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In Madagascar, UN's Role In Protecting Rajoelina
Questioned, Who Is the "International Community" to UN? France, It Seems
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, March 16 -- As
Madagascar's president Marc Ravalomanana is deposed in slow
motion by soldiers
backing Andry Rajoelina, the UN is in the strange position of appearing
to
support a military coup which has now been denounced by the African
Union. On
Monday in New York, Inner
City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesperson
Marie Okabe, "on Madagascar, it was said last week that the UN was,
along
with the international community, providing protection to the
opposition
leader. Is that still the case and does
the UN have any comment on his request that the President either step
down or
be arrested?"
UN
Deputy Spokesperson Okabe
replied, "I don’t have specific
comments on the latest press reports, but you know what we’ve said and
we do
have a UN senior official that is involved in this issue, and you’ve
seen the Secretary-General’s
remarks on this."
Inner City Press' Malagasy sources say that once
France switched its bets
from Ravalomanana to Rajoelina, the fix was in. But France desperately
wanted
the political ground cover the UN could provide. Thus, the UN announced
it --
and not France -- was protecting Rajoelina. Then it emerged that
Rajoelina was
in the French embassy. But this was someone deemed to be under the
aegis of the
UN.
UN has info-center in Madagascar, support of coup not shown
Inner City Press asked, if the UN and not France is
protecting Rajoelina,
who is actually holding the guns of protection, the UN's Department of
Safety
and Security? Because there is no UN peacekeeping mission there. The
answer was
that the UN was working with the international community. But now that
the AU
has denounced the coup, is the UN's answer limited to the European
international community, or more specifically, France?
Footnote:
Ravalomanana has said he may call on "the
international
community," specifically the UN, to support him. Good luck.
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
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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