Saturday, May 5, 2012

At UN, EU Wants DPI, Will Rio+20 = DESA & Man Get Sexual Violence Post?


By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- With four or really three Under Secretary General posts still in play at the UN, the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict post now also needs to be filled, Inner City Press has learned.

  When Margot Wallstrom of Sweden took the post and was slow in responding to the ongoing scandal of the mass rapes in Waliwale in the Eastern Congo, Inner City Press questioned whether she would ever move to New York and fully engage in her new Office. 
 
  Now Inner City Press is told that after she did some good she is leaving and that there are two main contenders to replace her: the deputy in the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission in the Congo and Patrick Cammaert, who to his credit once criticized the UN for doing nothing about indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda having fancy public dinners in Goma.

  Whether a man can get the Sexual Violence in Conflict post is dubious. The Sri Lanka mission, to which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon closely listens, also has pitched its own tales of Cammaert. But, it is suggested, why doesn't he go for the job of Radhika Coomaraswamy, who once sent him to her native Sri Lanka in her stead?

 Coomaraswamy spoke, movingly, at  German Mission event on Thursday night, and provided news that will be reported shortly.

  Also Thursday night at a press freedom event at CNN topping France's sleaze fest the talk turned to Navi Pillay's post as High Commissioner for Human Rights -- if no second term and no Western replacement then who? This we will cover soon.

  Meanwhile while Inner City Press has it most reliably that China has put in two names, Brazil is said to also be pushing for the top post in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. If Brazil uses Rio + 20 to get it, then China would have to get the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management or the Department of Public Affairs (DPI).

(A disgusted UN staff member told Inner City Press that Ban's chief Information Technology officer, CITO Choi, might be considered to head DGACM; others say he's bound for Timor L'este to replace Amira Haq, who reportedly ended with friction with the Timorese.)

   An Ambassador who asked Ban's then chief of staff Vijay Nambiar to be considered for the DPI job was told "the Europeans want it." 

  There's said to be a candidate from Italy and one from Greece, reportedly the Ambassador who while on the Security Council helped shepherd through Ban Ki-moon's first term. This is how it works in Ban's UN - watch this site.