UN General Assembly's First Committee Ends with South Africa Delegate Criticizing Belize & DGACM

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 8 -- The UN General Assembly's processing of its committees' draft resolutions in December is usually pro forma, most approved without a vote, or with vote counts mirroring what happened at the committee level.

 But the December 7 General Assembly session to approve the resolutions of the First Committee ended with a spat between the delegates of South Africa and Belize, then the South African telling the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) official on the podium that his country would take “advice but not instruction from you.” Video here at end, from 2:09:00.

  The Belize delegate took issue with South Africa saying that as Committee Rapporteur, she had rarely been present. She said as a member of a small delegation, she took DGACM's advice that she could sit behind her country's flag rather than in the front. The South African replied, I never saw you.

  The First Committee can be depressing. But some delegate said this went too far, and highlighted it to Inner City Press.

 Back on October 3 on the final day of the UN General Assembly Debate on October 3, 13 UN member states were scheduled to speak, followed by statements in the right to reply.

 Inner City Press came to find the UN's 42nd Street gate locked, and no lights in the hallways to the media and photo booths over the GA Hall, and no chairs in the booths. It stood and shot Periscope video, here and here,and live-tweeted the proceedings.

   Eritrea's speaker said “in the UN, the overwhelming majority of member states are marginalized” and that hit the nail on the head. The UN's media floor was empty, as was the clubhouse it gives its UN Censorship Alliance or UNCA (used just this week to serve the Syrian Coalition opposition, previously used to try to throw the investigative Press out of the UN). An African journalist asked the new Free UN Coalition for Access, “Where is the MALU desk?” It was gone. The UN Secretariat, too, didn't care about these states.

  Suriname talks about climate change, Maldives about the refugee crisis. Down on the GA floor, many countries' seats were empty, among them Bangladesh and Bulgaria (which wants the Secretary General post) and Burundi - tweeting this drew some government defenders, as did noting that Cote d'Ivoire did not, like even more servile Central African Republic, refer to “Moroccan Sahara,” but rather “Western Sahara.”

  Deputy SG Jan Eliasson joined Mogens Lykketoft on the podium but himself gave no speech. Lykketoft botched the procedure, closing the session before allowing of the rights of reply. In the end there were only Indonesia, Tonga and the Solomon Island, all about Papua, and Iran replying to Bahrain, Canada and the UAE.

 The Hall was empty for Canada; there followed some errata statement by Lykketoft about filling the post of Canadian OIOS chief Carman Lapointe. Down in front of the GA were the Permanent Representative of Palau and Liberia's Deputy. It was over, with a whimper and not a bang.

 Even by the fifth day of the UN General Debate on October 2, when countries such as Syria and Sudan, Myanmar and Jamaica were scheduled to speak, the NY Police Department barricades were removed and life returned to normal, at least UN-normal, inside the Secretariat building.

  UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric wouldn't tell Inner City Press if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with Haiti's Martelly had even mentioned cholera, which UN Peacekeeping brought to the island. Ban's read-out with Sudan's foreign minister Ghandour did not mention the mass rapes at Thabit in Darfur, which UN Peacekeeping's Herve Ladsous helped cover up.

  When Inner City Press asked Dujarric about Ladsous so controlling the UNGA stakeout that he Banned questions to Mali's foreign minister Diop, Dujarric said not to worry, “It's a stakeout, just shout your question.” Duly noted.

  In the increasingly empty General Assembly Hall, Ghandour complained about the sanctions on his country. Syria's Walid al Moualem said that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia all support terrorism. One expected rights of reply, at least at some point. Myanmar's foreign minister spoke surreally about a “culture of peace” with the Rohingya in Rakhine State. With the OIC's Madani, Ban Ki-moon did discuss Myanmar - but not Yemen, where OIC host Saudi Arabia is blasting away with airstrikes.

