Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

At UN, R to P Is Called "A World of Paper, Chomsky on Obama, Armies Are the Veto

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 23 -- The debate on Responsibility to Protect at the UN gave rise to a surreal press conference, in which Noam Chomsky mocked the concept and his fellow professor Jean Bricmont of Belgium ridiculed former Australia foreign minister Gareth Evans as living in a "world of paper," not the world of real power.

  Afterwards one wag joked, a Belgian professor, that's real power. But Bricmont hammered away at the invasion of Iraq, calling it illegal. Chomsky said that former UK prime minister Tony Blair may have been involved in Israel's deal with British Gas for natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

   Inner City Press asked Evans about his urging funding for Ed Luck's office, which he'd called arcane. Evans called himself a sunny optimist, looking over at Chomsky. We live in a different world, Chomsky shot back. Video here, from Minute 22:35.

   In the back of the briefing room, Jim Traub and his boss at the Global Center on the R to P groaned as the briefing turned more and more negative. Even most journalists questions were skeptical of the concept, giving up Gaza and the loss of sovereignty. But where were the pro R to P journalists? The proponents should have been better organized, some felt.

   Chomsky, who previously told Inner City Press that focus on the Congo was misplaced, now cited Congo again and again, saying Western powers do nothing because they get coltan from there. He blamed the conflict in Somalia on Western powers' over-fishing of the waters off Somalia, their dumping of toxic waste.

   He recalled the Bush administration's blocking of remittance company Al Barakat which cut off money to Somalia, and the press' failure to cover Barakat's later exoneration. Chomsky mocked Obama's "let's forget history," saying that only guaranteed not knowing the roots of the world's conflicts.

Chomsky at UN on July 23, speaks on Blair and Gaza's oil

   In the hall outside the General Assembly, though, a range of developing world Ambassadors told Inner City Press that they do support the concept. A well placed Ambassador said it is hard to see how a vote in the Budget Committee can be procured to fund Ed Luck's UN office. But as even this Ambassador said, "who's for genocide?"

   One analysis says that the countries in sub-Saharan Africa have become more open to R to P, which neither Chomsky nor PGA d'Escoto Brockmann are in touch with. But even if the Security Council veto were eliminated, who would stand up to the armies of China or the U.S.? Or that of Russia, as in Georgia's conflict? As Bricman rightly said, this is all a world of paper. But again, who's for genocide? Watch this site.

Update of 5:56 p.m. -- with an entirely unused stakeout established in front of the General Assembly, inside the hall New Zealand is speaking, in favor of Ed Luck and "all that is right and good," as some call it. The Fijian government calls it something else.  New Zealand now is eager to remind the world that it "led" a coalition of Security Council members in 1994 to try to act on Rwanda. Consistent! Courageous! Kiwis!

Final update of July 23 -- after New Zealand came the Netherlands and then Italy, the last speaker of the day. The "debate" will continue on Friday, and probably into Monday. After Thursday's session, the last two standing in front of the General Assembly were Swiss Ambassador Maurer, incoming chairman of the budget committee, and Ed Luck who wants his R to P office funded....

* * *

UN's Responsibility to Protect Debates with a Whimper, Then a Noam

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 23 -- As Ambassadors drifted toward the UN's debate on Responsibility to Protect on Thursday morning, the handful of reporters assembled were asking, what is this about and why should I or my readers care? Usually skeptical correspondents were thrown for a loop by a story in the paper of record -- if they say it's important, it must be, seemed to be the trend among reluctant scribes or their editors. But what is it all about?

Only half facetiously, it's all about Ed Luck's job, is Inner City Press' theory. At least that's the litmus test. Proponents of R to P argue that the concept was unanimously agreed to in 2005. But why then did the same 192 countries, serving on the UN budget (Fifth) committee, reject Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's naming of Ed Luck as Assistant Secretary General for R to P, and deny any funding to his office?

Gareth Evans, who on July 22 claimed that R to P was implemented by the UN this year in Sri Lanka, called any decision on Ed Luck's office a mere "arcane" detail. Other proponents of R to P have tried to say that the issue of funding Luck's office isn't expected to come up during today's debate. But that would be a loss for the concept.

   A Fifth Committee expert tells Inner City Press that the committee is unlikely to fund or permit the R to P office even in its next session unless the General Assembly affirmatively passes a resolution accepting the recommendations in Ban Ki-moon's report. Therefore, no outcome is a loss for R to P.

   Even some who'd heretofore been supporters of R to P now question it. What good is a concept, which is claimed to be universally accepted, if nothing is done when thousands of civilians living outdoors are shelled from the air as happened in Sri Lanka this year?
 
