Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2may4srilanka051109.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 11, updated -- In the face of the weekend's bloodbath on the beach in Sri Lanka, the UN Security Council had its more throw-away meeting yet on the topic, not even an informal Council session, without members such as China and Russia, the Council's president this month. In April, the Council met in the UN basement in informal interactive sessions, with all 15 members present and a common statement at the end. Monday, only some members went up to a meeting room booked at the last minute on the UN”s 33rd floor.
The basement “wasn't available,” a Permanent Five member's spokesperson told Inner City Press. No list of the NGOs participating was available. Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice about Sri Lanka. She said she would be attending the meeting. Inner City Press asked if she would speak publicly on the topic after the meeting. Maybe, was the answer. As of 3 p.m., it had not happened.
After the meeting, the foreign ministers of France, the UK and Austria came down to the microphone in front of the Council. Inner City Press directed a question at France's Bernard Kouchner, whether he would use the expiration of the European Union's favorable tariff treatment for Sri Lankan textiles, the so-called GSP Plus, as a way to try to protect civilians from government bombing as took place over the weekend.
The answer came from the UK's Miliband, that “Sri Lanka does not want to isolate itself from the international community... Sri Lanka depends to some extent on trade with the European Union [so] the human rights aspects of the discussion are taken seriously, by the European Commission at this stage.” Only then did Kouchner answer, that “Benita Ferrero-Waldner has been involved.”
After the stakeout was over, Kouchner was spirited to one side of the stakeout, and security officers let some reporters through and not others.
Inner City Press was blocked, physically, by French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert. “You just had him,” Ripert said. “He can talk to the French press, can't he?” Inner City Press nodded. Behind Ripert were numerous non-French reporters and publications, from New York, London, Tokyo and elsewhere. Some Ripert had reached into the crowd and pulled in. “I don't want you to use that,” Ripert insisted, pointing at the recorder Inner City Press was holding. “We work well, right?”
Kouchner was heard to say, Devant nous, des milliers -- “right in front of us, thousands,” presumably meaning civilians, killed on or near the beaches of north east Sri Lanka. At this same location, Ripert had told the Press that while the American want to play with the IMF loan, France wants to stop the violence. That hasn't worked. Now the UK is on record tying the IMF loan to the conflict, and speaking about the EU tariffs. And France? Watch this space: when we are informed of France's views, they will be published on this site. The French mission suggests http://www.franceonu.org/spip.php?article3903
