By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 18 -- With the prospect of military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire looking less likely at least for now, UN envoy Choi Young-jin on Tuesday told the Press of other ways to get Laurent Gbagbo out of power, including cutting off pay to the country's 140,000 civil servants.
Inner City Press asked Choi about his involvement in such planning, and whether he was pressured or influenced by particular Security Council members. Video here, from Minute 16:45.
No, Choi insisted, planning funds cut-offs is not his mandate, and only the Ouattara camp pressured him, to let the initial announcement of Ouattara as the election's winner be announced at the UN. Choi says he refused, and requested more questions on the topic.
Numerous Security Council sources have described to Inner City Press a video briefing by Choi to the Council in its closed door consultations in which US Ambassador Susan Rice and French Ambassador Gerard Araud told Choi to go ahead and certify Ouattara as the winner, even before the Constitutional Council issued its ruling.
Choi twice denied that this happened. He also denied that he had been blocked from visiting the Abobo neighborhood where civilians were being killed. But even top UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy acknowledges that Choi's convoy was stopped. It later proceeded. But describing things accurately is important.
Choi worked for the UN a decade ago in a peacekeeping logistical role. He is known to have complained that he was marginalized and not given enough power. Later, as South Korea's Permanent Representative to the UN, he helped engineer Ban Ki-moon's win at Secretary General.
Choi has been mentioned as coming back to New York to mastermind the race for a second Ban term, or perhaps being named to replace Vijay Nambiar as the UN's envoy to Myanmar. (His new posture as democracy advocate will probably not help.)
The Ban Ki-moon administration is “all in” on the campaign to replace Gbagbo. Some say they may have lost their way, forgetting that to talk about cutting off the salaries to 140,000 civil servants is hardly a UN thing to do, and that the UN is supposed to mediate, not to itself need a mediator.
But having gone down this road, will Team Ban now advocate for democracy in Tunisia, North Korea, Myanmar and elsewhere? We'll see.
