India,
Brazil
&
S. Africa Move Toward Joint Communique on Syria, European Members
Grumble at UN
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
July
27 -- As the crackdown has intensified in Syria, the
so-called IBSA countries -- India, Brazil and South Africa -- have
been under increasing pressure to “do something about Assad.”
France's
UN
Ambassador
Gerard Araud, for example, wrote an opinion piece in the
Brazilian press urging Brazil to support the long pending draft
Security Council resolution on Syria circulated by the European
members of the Council.
UN
sources have for
some time been telling Inner City Press that IBSA has been moving
toward taking action.
Now on July 26
several European members
complained to Inner City Press that the action the IBSA countries are
moving toward is
not through the Council but rather a communication, or demarche,
directly to Syria.
This
new
development
is not unexpected. As the Council's two resolutions on
Libya have been cited after the fact as authorizing not only
airstrikes but even the parachuting of weapons into the Nafusa
mountains by France, opposition to a Syria Council resolution has
grown.
But
India, Brazil
and South Africa, each for its own reasons, wants to take some action
on Syria. Internally, each of the three government faces pressures
from some groups to do more about human rights in Syria, and from
others not to allow “another Libya.”
As
to Brazil, on a
recent Council on Foreign Relations conference call Inner City Press
asked, “what do you make of Brazil's position on Syria being
portrayed as... obstructionist?”
Former
US
Ambassador
to Brazil Donna Hrinak responded that the
“Brazilian
congress certainly is playing more of a role. Itamaraty at one time
had, you know, virtual monopoly on foreign policy making. Civil
society is a lot more vibrant in Brazil in also speaking out on
foreign policy. You could do quite well by looking at what players
are active in U.S. foreign policy and seeing those same groups
reflected in Brazil.”
How
would an op-ed
by a French diplomat seeking to impact US foreign policy play out?
Brazil's PR Viotti, India's (3d from
left), Araud behind Susan Rice in shades, IBSA letter not shown
CFR's Latin
America director Julia Sweig also replied:
“with
respect to Syria, there was a great deal of conflict with France over
that, but there were a couple of resolutions, I believe, that passed
in the Brazilian congress, which is becoming more and more active in
weighing in on foreign policy, condemning 1973, that resolution [on
Libya], and also a great deal of resistance on the Syria front that I
believe Itamaraty is increasingly sensitive to, as our foreign-policy
operatives are themselves when they conduct foreign policy. So in
foreign policy, domestic politics and voices will impinge.”
Things
are
not so
different in India and South Africa. So for the three to act together
is not unexpected, despite the grumbling from European members of the
Security Council. Watch this site.
* * *
As
in
S.
Kordofan Indicted Governor Spins Press, UNSC to Get
Simonovic July 28
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July
26 -- As Southern Kordofan governor Ahmed Haroun,
already indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court,
claims that the goal of his war is peace, in New York the requests
for a Security Council briefing by top human rights official Navi
Pillay will result Thursday afternoon session, but only with her
deputy Ivan Simonovic, Inner City Press has learned.
Several
Security
Council
members specifically asked that Pillay be the briefer, on the
topic of a report jointly by her Office and the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, which is criticized in the report.
Already
Simonovic
reportedly
stopped short of supporting the recommendation that the
actions and failures to act detailed in the report be referred to the
International Criminal Court.
Meanwhile
ICC
indictee
Harun in a Khartoum press conference claimed that “we are
doing our best to keep the length of this conflict as short as
possible, because we believe that military operations are not a goal,
but are a tool to push the other side to the negotiating table.”
Look
how
well that
worked in Darfur...
Ban, Nesirky, Nambiar & Orr, action on UN inaction not shown
Here's in
Harun's history in S. Kordofan,
summarized by a source:
Ahmed
Haroun
was
Deputy Head of the National Intelligence and Security
Services (NISS) during the late 80s and early 90s in Kadugli. He
played a large role in a genocidal campaign to eliminate the Nuba
tribe from southern Kordofan, where he was stationed then. There are
numerous mass graves that he is personally responsible for; one of
them is underneath the UN airport built there five years ago.
When
he
left
for Darfur, he immediately re-organized the PDF (aka
Janjaweed, government militias) ; in 1994 he established a long
relationship with the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda, a
relationship that has continued to recently provide these criminals
with weapons and refuge in South Darfur. While there, he organized a
personal paramilitary group made up of the cream of the Central
Reserve Police (paramilitary organization created by Bashir), the
Border Security Gurads (another paramilitary organization also
created by Bashir) and led by the PDF commanders which he chose. They
all came to Southern Kordofan with him after his appointment as
Governor of that unfortunate state in 2009.
He
meets
with
his good friend Ali Kushaib every weekend planning the
coming genocide of the Nubas, part of who stupidly voted for him
helping him to "win" the recent elections there, thanks
also in part to pre-filled ballot boxes. Ali Kushaib lives in
Debeibat in the northern part of the Southern Kordofan and is
currently re-organizing the PDF (whom he led in Darfur) in order to
accelerate their participation in the Nuban genocide.
So
can Ahmed Harun
(or Haroun) be subject to a rare second referral to the International
Criminal Court? And what could Navi Pillay be doing this week that is
more important? Watch this site.
, 
in