As Iran - US “Bilateral” Joined by EU, Might France's Nicolas de Riviere Ride In, Sanctions-Busting BNP Paribas in Tow?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 7 -- With the July 20 deadline to conclude the Iran nuclear talks looking more uncertain, early on June 7 the US State Department announced that “Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns and Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy R. Sherman will travel to Geneva for consultations with Iranian officials on June 9-10.”

  Beyond the two days' relation to the July 20 deadline, they also come as Iran sanctions violations by BNP Paribas are being actively defended by French president Francois Hollande and foreign minister Laurent Fabius.

  These June 9-10 US - Iran meetings was called a bilateral and other US attendees were named, including Brooke Anderson, previously at the US Mission to the UN, and Jake Sullivan, who was with Vice President Biden at Petro Poroshenko's inaugural in Kyiv on June 7.

  Then Iranian bilaterals with Russia and China, each separately, were announced. The question arose: what about France and the UK? What about the European Union?

  The EU quickly announced that its Helga Schmid will also play a role -- or “join” -- in Geneva. EU spokesperson Michael Mann said, “The US will hold a bilateral with the deputy chief Iranian negotiator in Geneva next week. EU Political Director Helga Schmid will join. Other bilaterals will follow in the next days.”

  So when is a bilateral meeting NOT a bilateral?

  Soon a US Senior Adminstration Official on background responded to questions: “As we've said - and as the EU just noted - these talks are intensifying. The P5+1 and the EU have been in total coordination throughout these talks, including regarding bilateral discussions. As such, EU Political Director Helga Schmid will join in Geneva as well.”

  So again: when is a bilateral no longer a bilateral? Will France itself try to participate, with Jacques Audibert's replacement Nicolas de Riviere a/k/a Flippy Nic? 

  How to compare France's hard-line position on Iran and sanctions violations now that Francois Hollande and Laurent Fabuis are actively defending sanctions violations, not only to Sudan but also Iran, by BNP Paribas? A new dynamic? Watch this site.

   

On S. Sudan Resolution, UN Role on Borders of Blue Nile & Kordofan Unclear, Troop Numbers Game

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 6, updated -- With the countdown to South Sudan's formal declaration of independence on July 9 begun, at the UN in New York on Wednesday negotiations on the resolution for a new peacekeeping mission went into overtime.

A Deputy Permanent Representative emerged from the Security Council chamber and told Inner City Press that while the size of the mission will be reconsidered after three or six months, a sticking point is whether and how the disputed borders in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states will be monitored.

“If the North does not agree,” the DPR told Inner City Press, “there can't be any UN peacekeepers there.”

Khartoum has agreed to Ethiopian troops in Abyei, but has stepped away from a deal about South Kordofan. When Inner City Press asked the UN earlier on Wednesday to confirm troops build ups in South Kordofan, the response was a reiteration of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for freedom of movement. Does that mean the UN doesn't have freedom of movement? Yes, was the answer. Video here, from Minute 47:30.

Questions posed to the UN in New York on July 5 were then e-mailed to UNMIS in Sudan, but have yet to be answered. A delegation from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations came out of the Security Council at 5 pm on Wednesday. Referring to the number of troops proposed, Inner City Press asked, “Seven thousand?” A UN military official laughed; a civilian official said “DPKO has no comment.”

[See update below: UK says between six and seven thousand.]

On the numbers, a Permanent Representative inside the negotiations told Inner City Press that DPKO while asking for 7000 also refers to a 5400 figure. We'll have more on this.

Footnote: as the above was finished, the Obama administration announced its delegation to Juba, including Susan Rice, Colin Powell, Brooke Anderson, Rep. Donald Payne, Princeton Lyman, Donald Steinberg, Africom's Carter F. Ham, and Johnnie Carson. “Johnny Carson?” a US official asked. Not that Johnny Carson...

Update of 7:35 pm -- among Western P-5 Permanent Representative, the UK's Mark Lyall Grant emerged and told Inner City Press, somewhere between six and seven thousand. France's Gerard Araud said nothing. And Susan Rice of the US... is still inside the Council, if the presence of USUN body guards is any guide.

