On
Somalia,
As UN Dodges on Mahiga Meeting in Kenya,
Calls for Firing
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 7 -- On April 6 Inner City Press asked
UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky to respond to
criticism from Somalia of Ban's envoy Augustine Mahiga scheduling a
consultative meeting on Somalia this month not in that country, but
in Nairobi, Kenya:
Inner
City
Press: on Somalia, there is quite a lot of protest within the
country about a supposed consultative meeting that Mr. Mahiga is
organizing in Kenya and there have been calls to boycott it. The
Government has also asked that the UN move its offices to Mogadishu.
So, what’s the UN’s response to these two critiques, both from
clan leaders and from the TFG?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well, Mr. Mahiga extended this invitation to various
parties there to take part in some discussions and we are aware of
the report or the reports that you refer to about the presence of UN
offices in Somalia; we’re aware of that report. I don’t have
anything further on that at the moment, simply to say that the people
who work for those offices are regular visitors to Mogadishu. Indeed
Mr. Mahiga was briefing the Secretary-General last week when we were
in Nairobi, within hours of having just returned from Mogadishu.
On
April 7 Nesirky
read out a statement that Mahiga will proceeding with the meeting in
Nairobi, and has gotten many commitments to attend,
summarized by the
UN in this way:
Augustine
Mahiga,
the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia,
said today that the High Level Consultative Meeting will take place
as scheduled on the 12 and 13 April in Nairobi. He said that he has
received positive responses to the conference from Somali parties and
officials who are willing to participate in strengthening the
dialogue between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its
partners.
What
Nesirky, who
more and more limits questions at his noon briefing while refusing to
answer the vast majority of e-mailed Press questions, did not
mention is that the
Somali Transitional Federal Government's prime
minister himself has opposed the Kenya location, and has gotten Raila
Odinga's support on this:
“The
Kenyan government will back efforts by the Somalia Transition Federal
Government (TFG) to host an impending high-level peace meeting to
resolve the crisis in the strife-torn country. Prime Minister Raila
Odinga assured his Somalia counterpart Mohamed Abdullahi the
government would back their bid to convince the United Nations and
the African Union to hold the peace meeting in Mogadishu.”
Ban and Mahiga in Naibori, protests from Somalia not
shown or answered
Now, a major
Somali cleric -- Sheikh Ahmed Abdi Dhi’isow, the chairman of the
Somali religious assembly -- has
asked for Ban Ki-moon to fire
Mahiga:
“'Mahiga
disregarded all of our requests and suggestions and he continued
organizing the meeting in an attempt to divide Somalis, so we are
calling on the U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon to dismiss Augustine Mahiga
from United Nations Political Office for Somalia,' he said.”
What
do Ban and
Nesirky say to that? The UN of late has been bragging about "its"
Djibouti process. And it's come to thise? Watch this site.
* * *
On
Haiti,
Amid
UN Diplomatic Fatigue, of Restavek & Mulet, Cholera
Silence
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
6 -- The Haiti debate of the UN Security Council
started with a bang on Wednesday morning, with Presidents Santos and
Preval of Colombia and Haiti and former US President Bill Clinton. By
afternoon the room was half full and even most of the Security
Council Permanent Representatives had left. Beyond donor fatigue,
this can be called diplomatic fatigue.
Bill
Clinton
breezed
in at 10:25 am, missing most of President Santos' speech.
When it was his turn, Clinton bragged about a transparent donor
website and, to his credit, about restavek: the phenomenon of rural
and undocumented children exploited by more affluent urban families.
Inner
City
Press
has previously asked Clinton about the restavek phenomenon. One now
wonders what the UN has done about it, given all the time it's been
in Haiti.
There
was
little
discussion of the cholera outbreak and how it was brought to Haiti.
The UN's report on the topic, initially due in late March, was not
released prior to the Council's Haiti debate.
Clinton, Preval and Santos did what they called a media stakeout, but
didn't take any questions. Off camera, asked about the meeting of
Santos and President Obama, Clinton said "I think you'll like the
results." Another free trade agreement, to folow Clinton's NAFTA.
Colombia's
Permanent
Representative
Nestor Osorio acknowledged to Inner City
Press that the
regional group GRULAC wants a Latin to replace UN
envoy Edmond Mulet when he leaves, and that seemingly for that
reason, Bernard Kouchner of France is no longer a candidate.
Inner
City
Press
asked Mulet on his way into the Council in the afternoon when he will
be back in New York with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
“June,” he said. It is confirmed that the number two post in DPKO
is Mulet's; Atul Khare of India was only filling it temporarily.
Clinton, Preval and Santos, no questions taken,
cholera report not shown
Some
wonder
where
Khare will go, or what other post India will get. But as Inner City
Press reported, the Assistant Secretary General post in UN Women went
to India. A UN source said of Khare, “He wasn't really one of
theirs.”
France's
Permanent
Representative
Gerard Araud was not in the Council chamber
in the afternoon. Another UN source said Araud was briefing select
press about France's actions in Cote d'Ivoire. Plus ca change.
Footnote,
literally:
Colombia's
intrepid spokeswoman, on the eve of her
country's long planned Haiti debate, was hit by a diplomatic car but
nevertheless appeared for work on Wednesday, with a cane. Asked from
which country the car that hit her came, she said “Turkey.” Watch
this site.
* * *
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