By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1anthrax111009.html
UNITED NATIONS, November 10 -- At the UN Security Council stakeout the morning after the anthrax scare at the French, Austrian and Uzbek embassies, French Ambassador Gerard Araud told the Press that the letters had been mail from Dallas. "Don't mess with Texas," he said in an exaggerated drawl.
He recounted how the staff of the French Mission to the UN had been decontaminated until 3:30 in the morning in a truck outside the Mission. Women first, men after, he said, describing how people passed their clothing into a small hole, and after decontamination put on plastic suits.
The geo-political logic (of the three countries targeted) makes no sense, he said. Austria has the Council presidency this month, and has its big event, a debate on the protection of civilians, scheduled for November 11. Others mused to Inner City Press about American bases in Uzbekistan. It is a country known for torturing political opponents, and shooting them in the street.
The NYPD quickly concluded that the substance was not, in fact, anthrax. Because the common denominator is the UN, missions to, in this publication it will be called l'affaire Banthrax.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretariat used the NYPD's anti-terroristic threat squad to try to silence or back off a former UN staffer in the Democratic Republic of Congo who wrote to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon among other things that his family is still threatened in the region due to the work he did for the UN. Click here for that Inner City Press exclusive story, and watch this site.
