By Matthew Russell Lee, News Muse
UNITED NATIONS, December 11 -- Amid UN news of Sudan, Haiti and Cote d'Ivoire there are smaller or happenstance happenings we'll try to cover at week's end. Yet another round of fumigation for bedbugs began in the press area on Friday, so this is written in exile.
At week's end on December 10 a diplomat with the Indian Mission to the UN said that Brazil's pro-Iran work with Turkey was a Lula project, not supported by the new president. This is like much of the info in WikiLeaks: second hand but interesting.
On December 8 a European nation's Permanent Representative was telling Inner City Press, a propos of WikiLeaks, that he assumes he is being spied on, that all countries do it. Then when his cell phone rang he showed it to Inner City Press. “I have to take this, the ASG is calling me,” he said referring to an Assistant Secretary General from his country. Who is spying on whom?
Smallest but most telling event of the week was during an International Criminal Court state parties side event on December 9. The organizers offered sandwiches out in the hall, to draw a crowd: surprisingly peppery chicken salad, roast beef or a fast disappearing vegetarian option.
A sign on Conference Room 8 said not to bring the sandwiches or other food in. But when Inner City Press looked inside, there were sandwiches everywhere, the plastic wrappers loudly opening, erudite attendees chewing. One wag remarked, here they are at the UN talking about the rule of law and they can't even enforce the rule written on the door.
At the ICC meeting Inner City Press met again Costa Rica's Jorge Urbina, previously Permanent Representative to the UN, now ambassador to the Hague. Much was made of the presence of President Santos of Colombia. But his predecessor Uribe does not seem any closer to prosecution.
Others noted that Uganda's ambassador to the Hague is in fact Dutch, just as Palau's Permanent Representative to the UN is not, in fact, from Palau. He pitched Inner City Press again last week about protection of sharks, hard to argue with that argument.
One who lost an argument, about the ICC Prosecutor's Office (non) sharing of evidence with the defense in the Lubanga trial, Beatrice le Frapper Du Hellen, has resurfaced with France's Mission to the UN. Some are noticing changes in France's positions on the ICC and its prosecutor. If the law is in fact what the judge ate for breakfast, France's speeches are whoever gets into the kitchen last.
Back to the rule of law: at the weekend, the former prime minister of Croatia Ivo Sanader was arrested for corruption. He was a sponsor of now UN human rights official Ivan Simonovic, appointing him as Justice Minister in 2008. How can one of the UN's top rule of law officials be so affiliated with a minister arrested for corruption, as well as with Franjo Tudman, accused post mortem of war crimes? But so it goes at the UN.
