By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 8 -- In international politics, telephone calls are placed and read-out over weekends, each with its own message. This weekend UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made much of having called Ukraine's Yanukovich and telling him, "no resort to violence."
It sounds good, but why hasn't Ban made similar calls during not only the outright slaughter of civilians in Sri Lanka in 2009, but even during the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street in the US, and on the Elsipotog First Nations in Canada?
Meanwhile US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power was the Obama administration's called to Central African Republic president Michel Djotodia. Normally to call a head of state, if it is not Obama, it's Vice President Biden or the Secretary of State, John Kerry. When is the last time that that US' outreach to a head of state came from its UN Ambassador?
But the Central African Republic's colonial master France, through president Francois Hollande, has already said Djotodia can't stay. So the US echoes that call, through its call, from UN Ambassador to temporary head of state. That, is the message.
While Ban Ki-moon was at France's African confab he met with the prime minister of Libya (no mention of if he got approval for the UN's desired deployment of 235 UN Security personnel to Libya), and the DR Congo's Kabila, who Ban congratulated for successful military operations against M23.
So would Ban (and the US) like Djotodia more if he were more successful militarily? Is that what it comes down to? Watch this site.
