By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 22 -- The Security Council tables were turned on Monday morning, when the Ambassador of Burundi began his speech with the fact that former colonial powerhouse Belgium was without a government for more than a year.
He then mocked those to whom "good government is so dear," citing a proverb from another colonialist, France: "An empty stomach has no ears."
On the other end of the spectrum, after the chair of the UN Peacebuilding configuration Paul Seger of Switzerland spoke in the open meeting, he like Burundi was not allowed into the Security Council's consultation.
These exclusions are one of the reforms proposed by the new ACT grouping, and the Small Five before it. Seger stopped and told Inner City Press that, along with lines of another saying about Mohamed and the mountain, he had invited Security Council members to consult with him on Friday, and they did. But at what level?
Seger was in Burundi from June 24 to 28, and among other things as regards the International Monetary Fund said, "both the Burundian authorities and the donors consider the socio-economic situation to be difficult, although the two sides do not necessarily have the same interpretation of the causes of this fragility. The recent mission by the International Monetary Fund summed up the main challenges well. I strongly encourage the government to follow its recommendations."
There were four then one then no media in front of the Security Council -- the Conference Building wi-fi seems not to work, beyond the lack of the media worktable that existed in front of the Security Council before and during the Capital Master Plan renovation. To return to Seger's speech, while the IMF tends to try to make things easier for journalists to cover it, the opposite may be the trend at the UN. The Free UN Coalition for Access has asked why. Watch this site.
