By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 12 -- Two weeks after the UN's grandiose plan to send 200 military observers to Libya, alongside what the UN plan called a continuing role for NATO, was exposed and largely rejected by the National Transitional Council there, on Monday UN Political chief Lynn Pascoe held a briefing to brag about the UN's success in mediation.
Inner City Press asked Pascoe, now that UN mediator Al Khatib is being removed from the scene, what his involvement is with Ian Martin, the author of the plan, and how the UN justifies the position in the Martin Plan that "[t]he Security Council's 'protection of civilians' mandate implemented by NATO does not end with the fall of the Qadhafi government and, therefore, NATO would continue to have some responsibilities." Click here for the Martin Report, exclusively obtained and published by Inner City Press.
Pascoe launched into a length response that veered into Sudan and envoy Haile Menkerios' work there, then returned to say that the Libyans "want us to be very involved in elections," a position disputed by sources in Benghazi and now Tripoli.
In terms of the requested UN defense of it having posited a continuing role for NATO, which Martin when he took the question insisted was a "factual statement," Pascoe offered no defense.
When Inner City Press tried at the end of the disjointed answer to ask, "What about the NATO statement," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky cut in, saying "we have to move on to others."
Perhaps Pascoe's reference to Sudan, from which the UN Mission has been expelled on July 9, was that even now Ban's New York based adviser on the country Haile Menkerios reports to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and not Pascoe's Department of Political Affairs.
Inner City Press has also asked Pascoe to respond to the criticism that this UN is often far from impartial. This, he did not answer, but it has in the view of many become the UN's Achilles heal. Watch this site.
