US
Month Ends
with Kerry -
& Hate
Speech? - in
UNSC, Power in
Wings
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July
29 -- As the
United States'
month as
President of
the
UN Security
Council comes
to a close,
it's time to
review it as
best
as we can.
Secretary of
State John
Kerry came
once, on a
July 25 day
trip, to chair
the meeting on
Africa's Great
Lakes region.
While
there, the
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo's
foreign
minister said
that all
rebellions in
the region
bear the same
"genetic
signature."
After
diplomats from
a number of
member states
complained
this was hate
speech, even
"genocide
talk,"
Inner City
Press asked
the US Mission
to the UN if
it had a
comment.
Apparently it had
none, as least
as of yet.
And
outside the US
Mission on
July 25, after
a two hour
wait for a 45
second photo
op of Kerry
and Syria
oppositionist
al Jarba,
Kerry told
Inner City
Press he hadn't
heard the
comment.
Fine - but it
was in
the DRC's
written speech,
and is on UN
Webcast.
UN video here at 1:06:20
(The
US Mission
did, we note,
provide a response from
Kurtis Cooper
about cholera
in Haiti at the
beginning of
the month,
and from
Payton Knopf
about the rapes in
Minova in
November by
the Congolese
Army near the
end of the
month, here.)
Ambassador
Rosemary
DiCarlo
handled the
presidency
ably, held a
number of
stakeouts;
Jeffrey
DeLaurentis
held one, and
answered
questions on
Darfur. But
what's been
done on the
seven
peacekeepers
killed there?
Syria
was and is the
"big one."
Interesting,
at the General
Assembly
session on
July 29,
the US was
humble. While
the UK's Mark
Lyall Grant
and even
France's
fill-in for
Gerard Araud
went to the
front and
inveigh,
Ambassador
DiCarlo spoke
from her seat,
later in
the meeting.
Will this be
Samantha
Power's
approach when,
as seems
sure to
happen, she
arrives?
Among
diplomats
asked Monday
by Inner City
Press about
Samantha
Power, a
number noted
things she'd
said at her
confirmation
hearing. That
the
US has nothing
to apologize
for about the
Rwanda
genocide
struck some
more than
others as a
false note,
inconsistent
with her book
"A
Problem from
Hell." But
what will she
do, once at
the UN? Watch
this site.
Footnote:
there
are three
mandate
renewals to be
"done" on July
30.
Of them, Inner
City Press is
told that the
Cote d'Ivoire
renewal
might, just
might, have
"explanations
of vote," on
the
draw-down of
peacekeepers
and on "ICC
issues."
Others say
it will just
fly through
without a
single
explanation.
We'll see.
, 