   As with so many things at the UN, grandiose words are unacted upon, leading to endless cycles of cynicism. Wasn't it Ban Ki-moon who said, when he started as Secretary General, that the UN should promise less and deliver more? R to P is nothing but promise. Sending Kofi Annan to Kenya could have been done with or without R to P. They said he went for the UN, but Annan has neither reported to the Security Council nor has Ban's Office confirmed that Annan asked before filing names with the International Criminal Court.

   The proponents of the concept had wanted this debate to be held in April, to tie it to the genocide in Rwanda in April 1994. But President of the General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a detractor, delayed the debate until July, and put intervention skeptic Noam Chomsky on the panel.
PGA d'Escoto and SG Ban, implementation of R to P not shown

  On Thursday morning, the press was told there'd be a stakeout by "participants" in the debate at 10 a.m.. But there was no UN TV camera, and no one stopped to talk. Later it was announced that Team d'Escoto had rescheduled the stakeout for 2:45 p.m. Outgoing UK minister Mark Malloch Brown, it was said, would not arrive at the UN until the afternoon.

  Delegates milled around the hallway. Most spoke about Noam Chomsky. "I've never seen him," said a once and perhaps future UN official. Watch this space.

Update of 11:20 a.m. -- Noam Chomsky has taken the floor in the Trusteeship Council, at the same time as an ill-attended press conference on the UN's Internal Justice Council, and a Security Council meeting about Cote d'Ivoire. Noam is on a rolling, spinning out the words extermination and invasion. He says the South Summit's first meeting in 2000 must have been referring to the bombing of Serbia...

Update of 11:36 a.m. -- After the Cote d'Ivoire stakeout, Noam Chomsky is still speaking, denouncing the Security Council as biased. At the stakeout, the representative of the Laurent Gbagbo govenment of Cote d'Ivoire just told Inner City Press, which asked "vous avez besoin de troupes?" (does Cote d'Ivoire need troops, that is, UN peacekeepers) -- "No, we do not need troops." Yesterday, proponents of R to P used Cote d'Ivoire and Juan Mendez' mission there as a good use of the concept.

Update of 11:39 a.m. -- Noam Chomsky has finished, and Germany speaks first, a "remark to Professor Chomsky." He critiques Chomsky for speaking about "the cousin and the skeleton" not on R to P.

Update of 11:42 a.m. -- the Ambassador of Egypt, sitting next to Ecuador, asks about the balance between the Security Council and the General Assembly. He says R to P is a critique of the Security Council on Cambodia, Rwanda, Lebanon and Gaza. He mentions Myanmar.

Update of 11:45 a.m. -- the Ambassador of Sweden says Chomsky is speaking about the past, we should focus on the present and future. He wants to hear from Gareth Evans about early warning. He mentions Cambodia, Srebenica, Rwanda "or the Holocaust for that matter."

Update of 11:46 a.m. -- the representative of Japan, not Ambassador Takasu, says let's not reopen the debate. He says he did not ask for the floor.

Update of 11:47 a.m. -- the Ambassador of Chile, Geraldo Munoz -- who Inner City Press has reported is looking for a UN job -- asks Chomsky to put his ear piece on, since he is directing a comment to him in Spanish. He mentions Honduras, implies that (all?) of Latin America is for R to P. "Singing for his supper," says a skeptic.

Update of 11:52 a.m. -- Ghana is speaking, citing prinicples of "non interference" but also "non indifference." He mentions apartheid.

Update of 11:55 a.m. -- Now it's Djibouti, to be followed by the "first two panelists" responding. Then it will be Sudan, Tanzania, Timor Leste, Morocco, Bosnia and others.  Djibouti speaks of selectivity by the Security Council.

Update of 11:58 a.m. -- Gareth Evans speaks first, jumping gratefully on Sweden's set up question about early warnings. Will he speak about Sri Lanka? He speaks in a round about way about an office including the advisor on R to P: that is, Ed Luck, which only yesterday Evans said was too arcane for him to get involved in. He refers to the budget process and urges member states to take it up. Yesterday he said he woudln't speak to that. Hate to say it, but.... told you so.

Update of 12:02 p.m. -- Evans says R to P never meant to give more power to the General Assembly, that action must be taken through the Security Council. Then he tells Djibouti that regional organizations can work around the Security Council, saying this happened in, where else, Kenya. Now he's on to Juan Mendez in Cote d'Ivoire. But where is Mendez' report?

Update of 12:07 p.m. -- Chomsky begins with the bombing of Serbia, "it think it was a real crime." He says R to P repeats the old consensus. He says the 2005 statement is okay, but has striking omissions. UN TV switches away from Chomsky's comments: the noon briefing has begun.

* * *