By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 3 -- The UN's planning on Libya now involving bringing back its British former envoy to Nepal Ian Martin on the political side, and continency planning for possible UN peacekeeping mission, multiple source have told Inner City Press.
On April 1 outside the UN Security Council, Inner City Press asked chief UN Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy to confirm that his department is engaged in planning for a possible Libya mission. We are always planning, Le Roy cryptically said.
Later, UN source told Inner City Press that, at the urging of the UK which has offered asylum to Gaddafi defectors and is bombing the country, the UN is bringing Ian Martin back, on Libya.
While Inner City Press has positively assessed Martin's work in Nepal, particularly compared with his successor there, the UN sources say that for a “Brit, at the demand of the UK, to be assigned by the UN to Libya while the RAF is bombing” is unwise, and a new low for the UN. We'll see.
Meanwhile Gaddafi's request to be represented at the UN by former Nicaraguan foreign minister -- and UN President of the General Assembly -- Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann has taken a new turn.
Contrary to other media reports, Nicaraguan sources tell Inner City Press, d'Escoto Brockmann has not left New York. The request is in to the UN to credential him as a Nicaraguan Deputy Permanent Representative -- and also to get credentials for his niece Sophia Clark.
Inner City Press previously exposed and tangled with Brockmann about his hiring of his nephew Michael Clark, who is now working for UNCTAD in New York. Now neice Sophia Clark is back in the mix, for Nicaragua and prospectively Libya. If all goes well, there will be a press conference by d'Escoto Brockmann on April 5. Watch this site.
Footnote: the degree to which Ban Ki-moon's UN is in chaos is reflected by the Saudis' shoot down, just reported exclusively by Inner City Press, of the proposal to send ASG Fernandex-Taranco to Bahrain, click here for that story.
