On
Mali, UNSC
"Exchange of
Views" Is Too
Late, Ban
Had to Do It
in Advance
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 14 --
On Mali in
December, the
UN Security
Council's
members spent
multiple
sessions
negotiating
Resolution
2085,
which
specified
steps to be
taken before
military
action began.
Among
these was a
requirement,
in Operative
Paragraph 11,
that Ban
Ki-moon
as
"Secretary-General
also confirm
in advance the
Council's
satisfaction
with the
planned
military
offensive
operation."
But
France began
bombing Konna
on January 11,
then Gao and
elsewhere
since, without
any such
"confirmation
in advance" by
Ban
Ki-moon.
On
January 12,
Inner City
Press asked
Ban's top
three
spokespeople
to
"please state,
both as of the
beginning of
France's
military
operation and
as of your
response, what
the Secretary
General did to
'confirm in
advance the
Council's
satisfaction
with the
planned
military
offensive
operation,'
specifying
both what the
Secretary
General knew
about the
plans and
operation, and
what he knew
of the
Council's
position on
those plans
and
operation(s)."
Thirty
six hours
later, the UN
Secretariat
had provided
no answer at
all.
Instead,
French Mission
to the UN
spokesman
Brieuc Pont
e-mailed to
the Press a
tweet about a
Security
Council
meeting on
January 14,
then was quoted
by Agence
France-Presse,
41% funded by
the French
government,
that the
purpose is to
"proceed
with an
exchange of
views between
members of the
council and
with the UN
secretariat."
But
this "exchange
of views," so
that the
Secretary
General can
"confirm...
the Council's
satisfaction
with the
planned
military
offensive
operation" was
supposed to
happen "IN
ADVANCE."
French
president
Francois
Hollande and
his foreign
minister
Laurent Fabius
have both said
that France's
bombing
"resides in
the framework
of
international
law."
But
what happened
to waiting for
the Secretary
General to
confer and
confirm in
advance the
Security
Council's
satisfaction?
Doing it
after the fact
doesn't cure
it. Watch this
site.
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