By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 -- With the UN Security Council members slated to meet with the African Union later this month in Addis Ababa, there are questions about the African Union's role in the process of selecting the Council's non-permanent members.
Morocco, which largely due to Western Sahara and the African Union position that a referendum with independence must be held there is not an AU member, is a candidate to for a Council seat for 2012 - 2013.
In the African Union, which usually makes recommendations for empty African seats on the Council, Mauritania would be next in line. AU sources have told Inner City Press that the Mauritania may pass up this right, they say, upon the pressure of its neighborhood Morocco.
Inner City Press on Tuesday asked Moroccan Permanent Representative to the UN Loulichki about the situation, including Mauritania being “due” to be the next African Union nominee for the empty seat.
“Every member state has a right to run for the Security Council,” Loulichki replied, adding even more formally that “Morocco is a candidate for 2012 - 2013.”
In apparent reference to coverage by Inner City Press earlier this year of his lobbying of Ban Ki-moon, Loulichki said, quote me on this, making a gesture with his hands. There: we've done it.
During the negotiation of the Security Council's annual Western Sahara resolution, the African Union position that a sentence “without prejudice to the legal status of Western Sahara” should be added was rebuffed by the Council.
The rebuff was particularly stinging given the belief that the absence of this qualification from the draft resolution was a mere oversight by the Group of Friends of Western Sahara -- an oversight they then refused to fix.
If the African Union now “backs down” to Morocco, as one source put it, what would the message be? Watch this site.
Footnote: in Tuesday's debate in the Security Council, Moroccan Permanent Representative Loulichki said without any trace of irony that more resources should be given to UN Peacekeeping missions which have protection of civilians in their mandates -- not, it is clear, referring to the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara.
Meanwhile it is reported that Kuwait will step in to run for the Asia Group seat on the UN Human Rights Council for which Syria had initially been running unopposed. But even if that's true, will Syria be promised some other UN system seat, like Iran was given a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women? We'll see.
