By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 16 -- Rarely is Liberia and the UN Mission there a controversy in the UN Security Council. But for this renewal, European Council members broke silence and tried to limit the renewal from twelve months to merely eight.
Outside the Council on Friday afternoon Inner City Press asked Portugal's Permanent Representative Cabral, why? He said the Council should be able to review the mission is less than a year.
"Is that to save money?" Inner City Press asked.
Cabral nodded, saying that "our countries" are suffering financial cut backs.
Moments later, Inner City Press asked US Ambassador Susan Rice, "On Liberia, eight months or twelve months, which better?"
"Twelve months," Rice said decisively. "And I think that's what we'll be voting on."
While one wag noted that Liberia, unlike for example Cote d'Ivoire, was not a European colony, another wondered what with US budget cutbacks and calls for more in the Republican-led House of Representatives, leading the US to oppose a 3% raise for UN professional staff, about the US aligning itself with other Council members, who pay less, in wanting 12 months. Liberia is a priority.
Similarly, France for example behind closed doors lobbied for fewer rather than more peacekeepers in Sudan's Abyei region, which remains contentious. Watch this site.
