On
Syria, Talk of
Witnesses
Killed While
UN Plays Hide
the Ball
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
29 -- When the
Syria
Commission of
Inquiry's
chairperson
Paulo Sergio
Pinheiro
briefed the UN
General
Assembly on
Monday
morning, it
had the
feeling of a
ritual, one
that the UN
made
it difficult
to cover.
It
was supposed
to be in the
Trusteeship
Council
Chamber at 10
am. Inner
City Press
arrived there
at the same
time as UK
Permanent
Representative
Mark Lyall
Grant -- but
the room was
shut. Even he
had
not been told
of the move.
Running
to
the North Lawn
building,
where the new
General
Assembly hall
has
banned
the press from
the floor up
to a Media
Booth with no
table and
no
interpretation,
Pinheiro had
already begun.
His fellow
Commissioner Carla Del
Ponte, who
previously
spoke of
strong
suspicions the
rebels used
chemical
weapons,
was again not
with him.
But
Pinheiro did
cite the
recent
execution of
soldiers in
Khan al Asal,
and named the
opposition
armed group
responsible.
Syrian
Permanent
Representative
Bashar
Ja'afari when
he spoke said
these
executions
were to
eliminate
witnesses to
the rebels'
use of
chemical
weapons there,
just as the
UN's Angela
Kane and Ake
Sellstrom
reached
a still
undisclosed
agreement
about probing
such use.
Ja'afari
derided
petrodollar
policies and
sexual jihad;
he chided
Pinheiro for
not describing
the Al Nusra
Front as a
terrorist
group. As
Inner City
Press has
reported, Al
Nusra is not
on the UN's
list of child
soldier
recruiters,
either.
While
Ja'afari
spoke, the
UK's Lyall
Grant took
notes and
tweeted
(including a
responsive
tweet to
Inner City
Press about
Somalia, here)
then got
up to speak.
He cited
sexual
violence; he
echoed the
EU's Thomas
Mayr-Harting
that the
rebels' abuses
do not match
in scale or
intensity
those of the
government.
France
was not
represented by
Gerard Araud,
who
on July 26
claimed the
immense
majority of GA
member states
recognized the
Al Jarba
groups
as the only
legitimate
representative
of the Syria
people but
did
not
cite chemical
weapons.
Instead
Araud's
stand-in for
France cited
the ICC, while
Herve
Ladsous
the fourth
Frenchman in a
row atop UN
Peacekeeping met
this month
with ICC
indictee Omar
al Bashir.
Turkey
spoke of
keeping its
borders open
(Ja'afari said
they let
terrorists
flow into
Syria).
Qatar's speech
was
translated, on
the webcast
heard
in the
hallway, as
citing "crimes
wars" -- while
the rebels
it funds
commit them.
Saudi Arabia's
Permanent
Representative
said
they embrace
in full the
Pinheiro
report --
perhaps
because it
does
not cover
which
countries are
funding the
armed
extremist
rebels.
Ban
Ki-moon met
Monday morning
with Angela
Kane, but by
the time of
the
noon briefing
there was no
read-out. Some
wondered why.
Inner
City Press ran
from the North
Lawn to the
briefing to
ask why the UN
Media Alert
did not even
list the
meeting, no
Media
Accreditation
and
Liaison Unit
staff were
there, and
there was no
interpretation
in the
Media Booth,
which the Free UN Coalition for Access raised
to the
Department of
Public
Information
back on June
10, still
without any
action.
During
this Syria
meeting, the UN
Correspondents
Association
used the room
the UN gives
them, S-310,
to host the
Club des Chefs
des Chefs
--
those who cook
for heads of
state.
UNCA 2013
president
Pamela Falk of
CBS was with
the chefs --
she had
already
fronted for
Saudi-based
Syria
oppositionist
al Jarba on
Friday, it
was time for
other spoon
feeding.
The one UNCA
Executive
Committee
member at the
noon
briefing did
not raise the
lack of
access, or
answer why
an UNCA
intern has a
press pass
while actual
journalists
are being
threatened.
and in another
case were
banned from
using a "focus
booth" then
taken by the
intern of the
UN Censorship
(and Spying)
Alliance. So
it goes at
this UN.
, 
