For ICJ, Jamaica's Lead Grows in UN General Assembly Over Argentina, Round III

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 7 -- In the archaic system by which International Court of Justice judges are elected, the UN Security Council and General Assembly voted again and again on Friday morning. Each body had to select a firth and final judge -- the same judge.

  But while the Security Council stuck on nine for Argentina's Susana Ruiz Cerutti and six for Jamaica's Patrick Lipton Robinson, in the General Assembly Jamaica's Robinson rose in support. Just after noon he received 123 votes, versus only 69 for Argentina's Ruiz Cerutti. 

  As that meeting broke up to reconvene at 3 pm, numerous diplomats stopped to talk to Inner City Press. What sense does it make, one of them asked, for the Security Council to ignore what the full 193 members think? Why are the two bodies given equal weight when "we are all here," meaning in the General Assembly?

 On the other hand, an Argentine argument made to Inner City Press is that this is not about countries about about legal systems: Commonwealth means common law.

  Meanwhile an African diplomat in the General Assembly asked Inner City Press, And if the Jamaican gets a two thirds majority in the GA - what then? What, indeed.

  Winning ICJ judge positions on November 6 were Kirill Gevorgian of Russia, with a perfect 15 votes in the Council's final round of the day, Joan E. Donoghue of the US and Mohamed Bennouna of Morocco, both with 14, and James Richard Crawford of Australia with 12.

 In the Security Council, Argentina's Susana Ruiz Cerutti got just enough votes with nine, and Jamaica's Patrick Lipton Robinson did not, with seven. 

 But in the General Assembly, Jamaica's Robinson with 141 led Argentina's Ruiz Cerutti with 108. The vote, Security Council president Gary Qiunlan said, would continue on November 7.

 In the hall diplomats from the General Assembly continued to talk up Jamaica, saying the African Group has a special relationship with CARICOM, and talking about the Commonwealth. (Want to guess where the UK comes down in this one?) 

Throughout the day, Inner City Press jogged back and forth between the Council and Assembly chambers, as did for example the Jamaican Deputy Permanent Representative, and when the two bodies broke for lunch, the following story emerged.

  A number of African Permanent Representatives said, it should be Jamaica. They asked, But will the Security Council go its own way?

   Inner City Press has heard Susana Ruiz Cerutti speak, and she seems like a good candidate. And Argentina ran a more transparent than usual month atop the Security Council, and has big proposals for example on sovereign debt restructuring. 

  But how will this stand-off be resolved? Why did the candidates from the DR Congo and Madagascar get so few votes? The latter dropped out, the former was urged to. But until the Security Council agrees with the GA, the election is not finished.

Update of 4:10 pm:

On ICJ in GA, again more than five candidates got more than the required 97 votes. But Jamaica's candidate got 141 (up from 135), Argentina's only 116 (down from 134)

Update of 4:50 pm

On ICJ in UNGA, again more than 5 got more than 97. But Jamaica 138 (still up from 136), Argentine 108 (down from 116)

   Inner City Press covered the more than 30 day stand-off in 2011 between candidates from Sierra Leone and Uganda, with the latter winning. At least they are voting - the new Free UN Coalition for Access has noted that the correspondents (or now censors') association UNCA has entirely non-competitive annointments, this time with the return of the censor in chief. Click here for that, and watch this site.

   

From Rwanda, FM Louise Mushikiwabo Replies to Inner City Press on FDLR, "Trust But Verify," France Ignores Questions, Banned Press from Its Genocide Joyride

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- After the UN Security Council's quick visit to Rwanda, after two days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Inner City Press asked Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo what did Security Council members say of links between the FDLR militia and the DRC Army (FARDC), even with the UN Peacekeeping mission MONUSCO?

Minister Mushikiwabo replied to Inner City Press that the UNSC had told Rwanda that the FDLR's security threat to Rwanda is a not small matter and that dismantling it is very much an immediate priority.

 When Inner City Press noted doubts due to UN's robot-like support for the DRC Army, after not only showing of links with FDLR but even 135 rapes in Minova, Minister Mushikiwabo replied "@InnerCityPress Trust but verify!"

  Her responsiveness stands in contrast not only to this from the French Mission to the UN, which rejected Inner City Press' timely request to accompany and cover the Council's Africa trip as it did in 2010 and 2008, but other Council Missions on the trip, some of whom only tweet out, but answer no questions at all. (We're hoping to see that change with time and training, Commonwealth to Commonwealth cooperation except on Sri Lanka, with Alistair Burt moving on - but that's another story for now.)

  The UK's Lyall Grant is an exception, responding on logistics and even on having raised the FARDC's 135 rapes at Minova. US Ambassador Power, as Inner City Press reported from other sources more than 24 hours beforeReuters copied the story, also raised the Minova rapes. But as we've noted, Ambassador Power did not tweet during this Great Lakes trip (unlike, for example, Ambassador Susan Rice during a previous Council Africa trip. More on this, more nuanced, another day.)

  UN Spokesperson Martin Nesirky, when Inner City Press last week asked questions about the trip, told Inner City Press to "ask Council members." 

  For those who don't tweet, and whose mission like the US have not responded to e-mail questions including about Minova, that is no substitute, and it is another reason that allowing France to decide alone which media could go on the UN plane was a colonial outrage, a new low.

