Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

For UNSC, Netherlands 96 and Italy 94, Why Not Split The 2 Year Term?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 27 -- In the contested race for the Asia Pacific Group, Kazakhstan defeated Thailand, joining Bolivia and Ethiopia which ran unopposed, and Sweden which won the first round with 134 for seats.

Before the lunch break, Netherlands got 96 to Italy's 94. So: another run-off, at 3 pm.

Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Francois Delattre, the President of the Security Council for June, how it could be resolved. “Three thousand phone calls,” he quipped, calling it “UN diplomacy in action.”

   Inner City Press has another simple idea: why not split the two-year term, one year for each? (We'll dub this the "Charter be damned" option - since Ban Ki-moon doesn't care about violating a 1946 GA resolution to seek South Korea's presidency).

Or more realistically, why not a third candidate - Iceland, say?

Inner City Press ran from the strangely-begun UN briefing to catch Swedish minister Margot Wallstrom's stakeout, and asked about sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers. She said the issued should be in every Security Council mandate. Periscope here; we'll have more on this.

Inner City Press asked Bolivia's Permanent Representative about Ban Ki-moon letting Saudi Arabia off the UN's Yemen Children and Armed Conflict list and about Western Sahara (Bolivia is on the Decolonization Committee); Periscope here.

Inner City Press asked Kazakhstan's minister about Ukraine, and what his Permanent Representative had said about Central Asia not until now being represented on the Council. Only Ethiopia, among the winners, had yet to take questions by 2 pm. Watch this site.

After the first rounds voting, while the ballots were being counted, Paolo Gentiloni worked the crowd, as captured by Inner City Press on Periscope. DutchKoeners spend a long time with Benin. Uruguay passed out letters for a Rights of the Child candidate.

In the days before the vote, Italy gave out gelato, the Netherlands played soccer, Sweden did a mid-summer festival, Thailand did a lot including meeting with African Ambassadors and Kazakhstan had a live singer at the Plaza Hotel, Inner City Press Periscope video here. What would it come to?

On the way in, Inner City Press asked Next SG candidate Vuk Jeremic how it's going. He said no one can compete with Helen Clark's resources from UNDP, not to mention New Zealand, but reminded Inner City Press of his answer, that he would defend whistleblowers. That would set him apart from the current administration.

Earlier on June 27, prosecutors in Federal court downtown described South South News as a vehicle of bribery. The UN treats it with kids gloves, while evicting Inner City Press. This is today's UN.

On May 24, the second day of UN Security Council election debates featured three states - Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy - on May 24 vying for two seats, with the voting set for June 28. Inner City Press is informed that most states have already committed their votes, and it is unclear if anything said during the debate would sway such a decision.

Italy said it is at the crossroads of East and West; it has been on the Security Council six times since joining the UN in 1955, the most recent in 2007.

Sweden, by contrast, has been on the Council three times, and also the further back in time, in 1997. For the Netherlands it's been five times, the most recent in 1999.

   Sweden noted that it has recognized Palestine - perhaps offsetting for some its dust-up with Saudi Arabia. Netherlands candidly brought up Srebrenica, as a dark mark on its past; it said as it had set up meetings with states beyond the Security Council for now Foreign Minister Bert Koenders when he was un envoy in Mali and Cote d'Ivoire, it would do the same in the future. Italy cited the theft and sale of cultural heritage by terrorists.

   Among the questions, UK Ambassador Matthew Rycroft asked the three, who would come onto the just as the Next SG will, how they would work with her. Italy said it has not spend so much on its campaign, it's all part of foreign policy. A contested application in the NGO Committee beckoned, and so it was time to go. What remained constant was that due to UN eviction and censorship, Inner City Press was required to have a minder to reach the stakeout.

The day before on May 23 when Kazakhstan and Thailand debated, such as it was, for the Asia Pacific seat on the UN Security Council, Inner City Press again could only reach the stakeout with a minder, thanks to Ban Ki-moon's and Cristina Gallach's censorship. Still, while canned questions were posed by DPA and others inside, outside diplomats told Inner City Press this “reform” was more illusory than real.

“We've already made up our mind,” as one diplomat put it. Or as another specified, votes for Security Council seats are traded early among nations; no debate a few weeks out can change it. Still, Amnesty International asked about about Morocco and Western Sahara, South Sudan and Malakal.

Kazakhstan pointed out no Central Asian country has yet served on the Council. Thailand cited its pedigree. Inner City Press tweeted these and got push back.

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Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.