At
UN,
Colombia
Starts July
Juggling
Pillay &
Coffee,
Children
& Armed
Conflict
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 3 -- As
Colombia took
over
Presidency of
the UN
Security
Council for
July, many
Council
members
expressed
sympathy
for Ambassador
Nestor Osorio
to Inner City
Press.
Normally
the first
day of a
presidency is
devoted
entirely to
bilateral
meetings with
the other 14
members,
followed the
next morning
by a
ceremonial
breakfast and
adoption of
the month's
program of
work.
But
while
France
had asked for
High
Commissioner
for Human
Rights Navi
Pillay to
brief the
Council, only
about Syria,
on June 28,
push-back
led to four
separate
briefings,
spread over
the first two
working
days of
Colombia's
presidency.
And
so
on Monday
Osorio's
bilaterals
were broken up
by a Pillay
briefing
on Syria at 11
am, and two
more starting
at 4 (or
actually 4:10)
on
Libya and the
Occupied
Palestinian
Territories.
Upstairs in
the General
Assembly, as
first reported
by Inner City
Press,
Palestine was
seeking to
enforce its
right to be
seated at the
Arms Trade
Treaty as a
full member,
between Palau
and Panama.
Colombia is a
historically a
member of the
Non-Aligned
Movement,
which supports
Palestine in
this, but
is more
recently is
aligned with
the United
States, which
does not.
When
Osorio
emerged after
Pillay had
left without
doing a UN TV
stakeout
about Libya or
Palestine,
Inner City
Press asked
him if the
Program
of Work had
been
finalized. Not
yet, he said,
anything might
arise on
Tuesday, July
3.
That day,
after the
breakfast and
one assumes
the
adoption of
the Program,
the Council
will get the
fourth of
Pillay's
four
briefings, on
Sudan and
South Sudan.
Even
that
was
contentious.
Sources tell
Inner City
Press that the
UK
asked, as a
reply to
requests that
Pillay
briefing about
Libya and
the OPT, for a
briefing on
Sudan. Then
the other,
non-Western
side
said why not
South Sudan
too? And so it
was Sudans,
not Sudan.
Last
time
Osorio was
president, he
began
tentative,
with a
briefing for a
handful of
journalists
including
Inner City
Press at his
mission
about the Juan
Valdez coffee
house on 57th
Street.
This time
there is
no time:
political
coordinators
emerged from
their meeting
on Monday
afternoon with
tins of
coffee. There
is the promise
of iced
coffee,
too, beginning
on Tuesday.
Osorio has
grown into the
role, at the
beginning of
the second of
his two
presidencies.
In the interim
he
has fought
back, on
children and
armed conflict
and other
issues. We
will cover
Colombia's
month closely:
watch this
site.
Footnote:
last in June's
Chinese
presidency,
Inner City
Press was
without notice
informed by a
UN Security
Lieutenant
that it could
not longer use
the room under
the stairs to
the Security
Council, whic
was ceded to
journalists.
The
Lieutenant,
who refused to
tell Inner
City Press his
name, had the
room sniffed
by a dog and
locked up. And
now, as
another
Security
officer noted
on Monday, the
guys who serve
the Council
breakfast
can't store
their tables
in there.
There has been
no other
fight-back.
And so it goes
in Ban's UN,
Banning the
Press.
, 
