At UN, Hardly Mentioning N.Korea, Did Hillary Meet the Wrong Nigerian Foreign Minister or Just Not Know His Name?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/npt1hillary050310.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 3, updated May 4 -- When Hillary Clinton came to speak to or at the UN press corps on Monday afternoon, the questions were pre-selected and North Korea was not mentioned. The first two questions were given to CBS and the Wall Street Journal, and both were on Iran.

The third and it seemed last concerned the US decision to disclose the number of its weapons. By sheet persistence a UN correspondent from South Asia got a question in about India, Pakistan and Israel. But no mention of North Korea. (In full disclosure, Inner City Press said "North Korea" during each lull, each time louder.)

What explains this seeming blindspot? Why focus so much on Iran, calling it a threat to cross the "red line" to nuclear weapons status, when North Korea is already over the line? On the first day of the NPT Review Conference, Kim Jong-Il was visiting China.

With Hillary Clinton not addressing North Korea, Inner City Press asked Gareth Evans about it. He said the DPRK has somewhere around 10 weapons, and it is a major concern. A reporter for Iranian media shouted two questions to him about Israel's weapons. Evans scoffed at the second question and turned away. He told a persistent reporter - not this one -- that he had no business cards.

As Hillard Clinton spoke, her counterpart from Indonesia walked by, with an entourage of merely three. Hillary's posse was much larger, similar to that of Ahmadinejad or later in the day, the EU's Lady Ashton. Snarks pegged her outfit as something for last week's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and even suggested she could be replaced by David Miliband when Gordon Brown's Labor loses. Miliband keeps Tweeting as if Gordo's gonna win.

The US State Department's tweets, meanwhile, contained a blatant error on Monday. It was announced that Hillary met with Nigeria's foreign minister, but the former ousted one was named.

StateDept #SecClinton just held a bilat with Nigerian Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe in New York. #Nigeria

Actually this began in Hillary's Daily Schedule:

1:20 p.m. Secretary Clinton holds a Bilateral Meeting with Nigerian Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe, at the TIAA CREFF Building.

(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

But Maduekwe, whose melt down at the UN Inner City Press covered, is no longer the foreign minister of Nigeria. Nor, last week, did the US Mission to the UN answer a single one of the questions Inner City Press submitted, about Congo and the Sudan -- a topic on which Hillary says she's "disappointed." Well, we're disappointed too.

Note to Foggy Bottom: there's a new foreign minister of Nigeria, Odein Ajumogobia, and he'll be appearing at Nigeria House on Second Avenue on Wednesday. Watch this site.

Update of May 3, 6:50 p.m. - Zimbabwe's Ambassador, at a Russian reception Monday evening celebrating the end of World War II, told Inner City Press that the event for Nigeria's new foreign minister has been canceled. The plot thickens...

Update of May 4, 11:01 a.m - Inner City Press asked Nigeria's Permanent Representative to the UN Joy Ogwu about the meeting and snafu, and she was seemingly mortified. Ojo is long gone. So why would the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton, reaching out to the world, not even take the time to keep up with a months-old change in foreign ministers of a major African country that's on the UN Security Council? And what will they say about thiat? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/npt1hillary050310.html

On Sri Lanka, UN Responsibility to Protect Cited, Abuse of IDPs Surfaces

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1may4srilanka050509.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- When former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans came to the UN Security Council stakeout about the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on May 5, he looked surprised to be asked a question about Sri Lanka. But Evans wrote a book about the Responsibility to Protect, a UN doctrine enshrined in a consensus General Assembly resolution. Inner City Press asked Evans if R2P, as it is known, applies to the situation of civilians in Northern Sri Lanka. Video here, from Minute 7:57.

Evans asked that all nuclear questions be asked and answered first. This happened, touching as the U.S. statement on NPT did not, on Iran, as well as North Korea, Israel, China, Pakistan and India. Then Evan asked that the question be posed again. Inner City Press referred him to the bombing from the air, civilians trapped, as they are in internment camps even outside the conflict zone.

"I've got no doubt this is an R2P case," Evans answered, calling it the "most alarming... atrocity crime we've seen in years."

He went on to say that the UN Security Council must get more involved, and chided those blocking the Council's consideration for going against the R2P resolution they agreed to in the General Assembly. But he does not favor "sending the Marines in," but rather diplomacy to find a way to surrender. Video here, from Minute 14:55.

Some point to the situation in camps of those who've left the conflict zone, exposed most recently by Channel 4 in the UK with allegations of rape and disappearance, as another atrocity, and one that makes resolution less and less possible. There are increasing reports of young men chained naked for interrogation, and young women disappeared. The UN is saying little about this, and even so the government now threatens to expel the strikingly pro-government UN Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne.

John Holmes, when asked about the interrogations in Kilinochchi, quickly said that interrogations are fine. Article here, exclusive video here at Minute 5:36. Can this be the UN position? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1may4srilanka050509.html

Re-Branding Responsibility to Protect, Gareth Evans Says Somalia's Not Covered

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/r2p1evans091708.html

UNITED NATIONS, September 17 -- If Somalia, where civilians are killed every day in a cross fire between Ethiopian occupiers and Islamic insurgents, does not trigger the so-called Responsibility to Protect, what good is R2P? Australia's former foreign minister Gareth Evans was asked this question on September 17, as he pitched his R2P book to a handful of reporters including Inner City Press. "It's not a classic situation," Evans said of Somalia. "It has the capacity of deteriorating into mass atrocity crimes."

