In
US
Power Shift
from Activist
to Ambassador,
Darfur, Haiti,
Sri Lanka
on Margin
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 30
-- When an
activist
becomes an
ambassador,
what
happens?
On
September 30,
US Ambassador
Samantha Power
emerged from
the UN
Security
Council and
described to
the press some
of the General
Debate week
meetings held
by President
Barack Obama,
Vice President
Joe Biden,
Secretary of
State John
Kerry and she
had in New
York.
She
mentioned the
Biden-chaired
meeting on
Strengthening
Peace
Operations,
which came to
be described
as a pledging
conference.
But
what of
particular
problems with
UN
Peacekeeping
that need to
be
strengthened,
such as its covering
up of attack
on civilians
in
Darfur as
alleged by a
whistleblower?
UN
inaction amid
death in
Darfur is the
type of issue
an activist,
including this
one, fastens
onto and
doesn't let go.
But right now
the Obama
administration
likes and is
using the
United
Nations, and
so offers very
little
criticism of
it.
Recently
the
US State
Department
filed legal
papers
supporting the
UN's
immunity --
read, impunity
-- for
allegedly
having brought
cholera to
Haiti. In the
General Debate
on September
29, the
foreign
minister of
Saint Vincent
and the
Grenadines
“called
on the United
Nations to
accept itsrole
and offer
recompense to
the
victims of the
cholera
outbreak that
its
peacekeepers
have been
proven to
introduce to
Haiti. A year
later, the UN
continues to
dodge
its moral and
ethical
responsibility.
The legitimacy
of this body
to
conduct future
peacekeeping
missions and
the legacy of
its leadership
at the highest
levels, will
be irreparably
damaged by
failure to
immediately
redress this
glaring
wrong.”
An
activist,
including this
one, would
latch onto
such an
analysis and
not let go.
But right now,
the US is
supporting the
UN's impunity.
Inner City
Press asked UN
Spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric about
the quote
at the
September 30
noon briefing,
and he said
the UN is
raising
money, and Ban
Ki-moon
visited Haiti.
But what about
accountability?
How
can the UN
preach rule of
law while
dodging the
service of
legal
papers?
Or
a closer
question: how
can UN
Peacekeeping,
even to try to
belatedly
stop the
bloodletting
in the Central
African
Republic, use
helicopters
from the Sri
Lankan Army,
currently
under
investigation
for war crimes
by the UN's
own Human
Rights
Council?
How
about moves
against
freedom of the
press inside
the UN, in
writing,
on
video, systemic?
Or
back to
Darfur: even
in order to
carrying
corpses in the
Ebola
red-zone, how
can the UN move out
400 four by
fours from
Darfur,
which it is
accused of
covering up
ongoing
attacks on
civilians?
There
are, of
course,
smaller or
less
media-genic
issues on
which the
roles
of activist
and ambassador
don't
conflict. The
freeing in
Burundi, if
only on health
grounds, of
human rights
activist
Pierre Claver
Mbonimpa,
would seem to
merit some
comment from Ambassador
Power,
given her
comments at
the beginning
of the month
and before.
These
type of
questions are
not taken or
at least, were
not taken on
September 30.
Instead the
line of the
questions
taken, some in
advance,
ranged from a
request to
criticize
Russian
foreign
minister
Sergey
Lavrov's
General Debate
speech (done),
to praise Ban
Ki-moon
(done), and to
disagree with
Syrian
Ambassador
Bashar
Ja'afari
(done). Even
on the
perennial
issue of
Palestine
there was
little
pushing. It is
an ecosystem.
Watch this
site.
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