Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/invunbhutto010208.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 2 -- A week after the killing of Benazir Bhutto, from Pakistan there are many requests for UN involvement in investigating the assassination. At UN headquarters on Wednesday, spokesperson Michele Montas was asked if the UN will get involved. Only if requested, she said. Inner City Press asked who the request would have to come from -- could it only be made by Pervez Musharraf, whose role would be one of the subjects of any credible investigation? The request would have to come from "the executive branch," Ms. Montas said. Video here, from Minute 11:18. She added that to such a request, the Secretary-General "would respond... it wouldn't have to be the Security Council," which was the UN body which authorized an investigation of the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in Lebanon.
But when pressed what she meant by the UN "responding," it became clear that it might be limited to simply responding to a letter with another letter. "I can't answer a hypothetical questions," Ms. Montas insisted. But given the postponement of the elections, questions of who can make a request, and how the UN would respond, are questions that should be answered.
The response of the U.S., at least of the Bush administration, is now known: the UN need not be involved, since Musharraf has invited the UK's Scotland Yard. But why wasn't that done, for example, after the death of Rafiq Hariri? In fact, Republican Senator Arlen Specter, who reportedly was to meet with Bhutto about her complaints that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was planning to rig the election, was said by Reuters to have written to
"UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to ask that he appoint an investigating commission that could include agencies like Scotland Yard and the FBI. 'It is obvious that a UN investigation would have greater public credibility,' Specter said. The United Nations is ready to help if Pakistan asks, but Musharraf's government has made no such request, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said."
That's just the issue, the request being limited to a suspect in the case. Did Sudan's president al-Bashir ask for UN peacekeepers in Darfur? Click here for Inner City Press' story today on Darfur.
