By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- More than a week after the Syria report of top UN Peacekeeper Herve Ladsous, who seems to have gone missing, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on August 10 turned in a bilingual update to the UN Security Council. Inner City Press is putting it online before 10 pm, here.
Meanwhile amid reports that long time UN official Lakhdar Brahimi is to be named to replace Kofi Annan as envoy to Syria, Inner City Press at 11 am Friday witnessed the entry of Syrian Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar Ja'afari to meet with UN political chief Jeffrey Feltman. A well placed source exclusive told Inner City Press: Brahimi will be discussed.
And so at Friday UN noon briefing Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey
Inner City Press; I was just in the North Lawn and I was told that Mr. Jeffrey Feltman of DPA [Department of Political Affairs] is meeting…I saw Bashar Ja’afari go in. I’m told that the topic is Mr. Brahimi. So my question to you is: because Martin Nesirky was willing to say that there are consultations with the permanent members of the Security Council about such an appointment, is Syria and its permanent representative, will they be conferred with prior to an announcement, whoever the name is?
Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: I will have to check on that. I don’t know exactly who the consultation list is comprised of.
Nine hours later, no response. But a well place Gulf source tells Inner City Press Brahimi is the Arab League's nominee, and will a more anti-Assad mandate than Kofi Annan had or acted under.
It is still time to speed through some of Brahimi's positions. The US, Hillary Clinton in particular, opposed General Douglas Lute favoring Brahimi over Holbrooke on Afghanistan in 2010.
Brahimi also said, in a 2008 interview, that Europe is a political midget.
Brahimi to his credit in March 2009 wrote, of Sri Lanka, "being a spectator when 150,000 thousand people are trapped in a death zone is not an option."
That is, sadly, what the UN did, and now even has as a Peacekeeping adviser to Ban Ki-moon and Herve Ladsous one of the generals responsible for the killing, even according to Ban's own experts' report: Shavendra Silva.
Brahimi is on the Advisory Council of the Sri Lanka Campaign, which of attacks on Inner City Press wrote this, about those who "played straight into the hands of the Government of Sri Lanka's attempts to silence its critics."
So which Brahimi would it be? Watch this site.
