At
UN,
Budget
Endgame on Peacekeeper Funds Tied to Sexual Abuse, Vote Delayed
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
30 -- On the day that funding for UN peacekeepers would
expire, the UN Budget committee postponed a vote, already repeatedly
put off, on the new budget that was scheduled for 3 pm.
Among
the most interesting issues in the air duing the endgame is whether
peacekeeping money should be paid out to
troops have been accused of sexual abuse or exploitation.
In the
North Lawn conference room where a vote was already supposed to have
taken place, Inner City Press spoke with Shavendra Silva, the Deputy
Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka, a group of whose peacekeepers
had been repatriated from the UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, after
being charged with sexual abuse of underaged girls.
Neither the
UN nor Sri Lanka has ever reported on any discipline of the accused Sri
Lankan troops after their repatriation.
Thursday
at
5 pm in the North Lawn
building while mid-level diplomats lounged waiting in the downstairs
conference room, upstairs UK
Deputy Permanent Representative Philip Parham strode with an
entourage out of the office of the Group of 77 and China, which is
pushing for a long delayed raise for the
UN's peacekeepers, generally
from the developing world.
Ten
minutes later,
the European Union's top diplomat in New York returned down G-77
hallway in his light colored summer suit. Outside diplomats from
Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Cuba milled around talking on their cell
phones.
Downstairs
African
diplomats
told Inner City Press that rather than the usual consensus,
there would be a vote on this budget. Security officers asked how
long they would have to work this coming evening.
On the other
hand, Inner City Press spotted President of the General Assembly Joseph
Deiss leaving the UN, with a body guard and a red rolling suitcase.
"What about the budget?" Inner City Press asked. "We have a deal,"
Deiss said. But the milling around continued long after he left.
Inner
City
Press
asked Serbia's Permanent Representative if he was here for budget.
“Yes,” he said. “If it's a showdown they want, it's a showdown
they'll get.” But at the UN these things are usually worked out.
Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
on
Abyei
Resolution, Western Delay on Budget & Bombing
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
24
-- With much talk of the urgency of authorizing and
sending Ethiopian troops to Abyei in Sudan, a split has developed in
the Security Council about the timing and contents of the necessary
Council resolution.
Within
the
Council's
Permanent
Five members, there's both support for adopting
the Abyei resolution on Friday June 24, to get the clock running.
Other P-5 members want a briefing from the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations and have an additional round of amendments.
Blame
for
delay
is
usually cast on Russia and China, as on the moribund Syria
resolution. But in this case, the United Kingdom acknowledges having
more amendments, and not seeing a difference on the ground for
waiting until next week. Sources on June 24 told Inner City Press that
France too is for delay. French Ambassador Gerard Araud was observed on
June 22 outside the closed meeting on Darfur complaining about the
budget.
The
issues on
content involve not only whether and how much -- if any -- of the
criticism of Khartoum's bombing in Abyei and South Kordofan to
migrate from the draft Presidential Statement introduced earlier in
the week by the United States, but also what relation the Ethiopian
force will have with the post July 9 UN mission in South Sudan.
Some
feel
that
doesn't
need to be decided at this time, in a way that results in any
delay of adopting the Abyei resolution authorizing the Ethiopian
troops to deploy to Abyei.
Following
the
UN's
confirmation this week of Inner City Press' scoop that Norway's
Hilde
Johnson has been tapped by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to succeed
Haile Menkerios for the UN in South Sudan, seemingly at the request
of the US Mission and Ambassador Susan Rice, some pushback has
developed in the Security Council, where praise of Menkerios is
contrasted to Hilde Johnson's history as an advocate.
Ban's
spokesman
Martin
Nesirky
said that the Council has been consulted or
coordinated with before Ban tapped Hilde Johnson. Comments on June 24
did not seem to bear that out. Watch this site.
, 
