By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 20 -- Of the 17 countries running Friday for 15 seats on the UN Human Rights Council, only two were going to lose.
Inner City Press asked the Permanent Representative of Georgia Alexander Lomaia what he felt his chances were, facing off against Romania and the Czech Republic for two Eastern European group seats.
Ambassador Lomaia said, without hesitation, that Russia had been asking countries not to vote for Georgia, that at least two delegations had disclosed this. In many UN fora, Georgia and Russia exchange rights of reply regarding Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is just one more battle.
After the election, in which Georgia got 89 votes but still lost to Romania's 131 and the Czech Republic's 148, Inner City Press asked a Russian diplomat about the result. He smiled and said, “Oops.”
Nicaraguan representatives said they liked their chances, but they too took a loss, despite receiving 98 votes. Austria pointed out that the two votes cast for Australia were probably for it.
Syria tried to play down the five votes it received, after postponing its run to 2014, to mere errors. If that was a write in campaign, it wasn't much. Kuwait, Syria's replacement, waltzed in with 166 votes.
The Permanent Representative of the Philippines, another winner with a clear or unopposed slate, acknowledged to Inner City Press that there are human rights issues in his country, such as unsolved killings of journalists. But, he said, the trend line is up.
Later on Friday in the same General Assembly Hall, military bands of China and the US played together. Only at the UN.
