UN
Peacebuilding
Capped by
Sudans, Swiss
Want In,
Australia
Ponies Up
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 12 -- The
UN Security
Council's
"thematic
debates"
often garner
little to no
media
interest, and
Thursday's
session on
peacebuilding
was no
different.
After a side
meeting on
Syria broken
up, the
stakeout area
was empty as
South Sudan
and then Sudan
spoke.
Afterward
Sudan's
Permanent
Representative
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman told
Inner City
Press he had
added two
elements to
his speech,
after hearing
South
Sudan: a reply
on why oil
production was
stopped, and a
line about
corruption.
Asked
by
Inner City
Press about
the oil, South
Sudan
representative
Francis
Nazario told
Inner City
Press, "Nobody
in the world
can justify
theft." It was
on that basis
that South
Sudan stopped
pumping
oil.
Rwanda's
Permanent
Representative
Eugene-Richard
Gasana, who
will join the
Security
Council in
January, stay
all day for
the debate.
"You have to
be
responsible,"
he said, "This
is Rwanda." He
said that
the Council
shouldn't be
putting out
statements
now, even as
other
statements are
prepared in
Addis Ababa.
"I think we
have to
calm down," he
said.
A
decidedly
lower key
conflict, if
one can call
it that, was
between
Australia
which pledged
$12 million
over four
years for the
peacebuilding
fund, while
Norway pledged
$5 million a
year on 2011
and again in
2012.
Australia's
pledge,
it would seem,
is in the
context of its
race against
Luxembourg and
Finland for
two seats on
the Security
Council for
the Western
European and
Other Group
states.
Luxembourg's
Permanent
Representative
spoke on
Thursday,
genial
pitching
"national
ownership."
Finland did
not speak.
Ireland,
interestingly,
referred to
"questions
accumulating
about aspects
of UN
peacekeeping."
Armenia spoke
with nary a
direct
reference
to Azerbaijan.
Swiss
Permanent
Representative
Seger made his
Small Five
point, that he
and
other
peacekeeping
configuration
chairs should
be allowed in
Security
Council
consultations.
Burundi also
said this. If
we don't even
say
it, it will
never happen,
Seger told
Inner City
Press.
Sweden
spoke
about Liberia,
where the
Swede Karin
Landgren has
been named
SRSG.
Colombia's
foreign
minister Maria
Angela Holguin
chaired the
meeting; at
the stakeout
Inner City
Press asked
her if the PBC
could
help Yemen, or
even Syria.
She replied
the Council is
working hard
for a
resolution.
Japan
was
represented by
former UN
controller Jun
Yamazaki. In
fact, the
Wikipedia page
about him
still, as of
July 12 at 4
pm, listed him
as
working for
the UN.
Thomas
Mayr-Harting
spoke for the
EU, and
afterward told
Inner City
Press that the
EU is getting
more active
every day. He
said it's not
about where
you sit -- in
the back in
the
Arms Trade
Treaty -- but
what you do.
By
contrast,
when on the
evening on
July 11 Inner
City Press
asked the
Permanent
Representative
Nicholas
Emiliou of
Cyprus,
heading the
EU, about the
EU's
role at the
UN. He said he
was
disappointed
to find some
at the UN
not
appreciating
that the EU is
"sui generis,"
with a lot
to offer. The
African Union
is "sui
generis" too,
some
feel. This is
a peace that
must be built.
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