By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7, updated Feb 8 -- While the UN Security Council's meeting on human rights and its peacekeeping missions was nearly entirely secret on Tuesday, after Inner City Press exclusively reported on it, more information came it.
As should have been expected given the topic, a question arose of why the UN mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO, does not have a human rights components. This has been proposed many times, with France countering with a stilted phrase in the resolution referring to the "human dimension" of the situation.
Now, Morocco is on the Security Council, and reportedly its representative to the General Assembly's Fourth Committee on Peacekeeping pushed back when South Africa's expert brought up the issue.
The proposer of the meeting, it's said, also pushed back. We aim to have more on this.
Update: Click here for "press lines" on the meeting.
For now we'll say that, at least other than on Western Sahara, Moroccan Ambassador Loulichki and his team have been more expected.
Loulichki & LAS, on Syria, closed door Arria not shown, (c) MRLee
Meanwhile beyond the Council's previously scheduled Wednesday morning session on the the UN Mission in Kosovo, topic of Serbian Vuk Jeremic who's gunning for President of the GA, click here for Inner City Press' story -- an afternoon briefing by Ban Ki-moon has been set up.
Most members expect to focus on Ban's travels in the Middle East -- in which for example he was protested in Gaza, and did not meet with families of Palestinians in Israeli jails -- but some also want to ask about his appearance at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
There, Ban appeared with what's described as a "huge" entourage, and proceeded to blame Russia and other member states for his own failure to take action on the lack of military helicopters in South Sudan. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky on Tuesday, when Inner City Press again asked for follow up on UNMISS envoy Hilde Johnson's promise to provide the date on which she was "subsequently" informed that Russian copters would in fact fly, referred the question to DPKO chief Ladsous.
But Ladsous' answer when he appeared at a stakeout Tuesday with Congo envoy Roger Meece did not provide the answer Hilde Johnson had provided. Human rights and peacekeeping, indeed. Watch this site.
