By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/sc1margab030210.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 2, updated -- As the UN Security Council's work program for March emerged to the Press as this month's president Gabon served muffins and fruit salad, what struck correspondents was a footnote. The second footnote, to be exact: "Non-proliferation." The Iranian nuclear issue, so much discussed in the press, has risen to be the second footnote of the Council for March. "Maybe by May it will actually be on the schedule," snarked one jaded reporter.
The only late breaking development not reflected on the program of work -- which Inner City Press is putting online here, two hours before Gabon unveils it at a press conference -- is that Chad's Idriss Deby has agreed to an extension of the MINURCAT peacekeeping mission for two months, to May 15. So there will be a meeting of Troop Contributing Countries about the mission.
On the developments in Darfur, the deal between the Omar al Bashir government and Khalil Ibrahim's JEM rebels, the public praise by the Secretary General and Security Council, and even US envoy Scott Gration, is contradicted in private meeting of the Permanent Five by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, according to inside sources. They say Ms. Rice calls it a mere "truce," not an agreement, between "two Islamist factions."
One would like to ask Ms. Rice to speak on this, but she was not seen at the Council's Tuesday morning breakfast. Some correspondents are invited to her reception for Committee on the Status of Women delegates on Wednesday evening at the U.S. Mission. Perhaps more will emerge from there.
On March 12, the Council will consider the periodic report on Resolution 1701, regarding Lebanon and Israel. Pro-Hezbollah sources tell Inner City Press that while UN envoy Michael Williams gave assurances to the Lebanese that the report would confirm that a shepherd captured and interrogated by Israel had been on Lebanese territory, in New York Lynn Pascoe was responsible for changing the report to say that UNFIL's investigation is not complete.
Loss of face for Williams, the source says. And so it goes.
Update: when the program of work was issued in final form, as predicted it included a "private meeting of MINURCAT TCCs," on Tuesday March 9. It also included on more footnote: ICTY judges. Inner City Press asked Gabon's Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet about the footnote on West Africa - could it include the coup in Niger -- and about Myanmar, why it is not even a footnote for the month. Video here, from Minute 13:28.
Issoze-Ngondet replied that by West Africa being a footnote, the Coucnil "remains vigilant," including he said on Niger. But does Myanmar not even being a footnote mean the Council is not vigilant?
