By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 31 -- France's month as president of the UN Security Council ended with a whimper on Tuesday when a meeting on Sudan had no outcome, not even a Press Statement. French Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud did not go to the stakeout and deliver any summary of the discussion, or any closing statement for his generally unsuccessful and untransparent month atop the Council.
A review of the UN Webcast Internet site reflects that of the past eight presidents of the Council, France's Araud did the least press stakeouts during his month. His output was doubled by Brazil in February, Colombia in April, and the UK last November.
At one of Araud's listed stakeouts, on May 11, he took no questions at all. He read a statement about Sudan in French, then left a translator at the stakeout to read it out in English, after he said, smirking, “Since I speak no English.” Click here to view.
Araud's last stakeout was on May 27 at 7:30 pm, with only three reporters present, click here to view. Araud came late, having not been able to find his way into the UN building. “He doesn't even know how to get in here,” one UN staffer marveled.
When Araud finally arrived, Inner City Press asked him why the statement he read, only in English, about the arrest of Ratko Mladic had been delayed from 10 am, when the French mission told UN TV to set up a camera, until 7:30 pm. Araud said he would not explain, and added despite France's bragging to the contrary that “we are not ready” and not promising on Syria.
On May 9, Inner City Press asked Araud if the trip he was leading to Sudan would go to Abyei, if Sudan had agreed to that. He said yes, there is no problem, they have agreed, there are only logistics. Click here to view.
But as Inner City Press reported at the time, Sudan's Deputy Permanent Representative repeatedly said that Khartoum has not agreed to the Abyei visit, which ultimately did not happen as fighting broke out there.
This was not the French mission's only misstatement in the month.
Araud as President in May, talk to press & results not shown
At the beginning of the month Araud claimed, in French, that he wanted to make the Council less formal. But then another Council member told Inner City Press that Araud had gone back on a reform from November, and now required countries to sign up in advance to speak in the Council's closed door consultations.
When Inner City Press asked, at a Friday reception hosted by Italy, France denied this. But then another Council member said that on that Sunday, France emailed to other members to reverse the policy they had just told Inner City Press they didn't have.
The French Mission to the UN's public relations appear to have less to do with the truth than with what they view as power politics.
When for example this year Inner City Press obtained and published documents from the Mission and the French military about French policy in Cote d'Ivoire, including the NYC Police Department arrest document for a French Mission diplomat, Romain Serman, accused of attempted purchase of cocaine and resisting arrest, the French Mission approached Inner City Press and called the publication “a hostile act.”
(Since then, the normal ways one uses to get a Mission's answers don't work, but will continue to be tried, not least in fairness to the Mission, which apparently doesn't like to be asked questions.)
Later, the French Mission asked pointedly that the Romain Serman arrest document be taken off line -- although it precisely the type of document widely published concerning the arrest, for example, of French political figure Dominique Strauss Kahn, around whom impropriety and corruption scandals swirl, not unlike at the Mission here reviewed. The negative impacts may have been (slightly) more on display during France's now concluded month atop the Council, but will continue. Watch this site.