   Inner City Press asked Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of the UK, penholder on Yemen, if he'd met with envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Yes, he said, back on October 1. Francois Delattre of France, penholding on such countries as Burundi and the Central African Republic, went into the Security Council affably but without news. Inner City Press, since Ladsous blocked Press questions to CAR's ministers, asked UN Spokesman Dujarric if the UN thought the violence in Bangui is a coup. Apparently not.

  Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci met with Ban Ki-moon then did a stakeout; Inner City Press asked him about bilaterals with Sweden, the EU and New Zealand (no answer) and about hydrocarbons (long answer.) Many other such entities would like to be in the UN this week but are denied, even in what is increasingly called garbage time. Watch this site.

 As the UN removes its maze of metal detectors until next year, and New York City traffic flows up First Avenue again, what did this week's UN General Assembly debate come down to?

   Perhaps the moment of the week was US Secretary of State John Kerry finding Syria's Walid Moualem in the clubhouse of the Security Council's Permanent Five members, then looking around for another place to pass time. (Inner City Press first tweeted it, here.)

 While Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov then made back to back statements at the Security Council stakeout without taking any questions, the next day October 1 Lavrov took an hour worth of questions, in the UN Press Briefing Room.

  This UN Press Briefing Room became a battleground, with Brazil trying to follow France in reserving the front rows for its diplomats rather than journalists - they relented- and France innovating, in its way, by using seat-holders who rose to their feet to cede their place to French minister Laurent Fabius and, in one case, Segolene Royal.

   Fabius scowled when Inner City Press asked “his” President Francois Hollande about French soldiers rapes in the Central African Republic and UN Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous linking rapes to “R&R.” Then on October 1Fabius refused to take a Press question whether Turkey's airstrikes on Kurds met the three conditions he had just announced.

   Ladsous, apparently angrier than usual at the question to Hollande, scowled up at the photo booths during the Peacekeeping Summit, then directed his flunkies to control the UN microphone at the cramped third floor UNTV stakeout, to the extent of Banning a question to Mali's foreign minister. On that, we'll have more.

  This too: Turkey used the UN Press Briefing Room for a staged “press conference” where it chose the question in advance then told Inner City Press, when it asked a follow-up, not to “interfere.” The old UN Correspondents Association, typically, did nothing about this (instead they lured the Syrian Coalition's Khaled Khoja into their clubhouse from which no live-stream or comments onjournalists' arrest in Turkey ever emerged); the new Free UN Coalition for Access fought this and other forms of UN decay.

  As if in a parallel world, China made a number of financial commitments -- $2 billion to a South-South fund, money to UN women, training to the African Union - and drew praise in later General Assembly speeches, which were increasingly ill-attended. Once US President Obama left, after the briefest of photo ops with Russia's Vladimir Putin and a longer one with Raul Castro, much of the security was withdrawn and the air came out of the balloon.

 The UN again closed its big cafeteria, in which food workers were told to dine in a separate room, and after a week of speeches about transparency refused to answer the Press even on how many candidates there are to head the UN refugees agency UNHCR, and who is heading the panel to make the recommendation. We'll have more on this.

UN's Kim Won-soo Eyed to Head UN Disarmament, Upping Martin Kobler's OCHA Odds, Sources Tell Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, February 25 -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's senior adviser and right hand man Kim Won-soo is in line to replace Angela Kane atop UN Disarmament, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press.

   As Inner City Press first reported, Kim had applied for an Assistant Secretary General position in the Department of Political Affairs. But, sources tell Inner City Press, Under Secretary General of DPA Jeffrey Feltman put the kibosh on that. Kim would report directly to Ban Ki-moon, whose campaign for election and re-election as Secretary General Kim essentially ran.

   Inner City Press previously reported on January 30 that along with Kim, another candidate for the DPA Assistant Secretary General post -- whose interim holder spoke with week, for example, with the foreign minister of the Maldives after the jailing of former president Nasheed -- was Dmitry Titov. It is again confirmed that this was plan - but we're told it is no longer. As to who will get this ASG post, we'll have more.

  Some question Kim Won-soo of South Korea holding the UN's Disarmament post, given the nuclear standoff with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea. 

