
Inner
City
Press:
a request made to UNAMID [African Union-United Nations
Hybrid Operation in Darfur] for the report that they were supposed to
do on the Tabarat killings of 2 September, near Tawilla, the one that
the Secretary-General summoned Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari to speak about.
Anyway, somebody that asked him was told that there is no report for
external dissemination available on it, and I just wonder, what is
the UN’s final finding? Did it do the right thing, in apparently
not getting out to the site despite the warning by relatives of those
killed? Are all such reports confidential, and in which case, how is
the Security Council or the international community to assess the
level of violence and killing in Darfur if these new reports never
come out?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well,
that’s a very long question.
Question:
This
is the only time I’ll ask it, but if there is anything the UN
can say about those killings, I’d like to know.
Spokesperson:
Well,
I hear your question, I think, and let’s look into what the
Mission tells us.
More
than a full
day later, UNAMID has said nothing. When Inner City Press asked
again about UNAMID on December 9, Nesirky claimed he had already
answered questions, including about attacks the Sudanese government
had just bragged about.
In
assuming
Presidency of the Security Council for December, Susan Rice told
Inner City Press that UNAMID (and UNMIS) are required to investigate
and report on attacks on civilians. Does that mean report to the
public, as the ICC does? What will Susan Rice and the US Mission do?
The
press had been
told that Susan Rice would speak at the stakeout, where Ocampo and
Sudan's Ambassador did. But she did not. A reporter given advance
notice that she would not come was told that “one country” had
blocked the elements to the press that she would have read. But she
could have spoken, especially after what Sudan's Ambassador said,
including denying things that the US Mission has previously said,
about the Council's interlocutors being harassed and Radio Dabanga's
Khartoum office being shut down.
Footnote:
Inner
City
Press also asked Ocampo about Guinea -- he said he is
watching “national proceedings” -- and Kenya, where witnesses are
under threat. Ocampo answered by bragging that none of his witnesses
have been injured. But how about retaliated against, given what
Sudan's Ambassador said about the NGOs. Watch this site.
, 
