By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 11 -- UN official Ibrahim Gambari was targeted for firing by the previous US administration, for being too close to the military government of Myanmar, to which he was UN envoy, a cable Wikileaked this week has shown:
“Mr. Gambari's inappropriate claims of success regarding peripheral issues, and his unwillingness to press the regime more forcefully for progress have caused us to conclude that his continued involvement undermines the good offices mission and should therefore be ended... USUN is asked to demarche SYG Ban or Ambassador Kim to seek Gambari's dismissal as SRSG for Burma. This demarche should occur as soon as practical.”
What happened next is telling: the overly dictator friendly Gambari was transferred by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to cover Darfur in Sudan.
There, Gambari has gone out of his way not to investigate or report on killing by the government of Omar al Bashir.
On December 9, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN praised the UN Mission in Darfur and the “seasoned diplomat” who is in charge -- Gambari.
What has the US Administration of Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice done about Gambari? So far, nothing.
During the Security Council's October 2010 trip to Sudan and Darfur, Susan Rice had multiple opportunities to give the Administration's view of Gambari's performance, but did not.
Gambari in Darfur with Susan Rice et al., Oct 2010, action not shown (c) MRLee
The Wikileaked cable, in which Condoleezza Rice directed a demarche to Ban or “Ambassador Kim” that Gambari should be take off the Burma file, resulted in that action. If the argument is that the current US Mission to the UN is working behind the scene on this, so far no results have been seen.
