By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/pga2r2phonduras071609.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 16 -- The Responsibility to Protect, a concept seemingly endorsed by the UN in 2005 but since largely ignored, for example during the slaughter of civilians in Sri Lanka earlier this year, is the subject of a showdown in the UN General Assembly starting July 23. Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, the President of the General Assembly who told Inner City Press that R2P reminds him of U.S. interventions in Latin America, has scheduled a debate about the concept.
The Global Center for R to P briefed the Press on July 16 and critiqued in advance what d'Escoto and his advisor on R2P, former Indian Ambassador to the UN Nirupam Sen, are predicted to say next week.
Inner City Press asked James Traub, journalist and Global Center advisor, what he makes of d'Escoto Brockmann's appointment of Sen on R2P, and of the "murky" position of Ed Luck, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's advisor on the topic although the General Assembly does not allow use of that title or even a UN phone line by Mr. Luck.
"I'll leave aside the Ed question," Traub began, saying that former Ambassador Sen "like Father Miguel is on record opposing" R2P. Traub noted that this "historical fact" is in his "book about the UN," that Sen's opposition to R2P was "resolved only when the Foreign Minister of Canada called the Foreign Minister of India" and said, you can't let your emissary block the passage of Responsibility to Protect.
Traub's co-panelist William Pace of the World Federalist Movement added wryly, "That may be why it's a former Ambassador."
Sen has previously shot back at Ed Luck's characterization of his position on R2P, arguing to the Press that India was the first to invoke the responsibility to protect, on Bangladesh in the 1970s, and calling for a revamp of the UN Security Council, for example to prohibit a Permanent Five member of the Council from using its veto to block R2P action on itself or an ally.
UN's d'Escoto embraced by Zelaya, R2P for me but not for thee
Lost in Thursday's discussion of the President of the General Assembly's position on the responsibility to protect, which he has equated with a "responsibility to intervene," is d'Escoto Brockmann's position that Manuel Zelaya, ousted from Honduras, should be restored to power in essence by any means necessary.
D'Escoto flew on a jet owned by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez on a flight toward Tegucigalpa which was not approved by the on the ground Honduran authorities. Hugo Chavez, alongside threatening his own military action, has said that perhaps UN peacekeepers should be involved in getting Zelaya back into the country.
This is a "right to intervene" invoked for political not humanitarian reasons. What is the difference? Watch this site.
