At
UN,
Portugal
Takes
On P-5 Favorite Bosnia to Chair Reform Group,
Austria's Song
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
17,
updated Dec 20 -- The UN Security
Council's handing out of
chairmanships of its subsidiary bodies is stalled, Inner City Press
has learned, by the Permanent Five members' attempts to give the
Informal Working Group on Documentation and Procedure to Bosnia,
rather than Portugal which wants it.
Portugal
ran
for
the
Security Council, beating out Canada, on a platform that included
increasing the pace of Security Council reform and transparency. But
their request to chair the Working Group on this subject is being
opposed. The Permanent Five members -- the US and Russia more
vehemently, Inner City Press is informed -- are proposing Bosnia, and
a slower pace of reform.
The
standoff has
delayed the announcement of other Committee and Working Group chairs,
including Germany over terrorism alongside South Africa for
Resolution 1540 (which outgoing Mexico is giving up), and on Africa.
In
terms of
Documentation and Procedure, outgoing Council member Thomas
Mayr-Harting of Austria on Friday morning praised the reform of the
“informal interactive dialogues” of the kind held on Sri Lanka,
Chad and the Cheonan incident between the Koreas.
He
noted that under
current rules, while Switzerland for example chairs the Peacebuilding
group on Burundi, they cannot come in to closed door consultations.
Therefore all talk in out in the open, unlike for example on Guinea
Bissau, on which current Council member Brazil takes the lead.
Portugal Perm Rep & DSG Migiro, reform in play
Not
all Council
members chair a committee or working group. Gabon, for example, does
not have one. “I have a small staff,” the country's Permanent
Representative told Inner City Press. He has confirmed dressing down
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo for his talk of genocide in his
last appearance. And so it goes at the UN.
Update of Dec. 20 --
the battling continues. Inner City Press questions to the principals
about who is getting the chair of the Working Group on Working Methods
are met with smiles and eye rolling. Now it's said the announcement
will be in early January. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN,
Sudan
Ignores
Finding
That It Bombed, Council Largely Ignores
Darfur
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
16
--
Fighting continued in Darfur
on Thursday, as
the UN Security Council met about Sudan, mostly South Sudan. The
Council issued a press statement about the secession referendum
scheduled for January 9, including condemning Khartoum's bombings in
Western Bahr al Gazal State.
Outside
the
Council,
Inner
City
Press asked the Sudanese State Minister of
Humanitarian Affairs Mutrif Siddiq about the bombings, and his
government's fighting with the Minni Minawai faction. It's not with
the whole faction, he quickly said, naming a subcommander who he said
tried to “collect taxes after the harvest.” Video here.
The fact
remains that Minni Minawi, the sole Darfur rebel to sign a deal with
Khartoum, has walked away from it. So what does the "Doha process" with
the LJM really mean?
Despite
UN
confirmation
of
the
bombing, Sudanese minister Mutrif Siddiq would
only concede that it was under investigation, as if the investigation
weren't finished. Inner City Press later asked Council president
Susan Rice about this.
She replied,
"you heard Under-Secretary- General LeRoy in the Council speak very
plainly to that as he also did in consultations."
Southern
Sudan's
Ezekiel
Lol
Gatkuoth
and Pagan Amum, Secretary General of the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement came to the stakeout. Inner City Press
asked about the bombing and Pagan Amum said it had already been
condemned. He called for a peace agreement in Darfur. This seems a long
way off.
Inner
City
Press asked about comments attributed to Benjamin Mkapa that “some
Southerns” were intimidating other Southerns in the North to not
register to vote in the referendum.
Pagan
Amum
denied
that,
saying
that instead it was the National Congress Party which
threatened Southerns with harassment if they voted for secession.
Video here.
SPLM's Pagan Amum w/ Alain Le Roy,
registration of Southerners in North not shown
Inner
City
Press
asked
Mkapa
himself who he blamed for the low registration in the
North. He said that it was understandable if Southerners who have
lived in the North for years didn't register. Video here.
Then
he
was
gone.
Footnote:
The
International
Organization
on
Migration gave a press conference
on Thursday as well. Inner City Press, along with questions about
Sudanese refugees returned from Israel and elsewhere, asked about
IOM's role in the Sudan referendum. It's in their law, was the
answer. IOM was asked to run the process in North Sudan but declined.
IOM
says
they
didn't choose the sites in the eight diaspora
countries. But are they observing for fairness? Watch this site.
, 
