Small Islands in UNSC, Niue's Nameplate & Sharks in Palau, Inner City Press Asks of Drones, NZ's BBQ

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 30, updated -- When New Zealand ran for and won a UN Security Council seat, beating up Turkey, it made a big pitch to small island developing states or SIDS. On Thursday it paid them back, or followed through on a campaign promise, by holding a Security Council debate specifically about SIDS. Inner City Press followed it, straight through to the end.

  Before the meeting, Inner City Press asked New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully:

Inner City Press: I see here that your Concept Note for the debate talks about exploitation of natural resources and some states like Palau have announced sanctuaries, in one case for sharks, some people are talking about sanctuary against commercial fishing. What’s New Zealand’s position on that type of protection and also they’ve talked about using drones, what do you think is the role of technology in defending the security of these states?

FM McCully: It’s a theme I intend to pick up myself today, because it’s an important one if you look at the characteristics of the small island developing states you’ll see that they all are relatively small in terms of their land mass but they have EEZs that are significantly bigger than their land mass and for many of them, particularly in the Pacific, it happens to be the biggest economic asset they’ve got and yet other people come and routinely help themselves to that resource and in our part of the world, under reporting and illegal fishing are a huge part of the problem. That is literally stealing from some of the poorest people on the planet. S o a significant part of our development programme is designed that we attack that challenge at every level. Everything from improving monitoring, surveillance but also up-skilling local people so they can secure employment and become part of the value chain. In our region, the tuna resource is the biggest economic asset owned by Pacific countries. They get too small a share of value of that resource and I will saying so in the Council today.

  During the debate, several islands said there should be an ongoing Security Council seat for the group.  Tonga questioned whether the Security Council is fit for purpose anymore. The Premier of Niue spoke behind a sign with his own name, Toke Talagi, and not that of Niue. While he was speaking “under Rule 39,” so does the European Union -- which, just before 3:30 pm, had "European Union" on its name plate.

  Countries competing next time for the Western European and Other Group two seats -- Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands -- all sent officials higher than Permanent Representative. (For Netherlands, it was the Prime Minister of Aruba. Camillo Gonsalez of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines brought up the invasion of Grenada, and the current expulsions to Haiti from the Dominican Republic; he's previously said that the UN should pay compensation for bringing cholera to Haiti, to his credit.

 Late in the debate, Turkey which lost out to New Zealand and its small islands votes bragged about its work for the island states through the G20. There were no rights of reply -- past 6 pm, action shifted to the UN's North Lawn building, where what had been planned as an end of presidency barbeque was moved indoors by rain.

 There were steel drums and reggae, Murray McCully and a who's who of the UN (some double-timing with Morocco's National Day at the Waldorf Astoria). The planned "wrap up" session got canceled, but New Zealand will keep working, for example on Troop Contributing Country issues. We'll have more on this.
   

In UNSC Debate, Russia & Ukraine Tangle, US' Samantha Power on Peacekeeping, Venezuela on Palestine, New Zealand on Agenda

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 23 -- When China as president of the UN Security Council for February scheduled a debate to “Reflect on history, reaffirm the strong commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the UN,” 75 countries signed up to speak.

    Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov slammed not only the occupation of Iraq, but also events in Kiev in the last year.

   Later, after the 15 Council members had all spoken, Ukraine's Pavlo Klimkin said his country is considering “requesting the United Nations to deploy a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine.”

   Klimkin was scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later on Monday. But the UN's read-out of Ban's telephone call with Klimkin on February 20 said that “on the possibility of peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, the Secretary-General informed the Foreign Minister that the United Nations would stand guided by any decision the Security Council would make on this issue.”

  Lavrov's meeting with Ban had been scheduled to begin at noon, and he only came out of the elevator back onto the second floor at 12:45 pm. A forty five minute meeting with Ban? How long would Klimkin get?

   Before Klimkin's speech, US Ambassador Samantha Power spoke not only on Ukraine and Syria but also Sudan, noting that the Security Council was silent when Sudan blocked UNAMID access to investigate the rapes in Tabit, at least for the second time. That's true. But didn't the US just lift some sanctions on Sudan?

  Power also noted, as Ban Ki-moon as opening speaker had, that the UN Charter starts “We the peoples.” Has the US tried to get a UN Freedom of Information Act, for peoples? That's what the Free UN Coalition for Access is pushing for.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said some “even attempt to... whitewash past crimes of aggression.”

   While his reference seemed directed at Japan, when he came to the stakeout and said he had time for two questions, the head of UNCA -- the UN's Censorship Alliance -- bumbled through two questions without asking about this. Instead he asked, or seemed to ask, do you think Syria can transition without Assad?

   These set-aside questions, to a FOIA-exposed censor, is not consistent with press freedom.

  Ambassador Power linked UN Peacekeeping and human rights. Inner City Press has exclusively asked, in print and at the UN's noon briefing, does DPKO under Herve Ladsous use human rights abusers, for example from Bangladesh?

   Speaking of peacekeeping, Spain's Ignacio Ybanez talked about UN principles. One waited to hear of peacekeeper killed in Lebanon: will that report be made public?

 The UK's Mark Lyall Grant cited the Peace Operations Review. Will that address the sale of posts in DR Congo and Haiti? 

  Venezuela's Delcy Rodriguez said Palestine must be a full member of the UN, under international law.

   New Zealand's Murray McCully said that the UNSC agenda is jammed up with bureaucratic briefings rather than real deliberation - entirely true.  And so it goes at the UN.