Mali & ECOWAS' Plan Not on SC Agenda for May, No Horizon, Ban Office Fail?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 3 -- Days after ECOWAS announced a plan to send 3000 soldiers to Mali, the Azeri President of the UN Security Council for May told Inner City Press that "Mali is not on the Council's agenda," and that there are no current plans for ECOWAS to brief the Council and ask for support for the planned deployment.

  For days, Inner City Press has been asking Council Ambassadors about ECOWAS' two announcements, the second about Guinea-Bissau. 

 

  Most told Inner City Press either that ECOWAS "must" come to the Council, or even if they argue that Mali's membership, or the "invitation" of the recently installed interim leader provides a legal fig leaf for intervention, it is "better" if ECOWAS comes to the Council.

  But apparently ECOWAS is not coming. The Program of Work for May, which Inner City Press obtained on May 2, has only a briefing about Guinea Bissau on May 7. 

  At Azerbaijan's May 3 press conference on the program of work, Inner City Press asked Azeri Permanent Representative Agshin Mehdiyev if ECOWAS would be coming that day, and if it would raise Mali. No and no, he answered.

  As Inner City Press raised right after ECOWAS' announcement that 1000 of the 3000 troops would be from Cote d'Ivoire, it may be important to know if the same Ivorian units or soldiers active in Duekoue, defined as a massacre, would be going to Mali. Watch this site.

Footnote: in the midst of Mehdiyev's press conference it emerged that neither the Azeris nor Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson's Office had distributed the Program of Work, which is usually done as soon as it was adopted. 

This may be a further reflection of the loss to the press when Ban's Spokesperson was "thrown out" of the Security Council, and his then-Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar acquiesced in the expulsion. Of note, these exchanges took place on World Press Freedom Day.

 

Another possible loss: Inner City Press asked Mehdiyev why there is in the month's agenda no "DPA Horizon Scanning Briefing," a format which all Security Council members in the past year except the US have used. Mehdiyev replied that the future of such briefing is "under negotiation," but that for now, any member can invite the Secretariat to briefing on any issue of concern. We'll see.