  Kane has had a long tenure in the UN, in such duty stations as Eritrea and, before Disarmament, in the Department of Management. As recently of February 23, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about a controversy in UMOJA during Kane's tenure as Under Secretary General for Management, on which Inner City Press has also exclusively reported:

Inner City Press: you may remember a Paul van Essche was an UMOJA official that ended up leaving his job due to irregularities in his CV, etc.  He recently then was rehired by UNICEF as the head of information technology and it’s my understanding that he quit once the connection was made to the prior problem on this side of the street.  I wanted to ask you whether the Secretary-General called Anthony Lake about this and whether it’s true that Mr. van Essche, despite leaving the job after 10 days, is receiving six months’ salary for his troubles.

Spokesman Dujarric:  I think that’s a question you’d need to address to UNICEF.

Inner City Press:  The reason I’m asking here [cut off by Spokesman]

Spokesman Dujarric:  I’m not aware of any contact between the Secretary-General and Mr. Lake on this issue.

  Kane leaving the Disarmament post would seem to increase the odds of her fellow German Martin Kobler getting the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs post which the UK has held twice in a row. (Inner City Press' exclusive reporting on the OCHA race has been credited by, for example, UK Channel 4, here.)

   Kobler has not, however, fulfilled his vow that the Mission in the Congo under his command would neutralize the Hutu FDLR militia as it did the largely Tutsi M23 group. There is also an unresolved scandal, first exposed by Inner City Press,  in that mission and the one in Haiti, both run by Herve Ladsous, in which UN Police position were sold for money by an Ivorian diplomat who Inner City Press continues to see inside the UN.

   Inner City Press was first to report that Nickolay Mladenov would replace Robert Serry as UN Middle East envoy, that that Jan Kubis would replace Mladenov in Iraq, confirmed on February 24, nine days after Inner City Press reported it. Now that. Watch this site.

   

On South Sudan, Hilde Johnson Told Inner City Press UN Was OK with Peter Gadet Role in Bor, UNHQ Leaves Questions UNanswered 31 Hours

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 22 -- With Bor in South Sudan under the control of Peter Gadet, the UN in New York not answered questions for more than a day. There is a history: back on March 15, 2012 Inner City Press asked UN envoy Hilde Johnson about Gadet being given a role in "disarmament" around Bor. Video here, from Minute 9:35.

  Johnson, a vocal supporter of plans by South Sudan's Salva Kir government, told Inner City Press that it didn't much matter WHO did the disarmament. Video here, from Minute 12:55 (to "us in the UN" who did the disarmament, including Gadet, was "less than relevant.")

  Standing next to Johnson was the spokesperson for UN Peaceekping chief Herve Ladsous, Kieran Dwyer, who would later on video defend Ladsous' refusal to answer Press questions about his UN Peacekeeping partnering with Congolese Army units implicated in mass rapes (or here, for disarmament in South Sudan, with Peter Gadet.)

  Now that US aircraft have been fired at from Bor, and President Barack Obama has told Congress he "may take further action," did and does it really not matter? Where is the accountability? Where are the answers? 

  Rather than answer, the UN issues press releases from its envoy Hilde Johnson. Its communications officer for South Sudan Clare Santry has left the country and appeared for asoft two minute piece on BBC, her former employer, appealing for money from donors and insisting, as Johnson did, that the UN is not abandoning anyone in South Sudan.

  Really? Then why did the UN move to pull even its armed peacekeepers out of Yuai? What is the situation in Bentiu, with troubling reports of killings and seemingly a looming battle?

   More than four hours before this publication, Inner City Press submitted additional questions to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesperson, to the chief spokesperson and the "weekend duty officer" to whom the deputy's email auto-responder directed questions:

On the South Sudan crisis, while still awaiting any response to the questions submitted yesterday, must for now ask a few more:

What percentage of UNMISS personnel is it who are being moved from Bor to Juba? From Juba to Entebbe? How is this different, for example, from the pull out of UN staff from Kilinochchi in late 2008?

