On
Syria
Missiles, HRW
"Doesn't Take
Position," But
Cites
UNSC On Others
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 28 --
Even before
the UK
announced it
would make one
last try,
however wan,
with the UN
Security
Council or at
least its
Permanent Five
members, the
organization
Human Rights
Watch put out
a
statement that
"the United
States,
Britain,
France, and
other
countries are
assessing
options for
military
intervention
in Syria.
Human Rights
Watch does not
take a
position
advocating or
opposing
such
intervention."
Unlike
even UN envoy
Lakhdar
Brahimi, HRW's
Ken Roth did
not even say
the
Western P3
should bring
their military
plan to the
Security
Council.
So much for
HRW and
international
law.
The
hypocrisy,
however, is
that when it
suits it HRW
cites to
Security
Council
resolutions
and arms
embargoes, for
example on
Rwanda. From
that, some
made
assumptions
about Roth's
HRW and
international
law.
But these
assumptions
are wrong.
Is
this lack of
principles
just
pragmatic? But
HRW has more
money than
it can spend.
What it craves
is access --
that is why,
according to
its UN
lobbyist
Philippe
Bolopion, HRW
refused to
provide Inner
City
Press with
even a summary
of the topics
Roth raised to
Ban Ki-moon.
On
Wednesday in
the Security
Council
chamber,
countries
filed in to
hear
a briefing and
debate about
Haiti. On the
other side of
the Council
chamber, in
front of the
Permanent Five
members'
clubhouse, the
media
was massed.
The drums of
war are
beating, and
HRW is right
on key.
now
the UK says it
will present
in New
York, only to
the Permanent
Five members
of the
Security
Council, a
draft
resolution
"authorizing
all necessary
measures under
Chapter 7 of
the UN Charter
to protect
civilians from
chemical
weapons."
"All
measures" is a
broad term --
just see how
it was used in
Libya, to
turn a no-fly
zone over
Benghazi into
a bombing
campaign all
over the
country. So it
seems clear
that Russia
and China will
have, at a
minimum,
questions.
But
one senses
hear the game
is simply to
present this
to the P5, say
Russia and
China wouldn't
agree, then
fire missiles.
Earlier on
Wednesday
envoy Lakhdar
Brahimi said
if you want to
punish Bashar
al
Assad, go
through the
Security
Council. Did
this just
mean, flash a
draft then say
it failed?
On
August 26
Inner City
Press directly
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
associate
spokesperson
Farhan
Haq for Ban's
position on
the if
missiles sent
without
Security
Council
approval (or
as some now
wanly propose,
General
Assembly
approval, even
after the
fact) would
violate
international
law.
We
won't engage
in speculative
comment, Ban's
Haq said. Nor
would he say
if Ban at
least was
asking the US
to give him
notice before
a
missile, since
there are UN
personnel in
Damascus and
Syria.
Speculative
or
not, Brahimi
said issue
should go to
the Security
Council. As
the
final
question,
tellingly, Voice of
America on
whose
Broadcast
Board
of Governors
US Secretary
of State John
Kerry sits
asked who then
to
punish Assad.
Go
through the
Security
Council,
Brahimi again
said. But the
follow up
question can
apparently be
via missiles.
Reuters,
too,
showed its
hand,
asserting as a
fact that
bombing was
good for
Bosnia, why
not here?
Inner
City Press
asked UN
spokesperson
Farhan Haq at
Tuesday's noon
briefing when
it was that
the UN
formally
requested
access to al
Ghouta -- on
Saturday,
August 24 or
before? Video
here, from
Minute 12. Video with captions, on Inner
City Press YouTube channel, here and
embedded below.
Haq
read out a
press
statement from
August 22, in
which
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon said a
request is
being sent.
Then, Haq
said, Ban's
High
Representative
on Disarmament
Angela Kane
"stepped
forward with
the request"
-- on August
24, Saturday.
It was
granted the
next day.
Inner
City Press
asked again,
was there any
formal request
by the UN
other than
Ban's press
statement,
before August
24? Haq called
this
"semantics."
But when Inner
City Press
asked Ban's spokespeople
to respond to
widely
circulated
press releases
about a
request being
made to Ban,
the UN says
the actual
formal request
had not been
received yet,
and so: no comment.
Why should the
UN say it must
be different
for Syria?
How
could the UN
be so sloppy?
Or was
it sloppy?
While the
delay to
Sunday (or
Monday, when
the team got
out and said,
if this
YouTube video
on which Haq
declined
comment when
Inner City
Press asked is
not false,
that they are
not even
looking at
what type of
munition was
used in part
because they
didn't want to
put it in
their white UN
4 by 4) is now
an element in
the case for
missile
strikes, the
UN didn't
formally ASK
until
Saturday, in
the person of
Angela Kane
Inner City
Press covered
Kane when she
was head of
Ban's
Department of
Management,
including an investigation
by the UN
Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services for
favoritism in
the UN's
so-called
UMOJA computer
management
system.
When
Japan's Yukio
Takasu
returned after
a pause
from being his
country's
Ambassador to
the UN to
take over
Kane's job,
Kane's native
Germany
lobbied for
her to get
another top UN
job. She was offered
one in Lebanon,
as Inner City
Press reported,
but did not
want it. So
she "got"
Disarmament.
This
connection
must be noted:
it was Germany
which got Kane
this job, in
the same way
that France
installed Herve Ladsous as the fourth French
head of UN
Peacekeeping
in a row,
and the US picked
Jeffrey
Feltman,
formerly the
State
Department's
chief on the
Middle East to
replace B.
Lynn Pascoe as
Ban's
political
chief.
So the
fact that
Germany has
expressed a
willingness to
join a
coalition to
strike Syria,
without UN
Security
Council
approval, and
the Germany's
Angela Kane's
role in the
"UN's"
chemical
weapons
inspection
team should be
noted.
But by
most media
covering the
UN, it is not.
When Inner
City Press
even mentions
Ladsous' and
UN
Peacekeeping's
French
connection,
Ladsous
refuses to
answer
questions, and
some media,
including the
French wire
service Agence
France Presse
on one of
whose
management
boards Ladsous
served, have
even filed
complaints
with the UN
against Inner
City Press.
This is
dysfunction,
and is now
being
countered by
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
@FUNCA_info.
Another
major
wire service,
Reuters,
joined in the
second of
AFP's
complaints. On
August 26
Reuters based
a piece
essentially
selling or
planning for
the legality
of military
strikes on
Syria without
Security
Council or
even General
Assembly
approval
around, as
lead, a
comment by the
Council on
Foreign
Relations' Richard Haass.
But on
that CFR
call, as noted
by Inner City
Press, was Judith
Miller. Given
her role
during the
lead up to the
US
intervention
in Iraq,
one might
think this
would have
been included
in an
overly-long
rehash story.
But no.
Notably,
Reuters' UN
bureau has
been shown to
have spied for
the UN,
handing over
an
internal
anti-Press
document
of the UN
Correspondents
Association
(which under
2013 president
Pamela Falk of
CBS hosted
Syrian rebel
Jarba for what
it called a
"UN briefing")
to UN official
Stephane
Dujarric. Story
here, audio here,
document
here.
This
beat just goes
on. Watch this
site.
* * *
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