On
Haiti,
Amid UN Diplomatic Fatigue, of Restavek & Mulet, Cholera
Silence
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 6 -- The Haiti debate of the UN Security Council
started with a bang on Wednesday morning, with Presidents Santos and
Preval of Colombia and Haiti and former US President Bill Clinton. By
afternoon the room was half full and even most of the Security
Council Permanent Representatives had left. Beyond donor fatigue,
this can be called diplomatic fatigue.
Bill
Clinton
breezed in at 10:25 am, missing most of President Santos' speech.
When it was his turn, Clinton bragged about a transparent donor
website and, to his credit, about restavek: the phenomenon of rural
and undocumented children exploited by more affluent urban families.
Inner
City Press
has previously asked Clinton about the restavek phenomenon. One now
wonders what the UN has done about it, given all the time it's been
in Haiti.
There
was little
discussion of the cholera outbreak and how it was brought to Haiti.
The UN's report on the topic, initially due in late March, was not
released prior to the Council's Haiti debate.
Clinton, Preval and Santos did what they called a media stakeout, but
didn't take any questions. Off camera, asked about the meeting of
Santos and President Obama, Clinton said "I think you'll like the
results." Another free trade agreement, to folow Clinton's NAFTA.
Colombia's
Permanent
Representative Nestor Osorio acknowledged to Inner City
Press that the
regional group GRULAC wants a Latin to replace UN
envoy Edmond Mulet when he leaves, and that seemingly for that
reason, Bernard Kouchner of France is no longer a candidate.
Inner
City Press
asked Mulet on his way into the Council in the afternoon when he will
be back in New York with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
“June,” he said. It is confirmed that the number two post in DPKO
is Mulet's; Atul Khare of India was only filling it temporarily.
Clinton, Preval and Santos, no questions taken,
cholera report not shown
Some
wonder where
Khare will go, or what other post India will get. But as Inner City
Press reported, the Assistant Secretary General post in UN Women went
to India. A UN source said of Khare, “He wasn't really one of
theirs.”
France's
Permanent
Representative Gerard Araud was not in the Council chamber
in the afternoon. Another UN source said Araud was briefing select
press about France's actions in Cote d'Ivoire. Plus ca change.
Footnote,
literally:
Colombia's intrepid spokeswoman, on the eve of her
country's long planned Haiti debate, was hit by a diplomatic car but
nevertheless appeared for work on Wednesday, with a cane. Asked from
which country the car that hit her came, she said “Turkey.” Watch
this site.
* * *
At
UN,
April's
Council President Says Kouchner's Haiti Bid Is Over,
Bahrain Qs
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
3 -- Relations with regional groupings were the topic
April4 when Colombia's Ambassador Nestor Osorio met on the record
with the press about his presidency this month of the UN Security
Council.
Inner
City
Press
asked Osorio to confirm that the GRULAC grouping of Latin American
countries had blocked the candidacy of France's Bernard Kouchner to
head the UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.
Kouchner
is
no
longer a candidate, Osorio said diplomatically. Pressed, he said that
there is a preference among Latin countries that the successor for
Guatemalan Edmond Mulet atop MINUSTAH be a Latin American.
In
this, Osorio was
willing to express a regional position. But when Inner City Press
asked him about his relations with others in GRULAC, particularly in
the leftist Grupo ALBA. Osorio said that he gets his instructions
only from his capital, Bogota.
This
varies,
for
example, from Lebanon's role for the Arab Group, and the Council's
African members' actions to raise African Union positions. Grupo
Alba sources say their ambassadors went to meet with outgoing Council
president Li Baodong of China on the past day of his presidency. How
will they interact with Osorio?
Osorio & Ban Ki-moon, oversight not shown
Asked
about
Bahrain,
Osorio explained the Council not getting involved by saying
that the regional group -- the GCC -- did not favor UN involvement.
(Inner City Press has
reported exclusively on Saudi Arabia telling
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon NOT to send Oscar Fernandez-Taranco as
an envoy to Bahrain, which Ban's spokesman Nesirky would not deny
on
Monday.)
Osorio
was
asked
about the wisdom of deferring to the GCC, which has Saudi and UAE
troops in Bahrain, on what should be done there. He did not have an
answer. It was a chaotic and somewhat tense press conference,
followed by muttering. And it is just the beginning on the month. We
see to retain an open mind. Watch this site.
, 