Update of 8 pm -- the problem of adopting the resolution on Friday has apparently been solved: the resolution will say that the mission is created "upon" independence, and will be voted on Friday. The last of the diplomats have left.

After Ivorian One-Off, Red Flag on African Elections for UN, Brooke Anderson's Farewell

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 11 -- When American diplomat Brooke D. Anderson was tapped to move from the US Mission to the UN in New York to become deputy chief of the National Security Agency in Washington, another Ambassador on the UN Security Council commiserated with Inner City Press what a “big loss to USUN” it would be.

Monday night at the Waldorff towers, Ms. Anderson was bid farewell by many of her past and recent Security Council colleagues, for examples the Permanent Representatives of Gabon, Brazil and Russia, previous member Austria and new member India. Susan Rice said how much she would miss Brooke, then to party on.

The talk turned to the UN and African elections, the topic of a closed door briefing earlier on Monday. “The UN is not supposed to be a supra national body,” the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo complained. “At some point a red flag will be raised.”

Another Ambassador, serving on the Council, said that Laurent Gbagbo had brought about the beginning of the end of his command in Cote d'Ivoire by basing his power in recent years on UN Security Council resolutions “instead of the Ivorian constitution.”

Two members, one Permanent and the other wanna-be, agreed that Ivory Coast would be the last time that UN would be in the position of certifying an election or its winner. The phrase used in the Council was sui generis, a Latin phrase meaning "one of a kind" much used with regard to Kosovo.

Earlier on Monday, Inner City Press had asked the UN's part time Special Advisor on Africa if he was every consulted, by Lynn Pascoe of the Department of Political Affairs before his briefing on African elections, or with regard to Cote d'Ivoire. No, he said, I specialize in economic and development issues.

What about actions on Ivorian cocoa customs revenue? He replied that Ban Ki-moon's envoy Choi Young-jin is doing a “great” job.

An African Permanent Representative who had seen the question and answer rolled his eyes and asked, “What else is he going to say?”

So who dares speak truth to power, and say when a policy is wrong? The US abstained from the General Assembly resolution against arbitrary executions, and couldn't or wouldn't explain why. One surmised it concerned drones, but the official line, repeated Monday night, vaguely referred to “misreadings of international humanitarian law.”

Introduced on Monday night was Ms. Anderson's (at least temporary) successor, David Dunn. He's a 32 year State Department veteran who served, among other things, as US Ambassador to Zambia and Togo.

It was explained that the formal replacement is “pending in Congress,” as is that for the long vacant position at USUN for management and budget. It has been filled for some time by Joseph Melrose, observed by Inner City Press working the General Assembly floor at 4 am on December 23-24, 2010 on the budget.

A Council press statement on Cote d'Ivoire was agreed to and read out by Bosnia's Deputy Permanent Representative at 6 pm on Monday. Since Ms. Anderson was in charge of negotiating the text, its adoption presumptively had something to do with, and was a tribute to, her farewell reception which began mere minutes later.

We note in no particular order her first stakeout (on Guinea-Bissau), a later one on Cote d'Ivoire, an initial dispute with USUN whether she would be the Mission's Number Three or Four official (the former, as Rosemary DiCarlo did not end of overlapping with Alejandro Wolff, with whom one would still like to speak about the 2009 meeting with the ICC's Luis Moreno Ocampo about Omar al Bashir's billions, minutes as Wikileaked classified by Mr. Wolff) -- and the response, ultimately true, that Ms. Anderson didn't care so much for titles. We wish her well.

Chez Susan Rice, Cote d'Ivoire Plots, Sudan Greets and Meats, UN Holidays

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- The Ambassadors of Sudan and Cote d'Ivoire were among the guests at US Ambassador Susan Rice's diplomatic holiday party Thursday night in the Waldorff Towers. The former, Dafallah Osman, had two hours earlier delivered a speech saying that humanitarian groups in Darfur were engaged in “espionage.”

The Ivorian charge d'affaires asked Inner City Press what now should happen to Laurent Gbagbo, who had appointed him. His interlocutor, another African Permanent Representative, predicted that Gbagbo will try to stay in power a la Robert Mugabe.

