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On Darfur, Libya Vows Opposition to UK Draft As ICC
Is Celebrated with Warm Beer, Backwash of Good Intentions
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
February 10 -- The United Kingdom
circulated a draft Darfur statement Tuesday afternoon in the Security
Council.
Libya immediately denounced it, for failing to include a suggested
paragraph
noting the African Union's call on the Council to suspend the
International
Criminal Court's proceedings against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.
A Libya
delegate told Inner City Press that Uganda and Burkina Faso are solidly
behind
the paragraph, but that Russia and China had been surprisingly quiet in
the
consultations.
Hours later,
just across First Avenue from the UN, a celebration of the ICC features
a jazz
trio, cold Heineken beer and Philippe Kirsch, the retiring ICC
president.
Kirsch had without explanation cancelled his scheduled media
availability on
Tuesday afternoon. A human rights watcher in the half-light explained
that as a
judge, Kirsch felt it better not to speak. But why then was it
scheduled? The watcher, told that the
controversy around
the impending indictment of Bashir was already gumming up the Council's
day to
day work of issuing statements of outrage many days after military
actions,
blamed it on the Libyans.
But they
are only asking for recognition of the position of the African Union,
which
they now head up. The watcher said, not
all AU countries feel the same. But while not all European Union
countries
totally agree with that Union's position, once it is adopted, the
members
follow it. But when Africans follow suit, they are called irresponsible.
ICC's Kirsch, blog description of Moreno-Ocampo's controversies not
shown
Distributed
at the Coalition for the ICC's event -- an annual celebration, the
watcher
pointed out -- was a flyer for a new pseudo-grassroots blog, "In
Situ," described as an "endeavor to help bridge the gap between
populations affected by the crimes under the Court's investigation and
the
ICC's daily activities at its headquarters in The Hague... opening blog
discussion on the Court's first trial in the case of The Prosecutor vs.
Thomas
Lubanga Dyilo."
But will
the blog describe how the attempt to screen the Lubanga trial in the DR
Congo
results in rioting, and push back from Lubanga's group?
Will the activities in the Hague include the
controversies surrounding Luis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor? In the
half-light, with soft jazz, there was only the backwash of good
intentions.
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
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
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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