After UN Backs Down on Human Rights Monitoring Mechanism in Western Sahara, Morocco Offers Analogies, and Pastries

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 30 -- With the UN having backed down on having in Western Sahara any human rights monitoring mechanism, Morocco's Mission to the UN on June 30 scheduled a seminar on “Regional Commissions of National Human Rights Council in Autonomous Regions.”

Inner City Press, which covered UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous dropping the word “mechanism” from its most recent report, and the denials of outgoing French Ambassador Gerard Araud that he'd ever opposed rights monitoring -- belied by his own 2013 Q&A stakeout, here -- RSVPed for Morocco's event and appeared there before it began.

  It was at the “Convene by Sentry” facility at 730 Third Avenue on the 18th floor. There was smoked salmon and pastries, although due to Ramadan many of the Moroccan diplomats and journalist(s) there did not have any.

  Chairing the event, in French, was Marc Finaud of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, introducing presenters on Quebec, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines / Mindanao and Tanzania / Zanzibar. The idea clearly was, there is no need for human rights monitoring, Morocco's National Human Rights Commission can do it.

  From the Commission, Driss El Yazami was the first speaker, bragging about the visits of Ambassadors and Navi Pillay and saying that “even before a political solution” -- assumed to be autonomy and not independence -- the Commission has set up listening centers for women.

  Some questions: would this have been acceptable in South Sudan? In Kosovo? But the Q&A was not scheduled to take place until 12 pm, the same time at the UN's noon briefing. Watch this site.

   

On Yemen, Benomar Tells Inner City Press Only Some from Southern Movement Quit Dialogue, History of Disappeared States?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Hours before the Yemen briefing to the UN Security Council by envoy Jamal Benomar, protesters across First Avenue from the UN called for independence for Southern Yemen.

  This coincided with news that members of the Southern Movement or Al Harak had pulled out of the National Dialogue Conference. When Benomar came to speak at the Security Council stakeout, Inner City Press asked him about the status of the Southern Movement.

  Benomar replied that yes, some members had withdrawn, but emphasized that others had stayed in and would be holding a press conference tomorrow. Of proposals that the next president and other senior officials could not, for example, have a foreign spouse -- echoes of Myanmar there -- Benomar merely said that many proposals have been considered and vetted in the Dialogue.

  But will the National Dialogue keep the merged country together? Inner City Press posed the question of what other countries got gone from being UN member states to disappearing in a merger. Through the magic of Twitter these answers came in: South Vietnam, East Germany, Zanzibar. Among territories called "disappeared" though never UN member states were Scotland, Flanders, Electorate of Bavaria, Bohemia & Moravia, Muscovite Duchy, Catalonia, Lombardy. Will any parts of Yemen join the list?