The Ivorian invitation, it was argued, was sent before Gbagbo ignored the election results, and the remnant Deputy Ambassador wasn't part of the “dark side.” But he was plotting how Gbagbo could stay in power, in Susan Rice's living room. This is diplomacy at the UN.

The crowd was laudably eclectic, including the Special Adviser for the Responsibility to Protect rushing to catch a train for Westchester, the Special Representative on Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict and a slew of Ambassadors, many of whom had stopped first at a Kazakhstan event.

The Ambassador of Serbia, a long time UN employee from Georgia and India, bragged about his country's Davis Cup tennis win over France. The Ambassador of Palau, from the Upper West Side, talked up his wife's country's move to create a sanctuary for sharks.

Tajikistan is taking the chair, at least in New York, of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which sides with Sudan's Omar al Bashir over the International Criminal Court. “I am only the chair,” the Tajik Ambassador told Inner City Press. Israel's Ambassador also spoke at length, which may be a separate story.

In the US Mission residence's dining room there was turkey, ham and cheese and slew of ASGs, from Human Resources to ACABQ. Interesting art on the walls was said to be on loan for a program for US Embassies. The full USUN team was in the house, from the spokespeople to Rosemary DiCarlo through Brooke Anderson to Rick Barton and Ambassador Melrose, who covers the Budget Committee.

The US' big event this month will be Youth in the Security Council. Austria will have three youths there, but only if they can pay their own airfare. While they will fetchingly stay overnight with the Austrian Perm Rep, could this be just an event for rich kids?

Even in the US, schools are on hiatus when the event is being held. We'll see who shows up, and what scholarships are provided. It was a friendly event full of holiday spirit. And in Sudan, the UN Mission in Darfur covers up killings. UN Peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told Inner City Press he will look into it. What will the US do? Watch this site.

UN Council Agrees After 5 Days to Cote d'Ivoire Statement on Ouattara Win

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 8 -- After five days of negotiations, the UN Security Council at 6:30 Wednesday night agreed to a Press Statement, in light of ECOWAS recognition of Alassane Ouattara as the winner of Cote d'Ivoire's election. The Statement also deplores the suspension of non governmental media in Cote d'Ivoire.

Inner City Press has heard that the US urged SRSG Choi to declare Ouattara the winner, even before the Constitutional Council had made its statement - out of order.

Inner City Press asked African Ambassadors for their views as they left the Council chamber.

“We wanted the Security Council to support Africans' decisions,” Ambassador Rugunda of Uganda told Inner City Press.

“You see?” Gabon's Ambassador said. “A Russian contribution.”

Russia had held out -- several sources told Inner City Press that China supported Russia too. Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong told Inner City Press that the two parties should share.

Even Uganda's Ruganda said “we are not throwing Gbagbo out. He can stay, as opposition.”

With US Permanent Representative Susan Rice in Washington, Brooke Anderson was picked to read out the press statement. It was long, and Ambassador Anderson walked away from the microphone as Inner City Press asked, "Why did this take so long?"

While the US was reticent to explain, they pointed to elements in the text finally agreed, for example the section on free press, and mostly the inclusion of Ouattara's name. Something, they say, was accomplished. But what about the bombings in Sudan?

The US Mission has still not answered questions put to it last week and on Tuesday about murder and bombings in Sudan, including a call by the SPLM for a Security Council investigation... But that (apparently) is for another day.

UN Housed Drug Kingpin in Guinea Bissau for 3 Months, Because "He Needed Protection"- What's Next, Pedophiles and Terrorists?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1drugpin071510.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 -- When Guinea Bissau's former Navy chief of staff Bubo Na Tchuto entered the country in December, by canoe, he was allowed to take refuge in the UN compound.

Even then, Bubo Na Tchuto was widely known to be involved in narcotics trafficking. Nevertheless, the UN continued to provide shelter to Bubo Na Tchuto until the April 1 mutiny, at which time he left the UN and has remained at large, wielding power.

Why did the UN provide this service to what the U.S. now calls a “drug kingpin”? At the UN's July 15 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq just this.

Haq replied that “the office was acting on the basis of express concerns if the individual left the building, there would be a threat to his life.” Video here, from Minute 8:28.

