On Syria, Ban Ki-moon's Pre-Spun Verdict Set for Delivery Monday on UN.org, ICC Whispers by Saudi's Jarba Sponsors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 15 -- After UN Secretary General passed judgment Friday on his Syria chemical weapons report before he even saw it, now the UN says the report will be released on Monday morning. (On this website: check it.)

But with the US - Russia deal already cut in Geneva, what impact can this UN report have? 

  A scribe who already sponsored a faux UN briefing by Saudi-sponsored rebel Ahmad al Jarba breathlessly report that if the report points to accountability by the Assad government, there may be more discussion of a referral to the International Criminal Court, a Security Council permanent-member diplomat said.

  This sourcing is both comical and telling. Since the US already signed off on a deal that has no mention of the ICC, to imply this provision might be in the resolution is misleading or ill-informed. 

 But also, the "permanent-member" can ONLY be France or the UK. And if they don't even dare say it on the record, what chance does it have?

  This breathless "analysis" has been offered free on other web sites, sort of like spam. Ban Ki-moon, who never asked for a Security Council meeting much less ICC referral for the killing of over 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka, thought he'd promote his image or legacy by speaking Friday of "many crimes against humanity" and accountability.

But since Ban usually simply accommodates and then surfs (or serfs) behind what the US wants, this time he may have mis-read the landscape. His American head of political affairs Jeffrey Feltman was at the UN building on Sunday. But to what end? Watch this site.

Footnote: Much of the action now passes to Washington, with talk of new resolutions to authorize force in advance on Syria - or just on Iran. We'll have more on this.

   

At UN, Portugal Takes On P-5 Favorite Bosnia to Chair Reform Group, Austria's Swan Song

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, December 17 -- The UN Security Council's handing out of chairmanships of its subsidiary bodies is stalled, Inner City Press has learned, by the Permanent Five members' attempts to give the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Procedure to Bosnia, rather than Portugal which wants it.

Portugal ran for the Security Council, beating out Canada, on a platform that included increasing the pace of Security Council reform and transparency. But their request to chair the Working Group on this subject is being opposed. The Permanent Five members -- the US and Russia more vehemently, Inner City Press is informed -- are proposing Bosnia, and a slower pace of reform.

The standoff has delayed the announcement of other Committee and Working Group chairs, including Germany over terrorism alongside South Africa for Resolution 1540 (which outgoing Mexico is giving up), and on Africa.

In terms of Documentation and Procedure, outgoing Council member Thomas Mayr-Harting of Austria on Friday morning praised the reform of the “informal interactive dialogues” of the kind held on Sri Lanka, Chad and the Cheonan incident between the Koreas.

He noted that under current rules, while Switzerland for example chairs the Peacebuilding group on Burundi, they cannot come in to closed door consultations. Therefore all talk in out in the open, unlike for example on Guinea Bissau, on which current Council member Brazil takes the lead.

Not all Council members chair a committee or working group. Gabon, for example, does not have one. “I have a small staff,” the country's Permanent Representative told Inner City Press. He has confirmed dressing down ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo for his talk of genocide in his last appearance. And so it goes at the UN.

P-5 Interests in Sudan & Darfur Reviewed, With Ambassadors in Nairobi Airport

By Matthew Russell Lee

NAIROBI, October 5 -- As the UN Security Council and its five Permanent Members mill around the Nairobi airport before belateding being whisked to a VIP lounge to wait for their flight to Uganda then Juba, the historic role of each P-5 member in Sudan seems worth surveying.

The British, of course, colonized Sudan until its independence in 1956. In Darfur, for example, the British sought local leaders, even defining which tribes were large enough to name their own nazir and have a formal tribal homeland. Arabs in Darfur who didn't make the cut more recently spawned Janjawiid and much destruction.

While the US has been more interested in the North - South, Muslim - Christian conflict, it's worth noting that the CIA as well as France backed Chad in 1987 in driving Gaddafi's Arabist forces back into Darfur, which also played its role in the more recent conflict there.

Now, France is the host to Darfur rebel leader Abdel Wahid Nur, as Inner City Press asked French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner about last week.

China's business relations with Khartoum are well known; why China did not use its Security Council veto to block the referral of Darfur, and ultimately Omar al Bashir, to the International Criminal Court is still not known. Some say China wanted to have additional leverage over Bashir. But now the indictment seemingly cannot be put off.

On October 4 in New York before he and Inner City Press left for the airport, Ugandan Permanent Representative Ruhakana Rugunda said that his country favors suspending the indictment for a year, under Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but that there is not Council unanimity for this. It wouldn't require a unanimous vote, but any of the P-5 could stop it.

Just as one of the Western P-5 Permanent Representatives told the Press last month that it is impossible to imagine any of the Western P-5s taking a photo with Bashir, it is similarly difficult to imagine them -- much less all three of them -- voting to suspend Bashir's indictment for genocide and war crimes.

