At
End
of
Gabon's Month, Grumbles Over Libya, South Sudan Predictions, Germany
on Tap
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
29 -- Gabon's month as president of the UN Security
Council was supposed to end on June 28, with a reception in a
ballroom 17 stories above Third Avenue.
But
at least three agenda
items slipped past the reception, including a resolution
on
the UN
Disengagement Observer Force that was still being negotiated, as to
how events in Syria should be reflected, as the party happened.
Gabon's
Permanent
Representative
Nelson Messone greeted his Security Council colleagues
in front two screens showing scenes from Libreville and the
countrywide, big logs being driven on trucks, mangroves growing into
rivers, even an old black and white drawing of Albert Schweitzer.
Alongside
the
Arab
Spring turned Summer, the final flurry of Gabon's presidency centered
around the resolution, unforeseen at the beginning of the month,
authorizing Ethiopian
troops into Sudan's Abyei region for six months.
One wag joked that UNDOF, too, began as a
temporary disengagement mission -- and is still there.
The week of
negotiations on the Abyei force was used to explain the delay into
Germany's
month as president in July -- perhaps as late as July 8 -- of the
resolution needed for a new mission in South Sudan.
India's
Hardeep
Singh
Puri, who earlier in the day had told
a UN session about global
governance that a “member of the Secretariat” in Monday's
meetings on Libya had told the Council that Gaddafi has killed more
civilians than NATO, explained to Inner City Press that this
comment,
made in closed door consultations, was an admission by the UN that
the NATO campaign which was meant to protect civilians was having the
opposite effect.
Across
the
room
Susan Rice of the US, after a long talk with Messone, spoke with the
Press. Asked about the moribund Presidential Statement introduced
about the visit of African Union ministers in mid-June, she said among
other things that the
PRST did not advance things. The visit happened, though.Shouldn't
it at least be memorialized by the Council, like a June 28 briefing
about Guinea Bissau was?
Messone at stakeout, Ban's Kim texts in
background, Abyei rights monitoring not shown
At
the end of the
Guinea Bissau session, Messone emerged to read a press statement at
the
stakeout.
While he declined, there, to answer Inner City Press'
question about accountability for the 2009 assassinations in that
country, without the month's work even completed Messone had done six
televised stakeouts.
This
was
double
what
French Ambassador Gerard Araud did in May, when France was
President. Araud had been spotted on June 27 back in the UN's North
Lawn building, imperiously leading a delegation into the UN
peacekeeping budget endgame negotiations, also still ongoing.
Earlier that
day the UN had belated confirmed that Inner City Press
had reported
two
weeks earlier: that top UN Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy
will leave.
At
Tuesday night's
reception, some agreed and some did not with the Press' two week old
prediction that Eric Chevalier, also of France, will replace Le Roy.
There was a consensus, however, that it will be a Frenchman. That is
how the UN works, or doesn't. Watch this site.
* * *
Colombia's
UN
Council
Month
Ends in Music & Middle East Turmoil, Dissing of EU
& Caricom, by France & Ban Ki-moon?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
26
--
Throughout Colombia's
month
as
president
of the
UN Security Council, diplomats have streamed in and out of the
Council chamber for small servings of hot or iced coffee in light
brown cups emblazoned with the Juan Valdez image.
The
Colombian
presidency
cannot
end, some have joked, twitching.
But
end it must.
Monday night
a the Upper East Side townhouse where Permanent
Representative Nestor Osorio lives the end of presidency reception
was held, complete with lobster and avocado canapes and music
featuring indigenous flutes, a Colombian former child television star
and reknown classical guitarist Nilko
Andreas and his usual soprano
partner Angelica de la Riva, who sadly did not sing.
In
the second
floor's front room, a mixture of Security Council and Latin America
group diplomats mingled exchanging tidbits of information, on Council
topics ranging from Syria to
Western Sahara (click here and
here respectively for
those stories.)
In
the General
Assembly the European Union, it seems, is pushing for action in early
May on its request for “special rights in the GA,” as one
delegate put it.
The
Caribbean
regional group CARICOM is said to still be opposed. A European Union
leader complained to Inner City Press that the EU doesn't know “what
bothers Caricom.” Another developing world diplomat, from Asia,
seemed to know: the EU's request to have its representatives
including Catherine Ashton speak before member states in the GA. Ah,
protocol.
“Caricom's been
hard to reach,” the Asian diplomat conceded. “They've been
traveling, and they are small delegations to begin with.”
Another
Caricom
issue,
or
exclusion,
was raised regarding Haiti. To replace current
UN envoy Edmond Mulet, a diplomat from Caricom was in the running but
rejected. One of the Ambassadors most involved asked Inner City
Press, does it have to ONLY be a Latin American?
That
is
what
Osorio
has
said. Monday night he was gracious, greeting Ambassadors
as they came up to the second story, among them the Permanent
Representatives of Turkey, Japan, South Africa, Nigeria, Portugal,
India, Lebanon, Mexico,
Venezuela and Morocco. There was a representative of Palestine, but
not Polisario.
Osorio & Pascoe in Council, next Prez France & Ban not shown
From the UN
Secretariat's Department of Political
Affairs, Lynn Pascoe and new Security Council Affairs chief Mosves
Abelian were seen there, but neither Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
nor his advisors Vijay Nambiar or Kim Won-soo. Ban and Kim, to be
fair, were earlier attending a malaria event in the GA entrance.
China's
Li
Baodong
appeared
to
be the only Permanent Representative of the Permanent
Five Security Council members in attendance.
From
the
“host
country”
the
US, Numbers Two and Three were there -- Susan Rice,
not present, nevertheless e-mailed out two statements, one on malaria
and another on Sri Lanka which unlike many of the diplomats queried
on the topic by Inner City Press at the reception did not expresss
surprise at Ban Ki-moon's cover letter saying he “is advised”
that he cannot order any investigation without the consent of Sri
Lanka or a vote by member states.
Click here for
Sri Lanka story and report, here
for
podcast
done
Monday night after the Colombian reception.
Russia's
new
jovial
Deputy
Permanent
Representative was there; another diplomat
recounted that he served in Burkina Faso when it was still Upper
Volta.
Talk turned
to Djibril Bassole, the mediator of teh Darfur
process in Doha, returning on an emergency basis to become the
Burkinabe foreign minister, something on which Inner City Press has
asked the Secretariat and on which we'll have more.
The
UK's Deputy
and spokesman were there, but France's did not appear to be, despite
France taking up the Council presidency in May. Ironically earlier on
Monday in the Secretariat, French Permanent Representative Gerard Araud
had met with Ban on just this topic. That is, unlike some other P-5
Perm Rep, both here in New York, but not at Osorio's. Mais c'est
gauche, one frag quipped in a fragment.
Watch this site.
Literal
Footnote
redux:
to
update
our April
6 note
about the Colombian
Mission's intrepid spokeswoman's foot having been run over that a
Turkish diplomatic car, she was up and about and greeting Monday
night, joking to Inner City Press that she is going to send the
medical bill... to Turkey.
, 
