At
UN
on Kosovo,
Churkin
Trashes UNMIK,
Jeremic Bashes
EULEX
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 30 --
When the UN
Security
Council
belatedly met
Tuesday about
Kosovo and the
July 25 events
on its border
with
Serbia, it was
known in
advance that a
divided
Council would
have no
outcome. "I'm
going to make
a strong
statement,"
Russian
Ambassador
Vitaly Churkin
told Inner
City Press
outside the
Council.
A spokesperson
for Serbia
later added,
"Since they
blocked the
draft
Presidential
Statement, why
not?"
When
his turn
came, Churkin
said that the
UN Mission in
Kosovo, UNMIK,
is suffering
a lack of
leadership; he
wondered why
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
has not moved
to name a new
Special
Representative
after Lamberto
Zannier left
to head the
OSCE.
Inner
City Press
went to
Tuesday UN
noon briefing
and asked
departing
deputy
spokesman
Farhan Haq
about the
delay, and to
respond to
Churkin's
critique. Haq
merely said
that the
acting UNMIK
chief was in
the Council,
and that
the process to
replace
Zannier is
underway.
But
it was a long
time ago, that
Inner City
Press was
asking the UN
about Zannier
applying to
head OSCE. How
or why could
the UN
Secretariat be
so
unprepared? Or
is it -- Ban
Ki-moon's UN
Secretariat --
taking sides?
After
the meeting,
Inner City
Press asked
Serbian
foreign
minister Vuk
Jeremic who
many
votes he
thought he had
for the
Presidential
Statement,
beyond the
seven he'd
previously
listed. He
said it only
takes one
member to
block the
statement.
Inner
City Press
asked him
about the
EULEX
investigation
of organ
trafficking,
now
headed by
Clint
Williamson,
sometimes
reported as an
adviser to Ban
Ki-moon. (Haq,
who did not
answer Inner
City Press'
written
question
about this on
Monday, on
Tuesday when
asked said
that
Williamson
worked for the
UN in Cambodia
in the past.)
Jeremic
said that
EULEX has no
jurisdiction
outside of
Kosovo.
Vuk
Jeremic
previously in
UNSC, Kosovo
Banned from
UN campus
Moments
later his
Kosovo
counterpart
disagreed,
telling Inner
City Press
that EULEX has
many
members,
listing
Albania as the
example. But
what if the
organs went
to the Middle
East, in
particular the
Gulf?
Inner
City Press
asked
if the UN had
blocked Kosovo
from entering
the premises
when
the border
incident first
came up, on
the theory
that the
Kosovo
delegation did
not have a
meeting in the
UN. This
was dealt with
diplomatically,
along with a
"public call"
that the UN
treat Kosovo
better. The
stakeouts
degenerated
into questions
about
Serbian
criminal
groups, the
Scorpions, and
the upcoming
Palestine
vote -- Kosovo
still speaks
only about its
own destiny,
not that of
other states.
And so it goes
at the UN.
, 
in