By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 29 --
After the UN
Security
Council heard
from Syria
envoy Kofi
Annan's deputy
Jean-Marie
Guehenno and
his second
successor atop
UN
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous
on Wednesday,
Inner City
Press asked
Russian
Permanent
Representative
Vitaly Churkin
about
Ladsous'
comments that
there is a
"strong rumor"
that the
killings in
Houla were
started by
pro-government
Shabiha
militia.
Wednesday Churkin answered Inner City Press that the investigation of Houla is not finished, and that as an investigator Ladsous does not have "all the tools." It may be that truer words have not recently been spoken at the UN.
Inner City Press also asked Churkin about the trend of countries expelling Syrian diplomats. He replied that while this is a bilateral matter, it had come up in the Council's consultations. He said that such moves could be "misinterpreted" as presaging a military intervention.
Churkin took questions without a spokesman mediating. By contrast when French Deputy Permanent Representative Martin Briens spoke, his Mission's spokesman Brieuc Pont took full control of who could ask questions. After the series, as Inner City Press asked "what about expelling diplomats," Briens shrugged and walked away from the microphone.
German Ambassador Peter Wittig, also mediated by spokesman, did much the same thing, walking away as the Press started asking the "expelling diplomats" question. The previous day Wittig bragged on the record at the stakeout about his foreign minister expelling Syria's representative from Berlin. It would be good to take the question: watch this site.
Footnotes: When a representative of Agence France Presse asked Churkin if Russian weapons were being used to kill civilians in Syria, Churkin responded that the sales were in the past and had complied with law. Not asked was France's more recent air-dropping of weapons into the Nafusa Mountain in Libya: how many of those weapons are in today's Mali / Azawad?
In an interesting aside, Ja'afari slammed Germany, saying it controls the maritime portion of the UNIFIL mission and did not stop a ship of weapons from Libya meant for non-governmental forces in Syria. Inner City Press' more recent reporting on Germany and military operations has been its new initiative, through the EU's Operation ATALANTA, to strike up to two kilometers inside Somalia. Choices, choices.
