By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 15 –
When Ivorian
ambassador
Youssoufou
Bamba
showed up in
front of the
UN Security
Council on
Friday
afternoon, he
told Inner
City Press, “I
have an
announcement
to make. We
have
joined the
ICC,” the
International
Criminal
Court.
Then
came the
mechanics, the
plumbing of
news at the
UN. The UNTV
cameras
had already
been packed up
after the
Council's
Yemen meeting.
Inner
City Press
took out a
camera and
asked Bamba a
few questions,
about
the killing of
internally
displaced
people and the
UN's seeming
cover-up. It
seemed better,
to the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
to try to get
the real UNTV
camera.
They
said, call the
spokesperson.
Five minutes
later the
announcement
went
out:
“Ambassador
Youssoufou
Bamba,
Permanent
Representative
of Cote
d'Ivoire to
address press
at the
Security
Council
Stakeout
shortly.”
Some
other
reporters, who
had skipped
the Council's
Yemen meeting
in favor
of the chaotic
annual
general
meeting of the
decaying UN
Correspondents
Association,
straggled
over, to ask
Bamba about
Mali
and not his
own country,
Cote d'Ivoire.
A
reporter from
Benin,
however, asked
about Charles
Ble Goude -
will he
now be tried
in The Hague?
Bamba cited
complimentarity.
Inner City
Press asked,
but does the
Ouattara
government
want to
prosecute Ble
Goude itself,
like Saif al
Islam Gaddafi
in Libya, or
send him to
the
ICC?
It
is still being
studied, Bamba
said. He was
asked to
explain the
timing. While
he did not, it
is not rocket
science:
Laurent
Gbagbo's
lawyers have
argued that
the ICC does
not really
have
jurisdiction
over Gbagbo,
not being a
member of the
ICC.
While
an earlier,
limited
joining is
cited, now the
country has
joined “in
full.” What
about the
perpetrators
at Duekoue,
Inner City
Press
asked? What
about them
indeed.
Justice means
all sides.
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site.
