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Russia Has "Tough
Questions" for UN on Kosovo, for Georgia on Abkhazia
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, March 31 -- "I
haven't heard of any proposal for a division of Kosovo," Russian
Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told the press on Monday. "If
such proposal are being entertained, it is between Serbians and
Albanians, if
they want to involve UNMIK," the UN Mission in Kosovo.
Inner
City Press asked UN Spokesperson Michele Montas if a partition proposal
has
been made to UNMIK. Yes, she said, the proposal was made to UNMIK's
deputy
Larry Rossin. Rossin had previously been accused of improperly leaking
a
diplomatic proposal that had been made to him in confidence. But now
it's no
longer a matter of leaking: the UN's spokesperson confirms that the
proposal
has been made.
Asked
about reports of the U.S. moving to arm the Pristina government,
Ambassador Churkin
called this provocative and said that, if true, the international
military
presence should confiscate such weapons. Amb.
Churkin said "we have tough
questions to ask" about UNMIK's move
earlier this month to re-take the
courthouse in Mitrovica. Ukraine, too, has had questions, about the
rules of
engagement under which one of its peacekeepers was killed. The
Ukrainian
interior minister,
Yuriy
Lutsenko, has claimed that
these rules were, don't shoot until you've
suffered the first injury. The head of UN peacekeeping denies that.
Perhaps
this will be among the "tough questions" that will be asked in the
Security Council.
Amb. Churkin, between China and the U.S., smiling
Inner
City Press asked Amb. Churkin about the status of Georgia's request
that the UN's Abkhazia
peacekeeping and observer mission be reconsidered. Churkin said that
the
Council has repeatedly praised the Russian peacekeepers, and that, in
his view,
Georgia's request is a distraction from needed negotiations with the
Abkhaz.
"The problem is they have been doing things, like sending military into
the Upper Kodori Valley," Churkin said, rather than offering
socio-economic progress. In the run-up to the NATO meetings in
Bucharest,
Georgia has made an Abkhazia proposal, which its de facto leaders have
rejected.
Summarizing his month as
president of the
Council, Churkin ran through the numbers: 16 official meetings, 13
consultations, five resolutions, seven press statements -- and, he
pointed out,
no official Presidential Statements, which require unanimity. Russia
has table
"elements" for such a Statement about Kosovo, but it seems unlikely
they will pass. So too any Statement on Myanmar. Churkin said "we are
not
an elections board." But when the leader of the opposition is not
allowed
to run in an election, where is the elections board to condemn this?
South
African's Dumisani Kumalo takes on the Council presidency for April,
with
thematic debates scheduled on regional cooperation (expect an
appearance from
African Union officials) and perhaps on small arms. There's been talk
of the UK
tabling a resolution on Somalia. Monday morning outside the Council,
French
Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters, "I have to go to
Somalia," referring to a meeting on the subject. "Bon voyage,"
one journalist quipped. "Mais c'est
un beau pays," Ripert said. It's a pretty country. Yes, it is,
despite
everything.
Footnote: Given the questions about
UNMIK one
wonders what Russia -- to say nothing of Serbia -- would say if UNMIK
chief
Joaquim Rucker were in fact to be put forward for an Under Secretary
General
post such as in the Department of Management. The current holder of the
post
wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, blaming the
ever-expanding
UN budget on the member states. But only $31 million in new money was
approved
on March 28, according to the GA's spokesman, compared to the $1.1
billion
proposal previously reported on. Days after the vote, the actual
resolution was
still not available. Only at the UN. To be continued.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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