As
Kouchner
& Le Roy Ask Where Darfur Nur Could Be Sent, Gambari
Talks of Threats
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 27, 2010 -- With Darfur rebel Abdel Wahid Nur
living in Paris, what is France's relationship to and plans for him?
Inner City Press on Monday asked
French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner about Nur, whom Kouchner had said would be joining the
negotiation process in Doha. Kouchner shrugged that Nur had said
that. Now what?
“Where would
you have us send him?” Kouchner asked Inner City Press. “Sudan?”
Inner
City Press
asked Kouchner to confirm that other French diplomats have argued,
that France wants to expel Nur but believes a court would on current
evidence grant him asylum. These Elysee sources say that France has
been seeking evidence, including through the UN, that Nur is behind
recent violence in the Kalma and Zalingei IDP Camps in Darfur, as a
basis to expel him.
Before
Kouchner
could answer, his handler Monsieur Valero groaned and rolled his
eyes, as if the question was forbidden. There are many causes for the
violence in the camps, Kouchner finally said. Video here.
One would like to better understand France's position, but the
denial of access, seemingly based on the content of articles, makes it
difficult.
Later
on Monday,
Inner City Press asked the UN's top peacekeeper Alain Le Roy, a
French national, about Abdul Wahid Nur. Le Roy replied much as
Kouchner had: Where should Nur be sent? Inner City Press pointed out
that Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice & Equality Movement is
currently in Libya.
Kouchner and UN's Ban, Abdel Wahid Nur not shown, opaque
Inner
City Press
also posed a Nur question to the UN's Ibrahim Gambari, in New York
for the Tripartite Meeting with Sudan held on Monday afternoon in the
UN's Conference Room 7. Gambari said there is evidence Nur -- or his
supporters? -- made death threats. There is talk of a flier to this
effect, which Nur has denied.
The
politics here
seem to have Gambari, a fan of the Doha process and some say of Omar
al Bashir, wanting Abdul Wahid Nur arrested or expelled from France.
Obviously, someone is protecting him. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN,
As France Grabs the Mic, Kouchner Says to
Report Only What He Says On It: Leaving Sarkozy Government Soon?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 27, 2010 -- When Bernard Kouchner, for now the
French Foreign Minister, did a media stakeout at the UN midday
Monday, a dozen reporters showed up and fought with each other to ask
questions.
Inner City Press managed to ask a question about Sudan,
and France's hosting of Darfur rebel leader Abdul Wahid Nur, the
answer to which will be published later today. But the sideshow was
the maneuvers by France's Mission to the UN to control who could ask
questions.
As
reporters
shouted out questions ranging from Israeli settlements to the Balkans
and conditions in Haiti, Kouchner turned toward the loudest voice, or
the most interesting word he heard. Meanwhile two French reporters,
apparently promised the “right” to ask questions prior to the
stakeout, stood to the side.
The French
Mission's spokesman at first
pointed to them, then grabbed the UN microphone boom to “give”
the floor to the two French journalists.
This
degree of
control had never been seen or attempted, according to long time UN
stakeout denizens. “It makes them look like the teacher's pet,”
one such denizen remarked. Another opined that the French Mission to
the UN tries to use access to newsmakers and events as a way to
discipline or influence reporters about their coverage.
Kouchner & a mic, Mission's attempts to control
the Press not shown
On
the questions
that he did take, Kouchner was energetic, and not as directly
rude as he was during a stakeout in the UN's Temporary North Lawn
Building last week. There, when a Japanese reporters was setting up a
question, Kouchner goaded the reporter that it wasn't a question at
all.
During
his time
in New York, the French
Mission to the UN tried to tightly control
all media access to Kouchner, including snubbing some of the most
active reporters at the UN, including on the issues Kouchner speaks
most about: humanitarian access, Sudan, the Responsibility to Protect
and Myanmar. It is not clear on whose behalf this control was being
exercised.
During his
weekend
in Haiti, Kouchner reportedly said off microphone that he will soon
be leaving the Sarkozy government. Asked about this on Monday,
Kouchner bristled that the press should listen to what he says on
microphone and not off microphone.
In
his speech to
the General Assembly, Kouchner ranged back to the Security Council's
resolutions on the Kurds in Iraq in the early 1990s, talking about
the Right to Intervene and later Responsibility to Protect. How do he
and France apply this to Sudan, or to Myanmar, the topic of another
UN meeting later on Monday? We will have more on this.
* * *
, 
