On UN
Turf, Eliasson
Takes
Political
Roles from
Feltman, Team
Ban Wary?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 6, updated
-- When the
top job in the
UN Department
of
Political
Affairs passed
from B. Lynn
Pascoe to
fellow
American
Jeffrey
Feltman, as
first reported
by Inner City
Press, it was
thought that
the DPA post
under Feltman
would have at
least as much
power as it
did under
Pascoe.
Feltman,
after
all, was the
US State
Department's
top man on the
Middle East,
and Feltman
was selected
rather than
inherited by
the Obama
administration.
But
another
simultaneous
change at the
UN is cutting
into the
mandate of
DPA and its
chief, well
placed UN
sources tell
Inner City
Press.
New
Deputy
Secretary
General Jan
Eliasson,
unlike his
predecessor
Asha
Rose Migiro,
has been given
supervisory
powers over
peace,
security
and political
affairs for
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon.
Andrew
Gilmore,
taking the
position
formerly held
by Nicholas
"Fink"
Haysom before
Ban's Five
Year mobility
rule chased
him to Kabul,
reports to
Eliasson, as
will his
deputy Mr.
Khan of
Pakistan.
So
the DPA post
is less
powerful, just
as Feltman
takes it over.
Update:
the
response, in
fairness, is
that there is
enough work to
go around.
This is good
sportsmanship,
akin to an
athlete faced
with less
playing due to
a new
teammate. With
the change in
DSGs and
mandate,
Pascoe got
more playing
time than
Feltman. But
playing time
is not
everything:
we'll follow
the results.
Meanwhile,
the well
placed sources
say, there is
the brewing
potential of
Ban and "the
South Koreans"
(as the
sources
put it)
becoming
concerned of
the powers
amassed by
Eliasson.
Monday
before writing
this story,
Inner City
Press arrived
15 to 20
minutes
early for the
media
opportunity of
Ban's meeting
with senior
staff
and swearing
in of the new
Acting
chief of the
Department of
General
Assembly and
Conference
Management,
about whose
recruitment
an Inner
City Press
question from
Friday has yet
to be
answered.
But
despite
greeting
several Under
Secretaries
General on
their way up,
and checking
in with UN
Security and
the liaisons
for such media
opportunities,
attending
turned out to
be impossible.
It is
explained that
the escort
went up 20
minutes before
and that was
that.
Later,
Eliasson and
no fewer than
three
bodyguards
passed through
the UN's
Vienna Cafe on
their way into
Conference
Room C, which
had no sign
outside at
all. He
emerged at
11:35 am,
chatting with
long time
American
Assistant
Secretary
General Bob
Orr and US
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Rosemary
DiCarlo. And
so it goes at
the UN.
, 
