By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/treki1paygay091909.html
UNITED NATIONS, September 19 -- In a surreal press conference on September 18, the new Libyan president of the UN General Assembly Ali Abdussalam Treki veered from refusing to answer a question about his country's recent proposal to cut Switzerland into three parts because it is not on the Assembly's agenda to favoring the criminalization of homosexuality despite a General Assembly vote to the contrary only last year. Video here, from Minute 29:53.
Inner City Press asked Treki, twice, about Libyan President Qaddafi's letter to the UN proposing the dismemberment of Switzerland, reportedly due to Qaddafi's son being arrested in the country for abusing domestic workers. Video here, from Minute 7:20.
Treki answered that "I am not going to answer questions out of my capacity as chairman of the General Assembly's Sixth Forth session." Video here from 11:45.
But when Treki was asked about the vote in the General Assembly last year urging the decriminalization of homosexuality, he was not as restrained or diplomatic. He said "that matter is very sensitive, very touchy. As a Muslim, I am not in favor of that... it is not accepted by the majority of countries." This last would seem to contradict the vote in the General Assembly last year.
Treki continued that some countries allow homosexuality, "thinking it a kind of democracy... I think it is not." While basing his statement on Islam -- he said there are "two billion" Muslim in the world -- he also said that "probably Jewish and Buddhist and Hindu" communities are against it. Video here, from Minute 29:53. Of course if it is raised in the 64th session, he conceded, the Assembly members will have to decide.
Strangely, even 24 hours after Treki's statements, in a not badly attended press conference at the UN, captured by UN TV, not a single article yet in Google News -- until this one -- mentioned Treki and gay or homosexual. Perhaps the positions are to be expected, at the UN. [The UN's write up of the press conference omitted the Switzerland question entirely, and sanitized the gay answer to one line, here.] Perhaps news editors are already looking to what they hope will be freakish events, statements and meetings in next week's General Assembly meeting. But it has already begun...
Footnote: Inner City Press has asked Treki's spokesman Jean-Victor Nkolo how many people in Treki's Office of the President of the General Assembly will be paid by the Libyan government. Mr. Nkolo returned the next day to say that none would be paid by Libya. Inner City Press asked if Treki will be paid by Libya this year. Nkolo repeated again and again that past practice will be followed, without answering the question. He has committed to answer it going forward. From the UN's September 16 transcript:
Inner City Press: Mr. Treki himself, will he be compensated by Libya during this year or will he receive no compensation? How is he actually going to be paid this year?
Spokesperson: The work and the treatment of the President of the sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly will not be different from past practice and ongoing procedures in the United Nations.
Inner City Press: Does that mean that his native country will be paying him? That’s all I am asking.
Spokesperson: It only means that what Mr. Treki will be doing and the context into which he will be working will not be different from what has been going on and from what is in line with the budgetary and United Nations practices as we know them.
Correspondent: Not everybody knows them.
Inner City Press: Yeah. And there have been differences…
Spokesperson: Then I’ll come back to you and provide them to you.
Watch this site. Click here for story on Treki from June 2009.And see, www.innercitypress.com/treki1paygay091909.html
