In
UN
GA on Slavery,
Israel But Not
Maged in the
House,
Colonial
Budget
Fight?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 26 --
When the UN on
Monday
commemorated
those who
fought the
Transatlantic
slave trade,
who paid
attention?
While
inside the
General
Assembly Hall
the Permanent
Representative
of
Grenada
Dessima
Williams
praised
liberators and
maroons like
the
Garifuna,
outside
another
Caricom Perm
Rep told Inner
City Press,
"Great but the
turn out is
disappointing."
Others agreed.
Just as one
example,
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's new
Special
Adviser on
Africa Maged
Abdelaziz of
Egypt was not
in attendance.
By
contrast,
whatever the
motives,
Israel's Ron
Prosor was
there. The
Caricom
Perm Rep said
that he had
noticed. There
was a joke
about need
friends, that
"even" North
Korea might
come. In fact,
DPRK
was in the
house. So,
Inner City
Press noted,
was Permanent
Observer
of Palestine
Riyad Mansour.
So where was
Maged?
From a Nordic
country a
junior staff
stopped and
told Inner
City Press, we
thought we
should have
our seat
filled so they
sent me. At
least they
did.
Jamaica's
Permanent
Representative
Wolf was
there, in the
mix raising
funds for
a memorial to
the
transatlantic
slave trade.
US Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Rosemary
Dicarlo was
there,
politely
referring a
question about
Sudan to
"Jeff," who
doesn't
answer.
Venezuela's
Perm Rep was
in the house,
and Cuba's
too. Is
combatting
slavery a
uniquely ALBA
issue?
Perhaps
it is the
symbolic
nature of the
GA. Back in
the North Lawn
building, a
hard
working
representative
from the Horn
of Africa
scoffed, the
GA is
just a talk
shop. The work
in the North
Lawn was about
the budget,
with "the
Europeans,"
according to
the Horn,
trying to
appoint
"eminent
people" to
change the
scales of
assessment.
"We are
supposed to do
that," the
African
representative
said, not
without logic.
A response has
been sought
from the US.
Watch this
site.
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