By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, December 22 -- After the sexual orientation amendment to UN General Assembly's resolution against extrajudicial executions passed on December 21, US President Barack Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement that “President Obama applauds those countries that supported” the amendment.
Ambassador Susan Rice tweeted that the US had gone “all in” to win passage of the amendment, with 93 for, 55 against and 27 abstentions -- that is, 175 votes casts of the UN's 192 member states.
Little noticed were the ten countries which did not vote at all of the LGBT amendment, but were present and voting minutes later on the overall resolution on extrajudicial executions, on which 185 votes were cast.
Late Tuesday, sources told Inner City Press this was reflexive of “arm twisting” or advocacy by the US over the weekend. “They conveniently walked out of the room,” as one source put it, appearing satisfied.
The countries which were conveniently absent on the LGBT vote included Central Asia countries with dubious human rights records: Uzbekistan, which former UK Ambassador Craig Murray accused of boiling to death the opponents of Islam Karimov; Kyrgyzstan with its recent ethnic cleansing and support from the US, and Turkmenistan, where Turkmenbashi's former dentist rules the roost.
Also out of the room or not voting on the LGBT text, but suddenly back for the executions resolution were the African nations of Gabon, Cameroon and Madagascar.
More tellingly, when Inner City Press on Wednesday morning in front of the Security Council asked one of the absent country's Ambassador about his country's sudden absence for the LGBT amendment, he acknowledged without hesitation or equivocation the pressure from the United States.
As one example among those countries which did vote, advocates pointed at the abstention, rather than "no" vote, of Jamaica.
Footnotes: A country that may have walked out and not voted for its own internal reasons is Turkey. Another, Tuvalu, is small and climate change focused. The final two are harder to understand: Myanmar and Cuba, which spoke after the vote to pillory the US' hypocrisy for abstaining from the overall extrajudicial executions resolution.
The US Mission has yet to clearly state its reason, which most take to be about its drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. Watch this site.