Given that the SG said "we are now actively trying to transfer our assets from other peacekeeping missions, like MONUSCO [the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] and some other areas" --

which assets is he / the UN trying to transfer out of the DRC? How does this relate to the UN's pledge to now move to neutralize the FDLR? From what other missions is the UN trying to move assets?

Who in the UN has spoken to - or even reached out to - Riek Machar in the past days? Has the UN visited, or asked to visit, the arrested former ministers?

  No answer in four hours, on top of the 24 hours of non-response before. The Spokesperson's office today has only put out a statement by envoy Hilde F. Johnson: “To anyone who wants to threaten us, attack us or put obstacles in our way, our message remains loud and clear: we will not be intimidated.” 

   This in the same statement announcing the pull-out of all "non-critical" UN staff from Juba to Uganda, while the UN and Johnson's deputy Toby Lanzer have not answer what percentage of UN staff are being pulled out. 

  How is this consistent with the UN's recent post Sri Lanka failure "Rights Up Front" action plan? In Sri Lanka in 2008, the UN pulled all humanitarian ("non-critical"?) staff out of Kilinochchi -- then concealed its own death counts in 2009.

  As Inner City Press asked on December 19 in the UN Press Briefing Room, is Hilde Johnson too close a supporter of Salva Kiir to mediate? This was not answered. Nor whether in the days since she has spoken with, or even reached out to, Riek Machar.

  As noted from Manila Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would move "assets" from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South Sudan.

   Given that the UN has made much of its new focus on "neutralizing" the Hutu FDLR militia in the DRC, Ban's statement cries out for explanation from the UN. Inner City Press was asked, from the Kivus, where Ban said this. It was in his Q&A in Manila, only belated added to the UN website,here.

 But neither the UN, its Department of Peacekeeping Operations under Herve Ladsous with his own history in the Great Lakes region or enovy Martin Kobler has answered this question: which assets would be removed from the DRC?

  So too does the UN Mission in South Sudan UNMISS tweeting it is moving "non essential" staff out of the country, to Uganda, STILL cry out for explanation.

  What percentage of UNMISS would that be? And how is this consistent with the UN's ballyhooed post Sri Lanka failure "Rights Up Front Action Plan"?  Rights seen from behind?

  What about the UN decision to try to pull all of peacekeepers out of Yuai? Was a UN helicopter shot down and abandoned on the way? The UN won't answer on this, or the questions below. But BBC has no analysis of the UN, only of "rebel" former vice president Riek Machar.

  BBC on December 21 showed former US official, now Texas A&M professor Andrew Natsios, who said the ICRC and IGAD ministers were blocked from visiting the ministers arrested by Salva Kiir. 

  Natsios suggested the ministers should be turned over to the UN for protection. What -- protection like the abandoned civilians around Yuai? 

  One reason the UN does not improvement is that it is not held accountable. Even on Haiti cholera, people make excuses, and those who don't are barely heard from. Shouldn't the UN at least be expected to answer questions?

  Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in from Manila cited South Sudan and Riek Machar. But his Office of the Spokesperson has gone twenty hours without answering basic questions about South Sudan.

  After the UN Mission in South Sudan belated acknowledged on its week-old Twitter account that one of its helicopters "came under small arms fire" on the way to try to remove all peacekeepers from Yuai, Inner City Press asked a question.

   Did the UN copter in fact get shot, emergency land and be abandoned -- that is, get shot down?  Saying "came under small arms fire," in that case, would be an understatement.

  But the UN spokesperson's office in New York has left Press questions about South Sudan UNanswered for more than nineteen hours now. 

  The US State Department has summarized John Kerry's call to Salva Kiir, informing him that US envoy Donald Booth is on the way. Will Booth reach out to Riek Machar? Who will tell the UN, which is ostensibly responsive to its member states, that it should answer questions?

  After news that three US military aircraft were fired at while approaching Bor in South Sudan, where some 15,000 people are in the UN base, Inner City Press put questions to US Africom and to the UN's two top spokespeople in New York.

