By Matthew Russell Lee, News Muse
UNITED NATIONS, April 23 -- The UN Security Council was on a suburban retreat Tuesday in Greentree, New York, but managed to issue a Press Statement condemning the car bombing of the French embassy in Tripoli.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who along with senior staffers was also on the retreat, also put out a statement. Ban's statement, strangely, called “on all Libyans to support their Government's efforts to establish strong and effective security institutions.”
Should the UN Secretary General be telling the citizens of any country to “support their Government”? Or is it somehow different, to call for support for the Government for a particular purpose?
Then again, some of the countries that the UN and Ban Ki-moon condemn are if nothing else engaged in effort to “establish strong... security institutions.” Is that always a good thing?
Ban's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey was asked to provide a summary of what Ban was discussing with the Security Council.
Del Buey replied that it is all confidential -- this despite at least one Permanent Five member of the Council tweeting his country's topic, Climate Change, and despite the other topic, Peacekeeping, being widely known.
Given the increasing opacity of the UN Secretariat under Ban (and even worse, of UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous), it was not possible to ask not only about Bahrain banning the UN's special rapporteur on torture, but also for clarification of Ban's April 22 statement on Nigeria.
Inner City Press at the April 22 noon briefing asked about the fighting in Baga in which 185 civilians were reportedly killed. Later on April 22, Ban issued a statement calling on “all extremist groups” to stop their attacks.
Now it's reported that the militaries of Chad and Niger participated along with that of Nigeria in the assault on Baga. Did Ban know that? Is there any UN role in this trilateral fight, which scarred Baga and killed civilians?
Will the residents of Baga be called on “to support their Government's efforts to establish strong and effective security institutions”? Watch this site.
