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At UN, Racism Expert Drops Pakistan and Omits
Myanmar like NGOs from Durban II
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 4 -- With ethnic strife
raging from Eastern Congo to Kashmir, from Italy to Myanmar, the UN's
expert on
xenophobia and "related intolerance" tried Tuesday to not answer Press
questions about specific countries. Kenyan lawyer Githu Muigai,
describing
himself as very involved in planning the so-called Durban II conference
on
racism, said that he shouldn't like to be quoted about his negotiations
to
visit countries.
Inner City Press asked him, since his predecessor Doudou Diene
has specifically criticized Pakistan, India and Nepal for not
responding
positively to requests that he visit, why he only including India and
Nepal on
his new list of country requests. "Pakistan did not drop off the
list," Muigai insisted, without disputing that it is, in fact, no
longer
on the list. He offered an explanation, that if he visits India, he
won't want
to stay around "in the neighborhood" and create the impression that
only that region has problems. Video here,
from Minute 18:27.
It should
be noted that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently visited that
neighborhoods and visited India and Nepal, as well as Bangladesh and
the
Philippines, without stopping in Pakistan. Could this be a UN trend?
Inner City
Press asked Muigai, since Myanmar has been assigned Special Rapporteur
Tomas
Ojea Quintana, if he would be willing to try to visit to investigate
the
reports of the military government's oppression of minority ethnic
groups. No,
Muigai answered, it "would not be a very good use of resources, I would
imagine the rapporteur" would bring out the information. Video here,
from Minute 28:32. In the case of Tomas
Ojea Quintana, who went strikingly easy on Myanmar's Than Shwe regime's
human
rights record, such "imagination" only harms the Burmese people.
Githu Muigai, counselor, investigator, UN special
rapporteur
That said,
Muigai comes off as an able lawyer. He is representing the former
foreign
minister of Kenya -- while insisting that he would have no conflict in
investigating the ethnic violation, Kikuyu and Luo, that occurred
during the
dispute Kibaki - Odinga election -- and at the same time serving as a
judge. And,
as noted, he is a major force in the run-up to the Durban II
conference. Already, even the preliminary funding for this sequel
conference became a major issue during the December 2007 late night
budget fight.
When
asked on Tuesday about Durban I, which occurred just before September
11, 2001, Muigai said that most of the problems had come from NGOs, not
member states. Inner
City Press asked him about the statement by the chairman of the Durban
II
Preparatory Conference, that the Conference "decided without a vote not
to
invite 33 NGOs to the first substantive session." Muigai
nodded and said it is his
understanding that they are inviting only the NGOs which "need" to be
there. But who then is deciding?
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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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