By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 18
-- The UN
system and
Security
Council is
full
of calls for
accountability,
but there is
very little
follow-up. One
case in point
is Yemen.
After 30-year
strongman Ali
Saleh was
essentially
given immunity
by the Gulf
Cooperation
Council and
United
States, the
Security
Council made a
point of
saying that
there was no
impunity but
rather its
opposite: yes,
accountability.
Tuesday
after
Security
Council
consultation
on Yemen,
Inner City
Press asked
UN envoy Jamal
Benomar for an
update. He
said that
there is a new
draft
transitional
justice law,
and that there
will be no
impunity.
But
an hour later
when Inner
City Press
asked this
month's
Security
Council
president
Peter Wittig
of Germany of
dynamics in
the Council
on
accountability,
he said that
hadn't really
come up in the
Council.
That
may be candid,
but there is a
problem. Ali
Saleh is still
the head of
his political
party; as
Inner City
Press reported,
his supporters
were involved
in Yemen's
mission to the
UN bouncing a
UN due check
and not being
able to vote
on a Syria
resolution in
the General
Assembly.
Accountability,
a
cynical might
say, is not a
UN principle
but a
temporary tool
directed as
some but not
all dictators
and human
rights
abusers, to
accomplish a
short term
goal. Then it
is forgotten,
even if as in
today's Yemen
the goal has
yet to be
achieved, and
Saleh is still
involved. What
message is
being sent?
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