By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 29 -- “We think we can take Tripoli by the middle of July,” rebel Libyan diplomat Ibrahim Dabbashi told Inner City Press in New York's Central Park Zoo on Wednesday night.
“We were supposed to have finished already, but because of lack of financial resources, lack of arms, we were not able to make it to Tripoli yet.”
Waiters offered black and white chocolate bonbons. The venue was a barbeque hosted by US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and her husband Ian Cameron.
It was an eclectic crown. Not only Dabbashi, who defected from the Gaddafi goverment, but also sitting Sudanese Permanent Representative Daffa Alla Ali Osman were in attendance.
“It is not easy,” Dabbashi continued. “Tripoli is huge. He [Gaddafi] managed to put arms, mercenaries and soldiers everywhere. So to have success uprising in Tripoli, uou need a lot of personal arms. Without help from outside of the city, it is very difficult.”
In the middle of the Central Park Zoo seals swam in dark water. Several attendees, sipping Heineken and Amstel Light, joked about the seals being Navy Seals of the kind who killed Osama Bin Laden.
“We think we can do it by middle of July,” Dabbashi repeated. “We have a city in the west part, we aim to move forward in the next two or three days. If we manage, the way is open... We are not counting on the east, it is too far, a small army , not enough. In the western cities -- we have enough people, we don't have arms.”
Earlier in the evening, after touring the air conditioned hall of polar birds, Inner City Press was told by an African Deputy Permanent Representative that France's admission it is dropping weapons in Western Libya “must” be taken up by the Security Council's Libya sanctions committee.
Inner City Press asked Dabbashi, what about recent speeches by India's Permanent Representative Hardeep Singh Puri, present for the barbeque, and by African diplomats like Ruhakana Rugunda of Uganda?
Of the African Union Dabbashi told Inner City Press, “I talked with their ministers when here [June 15], it is mostly personal reaction to their visit to Benghazi... We don't have protocol, we are in shortage of diplomats there. They felt they had been mistreated... I think with the warrant of arrest [of the International Criminal Court for Gaddafi], they will cool down, it will change them.”
Daffa Alla Ali Osman of Sudan moved through the crowd. In a parallel universe, Georgia's Permanent Representative Lomaia and a minister in from Tblisi thanked countries which voted for or abstained from their resolution to return internally displaced people to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Inner City Press spoke with the Permanent Representative of the Maldives, who voted for Georgia's resolution on “humanitarian grounds,” he said, now that Maldives is a member of the Human Rights Council.
Papua New Guinea voted with Russia last year, and this year abstained. “I'll get a visit,” the genial Permanent Representative said. “But we have to be for peace.”
Also in the crowd was Rwanda's Permanent Representative, who again reminded Inner City Press of the Twitter back and forth with President Paul Kagame. Other Permanent Representatives shook their heads, chewing on cheese burgers, and some few on vegetable burgers.
“You have to write about the aqua economy,” Papua New Guinea's ambassador joked, staring up at a blimp advertising Direct TV. Aqua economy indeed.
Germany takes over the Security Council on Friday, after the Golan Heights peacekeeping force resolution is slated for vote on Thursday. Will the rebels take Tripoli by the middle of July? Will France face consequences for admitting dropping weapons into Libya, on which the Council voted an arms embargo? Watch this site.