Churkin
Critiques
Expulsion of
Syria
Diplomats,
Ladsous Blames
Shabiha
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 29 --
After the UN
Security
Council heard
from Syria
envoy Kofi
Annan's deputy
Jean-Marie
Guehenno and
his second
successor atop
UN
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous
on Wednesday,
Inner City
Press asked
Russian
Permanent
Representative
Vitaly Churkin
about
Ladsous'
comments that
there is a
"strong rumor"
that the
killings in
Houla were
started by
pro-government
Shabiha
militia.
Tuesday
during
Ladsous' press
conference he
was already
pronouncing on
his
"strong
suspicions"
that the
Shabiha did
it. But he
flatly
refused to
answer any
questions from
the Press,
saying "Well,
Mister,
I will start
answering your
questions when
you stop
insulting
me and making
malicious and
insulting
insinuations."
Video
here, at
Minute 28:10
Wednesday
Churkin
answered Inner
City Press
that
the
investigation
of Houla is
not finished,
and that as an
investigator
Ladsous does
not have "all
the
tools."
It may be that
truer words
have not
recently been
spoken at the
UN.
Inner
City Press
also asked
Churkin about
the trend of
countries
expelling
Syrian
diplomats. He
replied that
while this is
a bilateral
matter,
it had come up
in the
Council's
consultations.
He said that
such
moves could be
"misinterpreted"
as presaging a
military
intervention.
Churkin
took
questions
without a
spokesman
mediating. By
contrast when
French
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Martin Briens
spoke, his
Mission's
spokesman
Brieuc Pont
took full
control of who
could ask
questions.
After the
series, as
Inner City
Press asked
"what about
expelling
diplomats,"
Briens
shrugged and
walked away
from the
microphone.
German
Ambassador
Peter Wittig,
also mediated
by spokesman,
did much the
same thing,
walking away
as the Press
started asking
the "expelling
diplomats"
question. The
previous day
Wittig bragged
on the
record at the
stakeout about
his foreign
minister
expelling
Syria's
representative
from Berlin.
It would be
good to take
the question:
watch this
site.
Footnotes:
When
a
representative
of Agence
France Presse
asked Churkin
if Russian
weapons were
being used to
kill civilians
in Syria,
Churkin
responded that
the sales were
in the past
and had
complied with
law. Not asked
was France's
more recent
air-dropping
of weapons
into the
Nafusa
Mountain in
Libya: how
many of those
weapons are in
today's Mali /
Azawad?
In an
interesting
aside,
Ja'afari
slammed
Germany,
saying it
controls
the maritime
portion of the
UNIFIL mission
and did not
stop a ship of
weapons from
Libya meant
for
non-governmental
forces in
Syria. Inner
City Press'
more recent
reporting on
Germany and
military
operations
has been its
new
initiative,
through the
EU's Operation
ATALANTA, to
strike up to
two kilometers
inside
Somalia.
Choices,
choices.
, 
