By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unscbf2somalia120309.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 3 -- As the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Thursday afternoon on a Presidential Statement condemning the suicide bombing in Mogadishu earlier in the day -- Inner City Press obtained, and published here before the vote, for comparison's sake, the draft PRST -- there was more mundane intrigue about a Somali from Minnesota just appointed to represent the country's Transitional Federal Government at the UN.
Inner City Press has received a variety of critique from Omar Jamal, both from Somalia and the diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere. A sample analysis is online here. But outside the Council on Thursday, it emerged that Mr. Jamal's critics are in the UN as well, and blame the United States government for his appointment.
But if the U.S. is pulling strings for the TFG, why was Somalia's vote on human rights in the Third Committee recently cast for Kim Jong-il's North Korea? It is explained historically: North Korea helped the Arab world in previous battles with Israel.
The UN, too, is ordering Mogadishu moves. It is reported that the UN urged President Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmad to reverse his firing of the police commissioner, Abdi Hasan Awale a/k/a Qeybdid Watch this site.
Update of 4:20 p.m. -- after the UN's Haile Menkerios and Susana Malcorra walked out of the Council, a break was taken. To the draft, two changes: calling the bombing "terrorist," and calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Update of 5:40 p.m. -- the PRST was adopted with minor changes. And then no one spoke at the stakeout.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/unscbf2somalia120309.html