Seemingly the least implicated P-5 member is Russia. Their Cold War involvements in Africa notwithstanding, Russia's involvement today seems limited to dominating air transport. But this has led to at least two recent incidents of Russian pilots and crews being kidnapped and beaten in Darfur. While when Inner City Press asked him about it, Russia's Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin minimized these incidents, they may explain his personal participation on the trip.

Footnote: when the plane carrying the Security Council Ambassadors reached Nairobi, less planning than might have been expected had been done. The Ambassadors “sneaked” through a gate for another group's flight.

In future installments we hope to review the business interests of the P-5 members, and the wider interests of the Elected (or Temporary) Ten. Watch this site, and follow on Twitter @InnerCityPress

Sudan Trip by UN Council Stalled by Bashir Photo Op Concerns, P-2 Discussions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 17 -- The Sudanese trip of the UN Security Council, initially slated for early October, is in jeopardy of being canceled. Sudan has indicated that if the Council visits, a meeting and photo opportunity with the country's President would be required.

This week several Permanent Five members of the Council told Inner City Press that their Ambassadors could not meet with Omar al Bashir, due to his indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide.

While this prohibition is presented as a matter of law, three of the Permanent Five are not members of the ICC, and therefore appear under no prohibition from meeting with indictees. Thus it is a matter of choice, of politics and of perception.

On September 16, a self described senior US official told Inner City Press that

“With respect to a potential Security Council mission [to Sudan], we've talked informally in the Security Council since the beginning of the year [including] about the obvious complication that such a trip poses. You guys know that the Security Council referred the issue of Sudan to the International Criminal Court, and there the outstanding indictments, and that's a political fact. We have some legal realities that can't be ignored. We're still frankly talking amongst ourselves about how to deal with them. And it's not clear whether they can be dealt with adequately to enable a trip in the near term.”

A non-Permanent member of the Council that is a member of the ICC but say it would, given the stakes for Sudanese civilians, be willing to go and meet Bashir complained to Inner City Press that so far the discussion of this issue has been confined not even to the full P-5, but rather to the assigned leaders of different legs of the trip as planned: the US (for South Sudan) and the UK (for Darfur).

"Real diplomats don't run scared of photo ops when people are threatened with death," the complainant argued to Inner City Press.

Inner City Press asked the senior US official about this concern and the response was that “We always have conversations about P-5 and those conversations always end up in the larger Council.” The US official added that of course, approval of any trip would require the involvement of all 15 member of the Council. But cancellation of the planned trip can be done by a mere two members?

With the high profile September 24 meeting on Sudan at the UN coming closer, some wonder if with the involvement of Sudanese Vice President Taha and US President Obama, the stumbling blocks could be overcome.

Among the suggestions are that some Ambassadors simply stay in their hotel while others meet Bashir, or that they attend but not shake Bashir's hand.

Inner City Press covered the Council's 2008 trip to Sudan (as well as Kenya, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Cote d'Ivoire) and witnessed then US Deputy Permanent Representative Alejandro Wolff, UK Permanent Representative John Sawers and French PR Jean Maurice Ripert meeting with Bashir and other Sudanese officials.

That was then; this is now. Watch this site.

On UN Press Restrictions, P-5 Wax and Wane as CPJ Decries Hypocrisy

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/sc6unreform040710.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 7 -- Two days after the Press was unceremoniously told to move back from the UN Security Council because two Permanent member nations wanted less "involuntary interaction" with reporters, Inner City Press asked last month's Council President from Gabon about the controversy.

He confirmed the complaints, but ascribed them to a lack of any controls when the Council first moved to its new location in the UN basement. Meanwhile the Council's 15 members met Wednesday afternoon and heard a proposal from three representative of the UN Secretariat.

Inner City Press stood alone in the still limited stakeout area when the three emerged at 4:15 on Wednesday. They heard our proposal and are discussing it, Inner City Press was told.

The proposal involves moving the stakeout back up on front of the Security Council, allowing a similar stake out by the first floor Delegates' Entrance, and trying to allow journalists to walk up the same stairs as diplomats. (Imagine that).

One of the Permanent Five ambassadors named as having triggered the restrictions backtracked and expressed support for press use of the stairs. The host country, which on Monday denied having begun the discussion, still refers to safety concerns.

The Committee to Protect Journalists released the following statement on the controversy, through its deputy director Robert Mahoney:

"We fully support the United Nations Correspondents Association in its opposition to proposed new restrictions on press access to UN Security Council members. The public will see straight through the argument that delegates’ safety is enhanced by keeping them shielded from the press. Both diplomats and reporters are already inside a secure zone with visible ID. The United Nations should be a beacon for the human rights it was established to uphold. Those include freedom of expression and a free media. To deny reporters access to public officials would be hypocritical."

But hypocrisy is sometimes the norm at the UN. We'll see -- watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/sc6unreform040710.html