That a drug kingpin might face some dangers is axiomatic. Inner City Press asked if the UN would apply the same standard, and provide the same services, to a terrorist.

Haq declined to answer, saying the the head of the UN Mission in Guinea Bissau, Joseph Mutaboba, be taking questions at the Security Council stakeout.

While Mutaboba's media availability was announced, it was never held.

Rather, Inner City Press asked U.S. Alternative Representative for Special Political Affair Brooke Anderson, in her first stakeout, the following question:

Inner City Press: one of the two people named as kingpins, Bubo Na Tchuto, was actually put up by the United Nations, was held in the UN compound, was protected in December for several months. I'm just wondering, what does the U.S. think, does the U.S. think that was a bad decision for the UN to essentially provide protection and supper [succor] to a man that is now known as a drug kingpin?

Ambassador Anderson: We have designated him as a drug kingpin, we are taking action to address this issue and we are concerned about the fact that he was in the UN compound.

This concern was in turn reported by Reuters. But if the U.S. is concerned, what accountability will there be for those who allowed the drug kingpin in, and to stay for three months?

In the UN, there is rarely accountability. Even now, the UN appears unable to say that it made a mistake. Back in December, Inner City Press asked a senior UN official about Bubo Na Tchuto. We think he didn't like his exile in Gambia, was the response. We are arranging another exile. It never happened.

Here is a question: while staying with the UN, to where to Bubo Na Tchuto make phone calls? Who paid for that?

More generally, in Jamaica Dudus Coke certainly faced a threat on his life. Would the UN house him for three months? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1drugpin071510.html

At UN, Of Africa Days and Al Qaeda Evenings, Burundi and Bacardi Gold

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/sc1smafrica071510.html

UNITED NATIONS, July 15 -- With small countries in Africa dominating the Security Council's July 15 schedule, there were few reporters, fewer updates and, some concluded, no news. But it depends on how you definite it.

Liberia is on the cusp of becoming the fifth country on the agenda of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. If no member objects to a letter pending in the Council, the referral will be made.

Meanwhile one of the four countries already on the PBC agenda, Burundi, recently had a one party election marred by tossed grenades and now the threat of attack by Al Shabab.

Burundi has soldiers in Somalia. Inner City Press spoke this week with the UN's envoy to Burundi Charles Petrie. He put a positive spin on the one party election, saying it was not as violent as it might have been.

Petrie said the opposition is weak, and the UN must play the counter-balance that civil society and opposition parties would in other countries. He should know: he was thrown out of Myanmar by the government, then served for a time in a humanitarian role on, but not in, Somalia. He was in the French military but not, as one rumor has it, in the Foreign Legion. The Council should have heard from him but didn't.

The same might be said of the UN's new envoy to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga. He went into the Council's quiet room on July 14, but was not heard from by the Council as a whole. He met with the Permanent Five, one by one. He stopped to speak to Inner City Press, about including Al Shabab on the Al Qaeda sanctions list under Council Resolution 1267 in the wake of the Kampala bombings.

Later on July 14, at an ill-attended UK reception on climate change in the General Assembly lobby, Inner City Press asked UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant about 1267 and the Shabab. He pointed out that they are already on the Somalia sanctions list, and who knew who is or is not truly affiliated with Al Qaeda. An Ethiopian diplomat added, not surprisingly, they are “definitely” with Al Qaeda.

But the Council sticks to its schedule. Guinea Bissau was the topic for July 15. The coup leader now heads the military; the UN “took note” of it. A Presidential Statement is to be drafted in the coming days.

Still and all, the Permanent Representatives of France, Japan and Mexico strode into the Council just after 10 a.m.. The active Number Three of the US, Brooke Anderson, was made to show her identification card to get in. The day previous, Permanent Representative Susan Rice was in the Council but left early, to go get an award from the WNBA and, the press release said, Bacardi Gold.

Inner City Press has wanted to go and see, but it conflicted with UN press conferences. The Security Council has met every day this week. Gabon's Perm Rep meandered in at 10:25. There was only one reporter at the Security Council stake out: this one. Something, it was rumored, would happen.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/sc1smafrica071510.html