  Africom quickly answered, twice. And the White House sent a statement that President Barack Obama was briefed, including by Susan Rice, and "reaffirmed the importance of continuing to work with the United Nations to secure our citizens in Bor."

  But from the UN came only an auto-response, that acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq will be out of the office until December 30, and to put any questions to the sole weekend duty officer of the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Inner City Press sent these, on the morning of December 21, more than four hours before deadline for first publication:

Now with 3 US aircraft shot over Bor, this is a press request for an update from the UN:

What is the UN's knowledge of military conflict in Bor, impact on civilians?

Is the army aligned with Salva Kiir seeking to re-take Bor? Is it coordinating in any way with UNMISS?

Since the beginning of the unrest in Juba, has UNMISS provided any support to which the UN's Human Rights Due Diligence Policy applies? If so, to which units?

Has any UN official spoken with Riek Machar during this period?

To the UN's knowledge, did Uganda or any other outside country take military action in Bor or elsewhere in South Sudan?

This is a request, including on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, that the Office of the Spokesperson hold (noon) briefings during this phase of crisis in South Sudan, certainly on Monday, December 23.

  On Friday December 20, amid the South Sudan crisis,Farhan Haq announced that the UN would cancel its normal noon briefings, all the way through December 30.

While some information trickles out from UNMISS in Juba, which only started a twitter account last week, it comes late.  

  This is why the UN's Office of the Spokesperson should be providing information, and / or Herve Ladsous' UN Peacekeeping. Their twitter account is blithely promoting itself, with a few re-tweets from UNMISS. Where is Ladsous? He has a "policy" of not answering Press questions. Video here, UK coverage here.

This is a time for the UN to communicate. But it is not. As was jotted during the Security Council's consultations on December 20 -- despite commitment and good work from many in UNMISS which Inner City Press also covers and would like to cover more -- there is a credibility crisis for the UN. And it is getting worse. Watch this site.

   

US & UK on Diego Garcia In UN Disarmament's Long Day's Journey into Night: Saudi, Sushi

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 23 -- Wednesday was Disarmament Night in and across from the UN, with the Latin American nuclear free zone of the Treaty of Tlatelolco collecting its award, complete with classical music, sushi and four kinds of beer. 

  When the award was announced, the Free UN Coalition for Access pressed to that questions be allowed: for example on nuclear UK's use of the Malvinas Islands.

  Wednesday night diplomats approached Inner City Press on both sides of First Avenue with their own tales of abuse by the UK and US, on the African nuclear free zone or Treaty of Pelindaba.

  It is diplomatically stated that "the status of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, controlled by the United Kingdom and used as a military base by the United States, with regard to the Treaty is unclear."

  UNclear? If the US and UK are so high and mighty on nuclear proliferation, why not just commit to not landing there? Fueled by finger food and liquor, an African diplomat told Inner City Press neither country wants to say which of its ships are nuclear. "It's absurd," he said. In the UN's First Committee, this is heard at much, much length.

  Inner City Press has been following the end of session rights of reply in the First Committee, usually involving North Korea taking on South Korea or Japan. North Korea wins many of these skirmishes: their speaker is articulate and sassy, for example asking South Korea to "talk to its master" -- the United States -- if it has the courage, or ask another to do it.

  In the time allotted after 6 pm, Inner City Press has been live-tweeting these exchanges, and getting responses. Some agree the North Koreans are well trained, and others don't. There's talk of the South Korean mission melting down last year at how they were losing the exchanges, and of a trash-talk school.

  Down at the disarmament award reception on the UN's first floor Wednesday night, talk turned to the Nuclear Free Middle East proposals, and Saudi Arabia's renunciation of a Security Council seat. Was it about Israel, on this, or Iran? The consensus was Iran. And we'll have more on that tomorrow. Watch this site.

