At
UN,
April's Council President Says Kouchner's Haiti Bid Is Over,
Bahrain Qs
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 3 -- Relations with regional groupings were the topic
April4 when Colombia's Ambassador Nestor Osorio met on the record
with the press about his presidency this month of the UN Security
Council.
Inner
City Press
asked Osorio to confirm that the GRULAC grouping of Latin American
countries had blocked the candidacy of France's Bernard Kouchner to
head the UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.
Kouchner
is no
longer a candidate, Osorio said diplomatically. Pressed, he said that
there is a preference among Latin countries that the successor for
Guatemalan Edmond Mulet atop MINUSTAH be a Latin American.
In
this, Osorio was
willing to express a regional position. But when Inner City Press
asked him about his relations with others in GRULAC, particularly in
the leftist Grupo ALBA. Osorio said that he gets his instructions
only from his capital, Bogota.
This
varies, for
example, from Lebanon's role for the Arab Group, and the Council's
African members' actions to raise African Union positions. Grupo
Alba sources say their ambassadors went to meet with outgoing Council
president Li Baodong of China on the past day of his presidency. How
will they interact with Osorio?
Osorio & Ban Ki-moon, oversight not shown
Asked
about
Bahrain, Osorio explained the Council not getting involved by saying
that the regional group -- the GCC -- did not favor UN involvement.
(Inner City Press has
reported exclusively on Saudi Arabia telling
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon NOT to send Oscar Fernandez-Taranco as
an envoy to Bahrain, which Ban's spokesman Nesirky would not deny
on
Monday.)
Osorio
was asked
about the wisdom of deferring to the GCC, which has Saudi and UAE
troops in Bahrain, on what should be done there. He did not have an
answer. It was a chaotic and somewhat tense press conference,
followed by muttering. And it is just the beginning on the month. We
see to retain an open mind. Watch this site.
* * *
As
US
Blocks
d'Escoto
on Libya, Grumblings About Free Speech & Precedent
at
Chinese Reception
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
31
-- Barely an hour after Susan
Rice of the US said
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann would find his tourist visa under review if
he purported to represent Libya or any foreign government at the UN,
Wednesday's
Chinese
End
of Security Council Presidency reception
seven block south of the UN was abuzz about the standoff.
Several
Permanent
Representatives
expressed
shock to Inner City Press that d'Escoto
Brockmann's press
conference scheduled for March 31 at 10 am had so quickly been
canceled or “postponed.”
Inner City
Press was told that the when
the UN Secretariat received the complaint, rather than point out that
other press conferences have been held by non diplomats they moved to
cancel Brockmann's “show.”
“Ban Ki-moon
has gone too far,” a Latin American diplomat told Inner City Press.
“Maybe the UN should be moved to Brazil.”
Another
Deputy
Permanent
Representative,
this time of a country on the Security
Council, told Inner City Press about a Council credentials rule that
if a citizen of one country seeks to represent another, he or she
needs letters from both countries.
The
example given,
repeatedly now, is of an Irish national who was an expert working for
Austria when it was on the Council. He could not get a letter from
Ireland and so was not allowed in the Council, at least not for
consultations.
But
d'Escoto
Brockmann could easily get a letter from Nicaragua, and he has a
letter from Musa Koussa when he was Gaddafi's foreign minister,
before his reported defection.
Another
Permanent
Representative
pointed
out to Inner City Press that the Musa Koussa
letter is undated, and said the US and UN will use that.
D'Escoto & Ban, previously: March 30
reception & March 31 presser not shown
The
result is that
the US, by invoking immigration rules, “mocking” as one Latin
diplomat put it to Inner City Press its duties under its Host Country
Agreement with the US, is blocking the UN press corps from hearing a
perspective that the US doesn't like.
Outside
the
earshot
of
the Chinese hosts of Wednesday's reception, some mused
back to the case of Tiananmen Square activist Shen Tong, whom China
and then Boutros Ghali blocked from entering the UN to hold a press
conference.
Then,
UN
correspondents
protested
and went (just) outside the UN's gates on
First Avenue to hear the canceled briefing. And at that time, notably,
the US is said to have sided with the right of the UN press corps to
invite and hear from whomever they wanted, inside the UN. Watch this
site.
Footnote:
because
so
many
attendees commented on it, so will we: the food at
China's reception was amazing, from roast duck to fish spiced with
chiles. Afterward DVDs were given out about minorities in China.
Several
Council
observers praised China's diplomacy as President for
March, for example circulating two letters from Libya without
obsessing about where they'd come in from. Now Colombia takes over
for April; they are already preparing an end of April reception,
Colombian music at a museum. But we'll have more soon on their
program of work. Watch this site.
, 
