By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, December 22 -- The UN Security Council in January, when Southern Sudan's secession referendum is scheduled, will be chaired by Bosnia - Herzegovina.
A confidential copy of the Program of Work, obtained by Inner City Press, shows a month with at least three briefings on Sudan including Darfur (on the 6th, 17th and 26th), one on Central Asia (on the 13th), an open meeting on post conflict institution building (on the 21st) and explosive Cote d'Ivoire in a footnote, to be brought up if necessary.
Many close observers of the Security Council deem it a surprisingly light schedule. Also, in the assignment of chairman positions for the Council's subsidiary bodies in 2011, Bosnia has been given only one working group, that on Working Methods.
Cynics said the Permanent Five members had chosen Bosnia over Portugal for this potentially reforming post precisely because they do not want reform.
Bosnia's Permanent Representative Ivan Barbalic has to date always been genial, though most in the UN press corps haven't yet heard much from him or his Deputy. That should chance this month.
In wider Balkan - Security Council news, the youth video from Serbia initially selected for one of the final four by the US Mission was vetoed as not being sufficiently tied to the Security Council's agenda, as it was about natural resources.
A diplomat remarked that the Serbian youth who made the vetoed video was particularly well spoken: a new Vuk Jeremic, it was said.
Footnote: in yet more Bosnia video news, concerning the protests to UNHCR by Bosnian rape victims of Angelina Jolie and her new movie, Inner City Press this month asked the UN's expert of Sexual Violence and Conflict Margot Wallstrom for any guidance on the controversy. Though Wallstrom had just been in Bosnia, she said she didn't understand the protests. We'll see.