   

At UN, Stevie Wonder Says Must Overcome Lobbyists for US To Ratify Disabilities Convention: Access

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 23 -- When Stevie Wonder spoke at the UN on disabilities and development on Monday, it was a feel good moment. Inner City Press asked Wonder about the United States not having ratified the Disabilities Convention: what are the stumbling blocks?

Wonder said he didn't know the ins and outs of the stumbling blocks, but they will be overcome. We can't let the lobbyists win, he said.

Inner City Press also asked about accessibility at the UN itself. In July, Kenya's Ambassador said the UN has "no inkling" how to be accessible to the disabled. When Inner City Press pursued it, word was that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is working on a Bulletin on Accessibility. But where is it?

In the front row at Monday's press conference was UN official Daniela Bas, who last week told Inner City Press she couldn't speak for Ban on the matter of the Bulletin on Accessibility. So who can?

On the panel with Stevie Wonder was Philippines Ambassador Libran Cabactulan. He previously tried to become Ban's High Representative on Disarmament, but was passed over for Angela Kane of Germany, who needed another high post after leaving the Department of Management.

If Cabactulan had gotten that post, it would be him negotiating with the Assad government of Syria for access to investigate chemical weapons. Be careful what you wish for? Watch this site.

Footnote: DPI's chief moderated the press conference, gracefully. While he gave the first question to UNCA, he gave the second to Inner City Press, which thanked all three including Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, Chair of the Committee of Rights of Person with Disabilities on behalf of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.

  Given much history, limitations and rights of free speech and association, when UNCA gets or takes the first questions, FUNCA will too. And Monday it was appreciated.

   

Syria Run-Up for UN Has Germany's Angela Kane, at CFR Judith Miller, Questions UNasked

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 27 -- Amid the drums of war and the UN Secretariat's wan accompanying music, a few connections are worth noting, a few more questions asked. (Here's video of some from August 26.)

  For August 27: when did the UN ask to visit the site at Ghouta? 

  While the delay from Wednesday to Sunday (or Monday, when the team got out and said, if this YouTube video is not false, that they are not even looking at what type of munition was used in part because they didn't want to put it in their white UN 4 by 4) is now an element in the case for missile strikes, Syria says the UN didn't even ASK until Saturday.

   Is that true? Even if the UK, for example, asked earlier, it is a UN team. So when did the UN make the request?

  Saturday August 24 is when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's High Representative on Disarmament Angela Kane re-arrived in Damascus.

   Inner City Press covered Kane when she was head of Ban's Department of Management, including an investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services for favoritism in the UN's so-called UMOJA computer management system.

  When Japan's Yukio Takasu returned after a pause from being his country's Ambassador to the UN to take over Kane's job, Kane's native Germany lobbied for her to get another top UN job. She was offered one in Lebanon, as Inner City Press reported, but did not want it. So she "got" Disarmament.

  This connection must be noted: it was Germany which got Kane this job, in the same way that France installed Herve Ladsous as the fourth French head of UN Peacekeeping in a row, and the US picked Jeffrey Feltman, formerly the State Department's chief on the Middle East to replace B. Lynn Pascoe as Ban's political chief.

  So the fact that Germany has expressed a willingness to join a coalition to strike Syria, without UN Security Council approval, and the Germany's Angela Kane's role in the "UN's" chemical weapons inspection team should be noted.

  But by most media covering the UN, it is not. When Inner City Press even mentions Ladsous' and UN Peacekeeping's French connection, Ladsous refuses to answer questions, and some media, including the French wire service Agence France Presse on one of whose management boards Ladsous served, have even filed complaints with the UN against Inner City Press. 

  This is dysfunction, and is now being countered by the Free UN Coalition for Access, @FUNCA_info.

  Another major wire service, Reuters, joined in the second of AFP's complaints. On August 26 Reuters based a piece essentially selling or planning for the legality of military strikes on Syria without Security Council or even General Assembly approval around, as lead, a comment by the Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Haass.

  But on that CFR call, as noted by Inner City Press, wasJudith Miller. Given her role during the lead up to the US intervention in Iraq, one might think this would have been included in an overly-long rehash story. But no. 

