At UN Council Vote, Icelandic Handshakes But
Austria and Turkey Said to Have EU Juice
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 17, updated -- In the minutes before
the General Assembly began voting for new Security Council members,
Iceland's white-haired
Permanent Representative and seemingly-turbaned Foreign Minister stood
at the
entrance of the Hall shaking hands with every Ambassador who came in.
Only
Gabon was heard to promise Iceland its vote. UK Ambassador John Sawers
shook
hands, only days after his Prime Minister Gordon Brown seized an
Icelandic bank's
assets in London, in response to a failure of another, different bank
in
Iceland.
Austria's diminutive
Permanent Representative and nearly-Amazonian Foreign Minister set up
further
from the entrance, but perhaps with more effect. Although the European
Union
says it has not given guidance to its members on how to vote, EU
sources tell
Inner City Press that the EU picks are Austria -- as a replacement for
outgoing
EU member Italy -- and Turkey, in order to show that the Union is not
anti-Muslim, even as it keeps Turkey out of the EU. Iceland remains in
the
cold, in this scenario, despite the support of the other Nordic
countries. If these countries had stepped
forward to
guarantee Iceland's grants, especially to small states, things might
have gone
better. We stand to be corrected, in this very column, below.
The Press
was excluded from standing in front of the GA Hall, as was allowed in
previous
years. No one explained why. Outside the window, the UN was setting up
a
"Stand Up for Poverty" Event on the UN's front lawn. In the press
corps there was grumbling about hype events and restrictions on
covering the
news at the UN.
![](ban1plastic.jpg)
UN's Ban at another poverty event, writing on
the wall not shown
The more
troubling scuttlebutt was confided to Inner City Press on Wednesday by
the
Permanent
Representative to the UN of a major Afro-Arabic state who siad that for
many of those in his circle, Austria's "anti-Israel" strand
is a positive and not a negative factor. "Kurt Waldheim was popular
with
us," he said.
A
long-time UN official, asked Friday about this theory, moved the debate
in
another direction, saying that Waldheim was the only Secretary-General
in living
memory who did not "improperly promote his own people. "Peres de
Cuellar was only interested in parties, he let his top people run
wild,"
the story continued. And at 10:19 a.m., the General Assembly plenary
began.
Update of 10:50
a.m. -- Father Miguel d'Escoto
Brockman, president of the GA, closed the voting at 10:35 and suspended
the
meeting for an hour. Even with the Press restrictions imposed by the
UN,
attempts at exit polling yielded a few quotes. Perhaps not
surprisingly, those
without a vote, like the Permanent Observer of Palestine, were the most
willing
to talk. Inner City Press asked him, "Who would you have voted for?"
He said, "All of my friends." Others said
Iceland, though nice, is set up for a
fall. At the UN,
apparently, nice guys finish last. We'll see.
Update of 11:30
a.m. -- During the one hour break,
d'Escoto Brockman gave a speech at the Stand Up for -- or against? --
Poverty
event out on the lawn. He denounced greed and selfishness in the
developed
world and called for a tripling of aid. Inner City Press is told by
source that
d'Escoto wrote the speech in Spanish himself, last night, after
throwing out a
speech that had been prepared for him. It was translated into English,
in which
he read it. D'Escoto and his text
stood out, compared to the next
speech, UNDP's Ad Melkert droning on
in UN
system-speak. And then d'Escoto went back in
to
announce results.
Update of 11:42
a.m. -- it's done: Iceland is out.
They got only 87 votes, versus 133 for Austria and 151 for Turkey. And
Iran got
32 votes. "Iceland and Iran are out
and we don't need any more votes," a spokesman said. And that's it.
Click here
for Inner City Press' Q&A with nine representative after the vote.
Note: Catch
this reporter on
Icelandic television, www.ruv.is
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs.
* * *
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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