By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 11 -- When American diplomat Brooke D. Anderson was tapped to move from the US Mission to the UN in New York to become deputy chief of the National Security Agency in Washington, another Ambassador on the UN Security Council commiserated with Inner City Press what a “big loss to USUN” it would be.
Monday night at the Waldorff towers, Ms. Anderson was bid farewell by many of her past and recent Security Council colleagues, for examples the Permanent Representatives of Gabon, Brazil and Russia, previous member Austria and new member India. Susan Rice said how much she would miss Brooke, then to party on.
The talk turned to the UN and African elections, the topic of a closed door briefing earlier on Monday. “The UN is not supposed to be a supra national body,” the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo complained. “At some point a red flag will be raised.”
Another Ambassador, serving on the Council, said that Laurent Gbagbo had brought about the beginning of the end of his command in Cote d'Ivoire by basing his power in recent years on UN Security Council resolutions “instead of the Ivorian constitution.”
Two members, one Permanent and the other wanna-be, agreed that Ivory Coast would be the last time that UN would be in the position of certifying an election or its winner. The phrase used in the Council was sui generis, a Latin phrase meaning "one of a kind" much used with regard to Kosovo.
Earlier on Monday, Inner City Press had asked the UN's part time Special Advisor on Africa if he was every consulted, by Lynn Pascoe of the Department of Political Affairs before his briefing on African elections, or with regard to Cote d'Ivoire. No, he said, I specialize in economic and development issues.
What about actions on Ivorian cocoa customs revenue? He replied that Ban Ki-moon's envoy Choi Young-jin is doing a “great” job.
An African Permanent Representative who had seen the question and answer rolled his eyes and asked, “What else is he going to say?”
So who dares speak truth to power, and say when a policy is wrong? The US abstained from the General Assembly resolution against arbitrary executions, and couldn't or wouldn't explain why. One surmised it concerned drones, but the official line, repeated Monday night, vaguely referred to “misreadings of international humanitarian law.”
Introduced on Monday night was Ms. Anderson's (at least temporary) successor, David Dunn. He's a 32 year State Department veteran who served, among other things, as US Ambassador to Zambia and Togo.
It was explained that the formal replacement is “pending in Congress,” as is that for the long vacant position at USUN for management and budget. It has been filled for some time by Joseph Melrose, observed by Inner City Press working the General Assembly floor at 4 am on December 23-24, 2010 on the budget.
A Council press statement on Cote d'Ivoire was agreed to and read out by Bosnia's Deputy Permanent Representative at 6 pm on Monday. Since Ms. Anderson was in charge of negotiating the text, its adoption presumptively had something to do with, and was a tribute to, her farewell reception which began mere minutes later.
We note in no particular order her first stakeout (on Guinea-Bissau), a later one on Cote d'Ivoire, an initial dispute with USUN whether she would be the Mission's Number Three or Four official (the former, as Rosemary DiCarlo did not end of overlapping with Alejandro Wolff, with whom one would still like to speak about the 2009 meeting with the ICC's Luis Moreno Ocampo about Omar al Bashir's billions, minutes as Wikileaked classified by Mr. Wolff) -- and the response, ultimately true, that Ms. Anderson didn't care so much for titles. We wish her well.