  Those who France hand-picked to cover the trip, Reuters and Voice of America, have rewarded it with one-sided stories accusing Rwanda but not DRC of recruiting child soldiers, and promoting their connection with selfies with Western Ambassadors from Australia and France.

 Inner City Press has co-founded the Free UN Coalition for Access @FUNCA_info to counter-act this climate, enshrined in the Executive Committee of the UN Correspondents Association which first circulated the invitation for the Great Lakes trip to be decided on by France only to those who pay it money, and who have tried to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN, even by spying FOR the UN (click here for that.)

 One UNCA board member, Tim Witcher of AFP, filed a complaint with UN Security leading with how Inner City Press asked a question to (French) UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous. Trust and verify?

On Monday, Inner City Press asked Nesirky some new questions generated by the Council's French-led trip on which it will be following up:

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you about the trip, there seems to have been a briefing by a MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) staffer, Dee Brillenburg Wurth, in which she is quoted as saying that the [Democratic Republic of the Congo], doesn’t recruit children, child soldiers any more. This is contrary to the Group of Experts report, which says in at least two paragraphs that they do. It was "said to reporters," is it possible to get a transcript or some audio file of what was said? And what would you say to a seeming total disparity between what MONUSCO told reporters, if not the Council, and what UN reports actually say about the recruitment of child soldiers by [the Democratic Republic of the Congo]?

Spokesperson: Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say anything at this point until I check into it myself, Matthew.

Question: Okay, if you don’t mind, one more on the trip. I wanted to get an answer from you from the Secretariat side. It seems, on one hand in Syria you are calling that [Bashar al-]Assad should meet with any and all opposition, that this is the way to have a meeting. And, meanwhile the Council, with the Secretariat and MONUSCO accompaniment, attend a national dialogue in Kinshasa which the legally-elected opposition chose to boycott, and therefore legitimated or gave its blessing to an extremely limited dialogue. And so, how would you square these two? How can the UN, on the one hand, be calling for a broad dialogue in Syria, and in the Congobe giving its blessing to an extremely narrow one boycotted by the opposition?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, as you will be aware, there is a framework for peace and reconciliation in the Great Lakes region, and specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that is a broad-based framework that includes the need for national reconciliation. And the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on this, Mary Robinson, has been working very closely to ensure that that framework in its entirety is properly implemented. And, I think it is in that context that the Security Council members were there. So, I think you’d have to ask the Council members themselves why they went to certain events. That is not for me to speak on their behalf, but simply to put the bigger picture there, that there is an overall framework, and that it was in that context that they were visiting the region. This will be last question, okay?

We'll have more on all this. Watch this site.

UK Blocks Sri Lanka's Silva Then Won't Confirm It, UN Erases Him From Transcript, Reinserts After Complaint

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 19 -- In the run up to a vote on Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, there is surprising silence in New York from the sponsor, the US, and also from the UK Mission. The UN of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, attempted to erase the issue even from its transcripts until an objection from Inner City Press.

Multiple sources say that the UK Mission made clear that Sri Lankan General Shavendra Silva, depicted in Ban's Panel of Experts report and UK Channel 4's "Killing Fields" as engaged in war crimes, should not attend a Commonwealth reception with Foreign Secretary William J. Hague.

But when Inner City Press asked UK Permanent Mark Lyall Grant to confirm and explain it at the UN on Monday, Lyall Grant declined to answer the question:

Inner City Press: if you could, I wanted to ask you one thing, if you could just say for the record, there’s the reports that this Commonwealth event that you deemed inappropriate, the presence of the DPR of Sri Lanka, given his record in the UN’s own report. Is that the case and could you say your reason for it?

Amb. Lyall Grant: I'm not going to comment...

Likewise requests to the US Mission to the UN for comment on Silva's continuing presence on Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations have gone unresponded to, except for the statement that the Sri Lanka resolution is slated for a vote in Geneva on March 22, now apparently with India voting for the resolution.

Ban Ki-moon shakes with Silva, Kohona back to camera (c) MRLee

When Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, held a press conference last week, Inner City Press asked both groups about Silva and the SAG. Human Rights Watch said nothing; in the past, HRW has refused to provide even a summary of Ken Roth's meeting with Ban, ostensibly so HRW can retain "access."

Amnesty International's representative did provide an answer -- but when the UN issued its press release, the issue was not included. Inner City Press inquired, and the official of the UN unit in charge, to his credit, reviewed the recording and had the issue re-included:

The same correspondent [from Inner City Press] also asked about the "controversy" surrounding Sri Lankan General Shavendra Silva’s appointment to the Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations. The army division that official headed up had been cited in the report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka as having committed war crimes, he said. Mr. Pomi said that while he was unable to answer specific questions about the matter, he believed that the question of vetting was very important. “There are guidelines on that and the United Nations should apply them so that perpetrators do not enter the ranks of national army,” he said.

As for the "difficult" issue of screening out persons who would serve in the United Nations ranks — in peacekeeping or in other roles — he said, "What we would like to see is coherent and consistent policy by the United Nations to vet those applying for United Nations positions, especially in peacekeeping, because they work closely with local populations and with weapons."

And if such vetting were applied to Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, it's hard to imagine Shavendra Silva passing the test. Watch this site.