 Notably, Reuters' UN bureau has been shown to have spied for the UN, handing over an internal anti-Press document of the UN Correspondents Association (which under 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS hosted Syrian rebel Jarba for what it called a "UN briefing") to UN official Stephane Dujarric. Story here, audio here, document here.

This beat just goes on. Watch this site.

   

On Mali After Ladsous' Refusal, UN Sends Dry Paragraph, Ignoring Azawad

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 25 -- When UN Peacekeeping boss Herve Ladsous was asked “who will disarm the MNLA” in Mali by Inner City Press on Thursday morning, he said “I don't respond to you.” Video here.

  Inner City Press then asked at the UN noon briefing, would the UN mission in Mali be involved in any (involuntary) disarmament in Kidal or elsewhere in Mali?

  UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said he would ask Ladsous' DPKO. Three hours later what his office sent was just a quote from the resolution adopted in the morning:

Subject: Your question on the Mali UN Mission
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 3:42 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: Martin Nesirky [at] un.org

Reagrding the Mission's disarmament responsibilities, please note that the resolution today specificies:

(v) To assist the transitional authorities of Mali in developing and implementing programmes for the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants and the dismantling of militias and self-defence groups, consistent with the objectives of reconciliation and taking into account the specific needs of demobilized children.

  But as more than one Security Council member told Inner City Press, the MNLA probably will not, and should not be expected to, voluntarily disarm before negotiations with the government. 

  Meanwhile, Mali's foreign minister Coulibaly told Inner City Press on Thursday that the MNLA would have to disarm BEFORE any talks.

  Ladsous' refusal to answer, and the UN's bureaucratic answer, may only embolden that position, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that UN muscle flexing will provide a military solution. Lad chance.

At UN, Nuclear Disarmament Vote Splits China from P4, 134 States Speak

By Matthew Russell Lee

 

UNITED NATIONS, November 8 -- With nuclear disarmament talks long stalled, on the morning of November 6 as Americans were waiting in line to vote for President, a vote was held in the UN's First Committee to shift disarmament talks to an Open Ended Working Group where unanimity will not be required.

  The vote was surprising: the US, France, Russia and UK alone voted no, while their fellow Permanent Five member of the Security Council China went another way, abstaining along with 33 other states including nuclear weapons states India, Pakistan and Israel.

   Fully 134 states, more than two thirds of the UN's membership, voted yes. Inner City Press is putting the voting list online, here. The resolution, "Taking forward a multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations," was adopted:

 

"Recognizing the absence of concrete outcomes of multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations within the United Nations framework for more than a decade,

 

"1. Decides to establish an open-ended working group to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons;

 

"2. Also decides that the working group will convene in Geneva in 2013 for up to fifteen working days, within available time frames, with the contribution of international organizations and civil society, in accordance with established practice, and will hold its organizational session as soon as possible."

   More than ten percent of UN member states sponsored the Austria, Norway and Mexico prepared resolution, which Inner City Press is putting online here; one of these ten percenters told Inner City Press that the resolution's "goal is to take forward nuclear disarmament negotiations, that have been stuck in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for more than 15 years. The impasse has been very convenient for nuclear weapon states that do not want to see any kind of movement in nuclear disarmament."

  France, in particular, was singled out as a country whose Permanent membership on the Security Council is related to its status as a nuclear power. France, which in this same week "played cheap" in opposing inclusion of a maritime component in the Somalia peacekeeping mission AMISOM, is said to have tried to undermine this disarmament working group by demanding a Program Budget Implications or PBI statement.

   But this Open Ended Working Group will have no extra costs, since it will use the money allocated to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) and that is not used since the CD hasn’t been able to agree on a Program of Work and its implementation for more than 15 years, lacking consensus.

   A proponent concluded, "'This resolution places the General Assembly back at the center of nuclear disarmament efforts, a place it lost since the 1970s when the Conference on Disarmament and the UNDC were established." We'll see. Watch this site.