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On North Korean Missile, UN
Council's Failure to Launch Called Cautious by China
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, April 5 -- The
Security
Council meeting on North Korea broke up Sunday evening with a whisp
of
a press statement, and a seemingly illusory promise of "constructive
consultation" on getting a Council resolution to condemn North Korea's
missile launch. The most telling on-camera comment came from China's
Ambassador
Zhang Yesui, who said that the Council's response must be "cautious and
proportionate."
Council sources
tell Inner City Press that during the
consultations, China said that a press statement, and nothing more,
certainly
not a resolution, would be the appropriate response to North Korea's
launch.
Inner City Press asked Council president Claude Heller of Mexico point
blank to
confirm that China said this. That's something to ask China, Ambassador
Heller
replied.
China's reasoning emerged in background interviews
with other diplomats.
(Zhang Yesui refused all questions at the stakeout, his spokesman
saying that
he had to rush to meetings with the American mission.) Japan's
Ambassador Yukio
Takasu offered a summary of the past decade of North Korean launches
and
attempted launches, in 1998, 2006 and now. China is noting that in
1998, all
the Council did was issue a press statement. So there is precedent for
that
approach, in their view. And that is all they need.
China's Ambassador at stakeout, urging
"caution and proportionality"
Others argue that this present launch violates
2006's Resolution 1918,
which prohibited acts related to ballistic missile technology. But, the
reply
argument goes, if North Korea has a right to develop space, how else
can they
launch their satellites? And if Resolution 1718 was intended to have
the effect
of barring their development of space, it should have spelled that out.
Inner City Press asked Ambassador Takasu if the
issues of human rights
or the Japanese abductees came up, and if China had indeed said a press
statement is all that is appropriate. "That is not my position,"
Ambassador Takasu replied, leaning away from the microphone, leaving
the
questions of human rights and abductees unanswered. So too with U.S.
Ambassador
Susan Rice: she was already leaving the microphone as human rights as a
question was posed by Inner City Press. There was no answer. But there
may be
answers to all this, later this week. Watch this site.
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
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Press' March 27 UN debate
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Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
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
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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reports are
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Click here
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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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