But how many deaths does it take? Evan listed the now-stemmed violence in Kenya as "classic R2P;" a photograph from Kenya is on the jacket of his book and he noted that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cited R2P during the Kenya crisis.

But the death toll by violence in Somalia is higher, and there is no end in sight. When Inner City Press pursued the issue, Evans turned to a fellow staffer of the International Crisis Group, who gently disagreed with her boss, saying that Somalia is a classic case, in that the government is not only unwilling but also unable to protect the people of the country. She acknowledged that war crimes are being committed, including by the Ethiopian troops. Somalia would be R2P, she said, except no one wants to go.

Evans made this same point about Darfur, noting that while none of the 22 needed helicopters has been given, there are some 11,872 suitable helicopters available around the world. Still, Evans argued against invoking R2P in Darfur, saying that it failed the "balance of consequences" test, in that intervention would put at risk the 2.5 million internally displaced people, and the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Evans rather posited Burundi as a victory for R2P, a concept which he said needs to be "re-branded." The first conceptual switch, he said, was from the French-inspired idea of the right to intervene to R2P, which is at least phrased from the point of view of the victims. Still, it was pointed out to him that R2P is often called just a reinterpretation of the white man's burden. Evans countered that on a recent trip to New Delhi and Islamabad, he found "senior levels" of the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministries open to R2P, more so that the "multilaterals here" at the UN, who he said are suffering from "buyer's remorse" after agreeing in 2005 to R2P.

Inner City Press asked Evans if he thinks China and Russia will invoke the concept any time soon. After pointing out Chinese representation on the High Level Panel that formalized the idea, Evans criticized Russia's citing to R2P for its actions in South Ossetia. "To defend your own nationals is not R2P," he said, "it's national self-defense, under Article 51 of the UN charter." He said that Russia "misused" the concept of R2P, while in his view France and Bernard Kouchner only "put at risk the consensus" by linking R2P to General Than Shwe's blockage of foreign aid to Myanmar after cyclone Nargis.

Evans said that he spoke to "a Burmese on the ground" who said that the warships off Myanmar's coast in the cyclone's aftermath "did concentrate the generals' minds." This is not dissimilar to arguing that the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Al Bashir is making him act better. It's a circular argument. If the accused keeps acting badly, it proves the accusation. If the accused starts acting better, then the accusation helped. The accusation, then, can never be disproved. White man's burden, indeed...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/r2p1evans091708.html

At UN, Freezing Indictment of Al Bashir Discussed by France, Sharing Evidence with ICC Dodged

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1icc091708.html

UNITED NATIONS, September 17 -- As judges in The Hague consider whether to grant an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, information has emerged about secret negotiations to forestall the requested indictment. On September 17, Inner City Press asked France's Permanent Representative to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert if his country is engaged in discussions with Sudan about conditions to invoke Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which would freeze proceedings against Al Bashir. Video here, from Minute 11:58.

Ambassador Ripert listed a series of conditions, ranging from "stopping the killing to Darfur" to improving Sudan's relations with Chad to starting in-country trials of the two current Sudanese ICC indictees. Asked if France would then support invoking Article 16, Ambassador Ripert said, "Why not?" Video here, from Minute 16.

Earlier on September 17, Gareth Evans of the non-profit International Crisis Group told Inner City Press that not only France, but also the UK have made such outreach to Sudan. He likened it to a "plea bargain" and argued that "there are no absolutes in this business [of] conflict prevention."

It is understood that Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has told friends of the ICC that the information he recently used to seek Al Bashir's arrest, he had back in December 2007, and he showed it to Sudan saying that if they met certain conditions, no arrest warrant would be sought. The difficulty here is that the indictment is for past acts, not future actions. But both Moreno-Ocampo and, at least, France and the UK appear to be blurring the difference.

Moreno-Ocampo's work also came up as an issue at the new UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Alain Le Roy's press conference later on September 17. Inner City Press asked Le Roy for his position on DPKO sharing information with Moreno-Ocampo and the ICC, in the wake of the suspension of the case against Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga on the grounds that complying with DPKO's confidentiality agreements would deny Lubanga a fair trial. Also implicated is whether the UN in Sudan gave evidence to the ICC against Al Bashir.

"That is a difficult question," Le Roy said, adding that he would have to check with the UN's Office of Legal Affairs. When Inner City Press asked the last head of OLA, Nicolas Michel, for his position on ICC defendants' rights to see such information, Michel referred to an offer he had made, to let defense counsel see but not take notes on the documents. That was rejected by the Court. On September 17 it was announced that Michel is resurfacing as the UN's envoy to the Gabor - Equatorial Guinea border dispute. Inner City Press asked if the post is part-time, if it is at the Assistant Secretary General Level and paid "When Actually Employed."

"He is a USG," the UN Deputy Spokesperson said, adding that is is part-time and paid When Actually Employed -- at the USG rate. Once a USG, always a USG?

Footnote: for more on the Lubanga case, click here for Inner City Press' story yesterday, which has been supplemented to add that Liechtenstein's Ambassador Christian Waneser's statement that "I don't personally exclude that the judges will throw out the genocide charge" apparently referred to the possibility of the ICC judges not granting Moreno-Ocampo's request for an arrest warrant against Al Bashir on grounds of genocide. The warrant could issue on some charges and not others. We note for the record that Moreno-Ocampo did not indict the DR Congo's Thomas Lubango for genocide -- although Lubanga was so-charged in the DR Congo, click here for a document on the ICC's website to the effect.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1icc091708.html