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As India Joins UNSC It Questions Myanmar Threat & Bashir Indictment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 10 -- On issues ranging from Sudan to Myanmar, India joining the UN Security Council next month may work counter to what an Indian diplomat on Friday characterized as “Western” goals.

   Responding to a question from Inner City Press about Sudan, the Indian diplomat said his country is sympathetic to African countries' request that the International Criminal Court indictment of President Omar al Bashir for genocide be “suspended for six months or a year.”

  Pressed, he predicted that the matter would be taken up by the Council before or in connection with the South Sudan secession referendum, scheduled for January 9.

   Thursday in Council consultations, Gabon challenged what ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said about genocide. Later, Sudan's Ambassador trashed Ocampo at the Council stakeout, with no response from the US or any other Council member.

  On the fight this week in the Security Council about whether the UN should have certified challenger Ouattara as the winner of Cote d'Ivoire's election, the India diplomat echoed Russian in questioning whether getting involved in elections and constitutions is a good precedent for the Council.

  Inner City Press can again report, based on interviewing later on Friday, that China shares this position regarding Ivory Coast.

Asked about Myanmar, the Indian diplomat questioned whether the situation there -- “bamboo, rice and fish” as he put it -- is a threat to international peace and security.

 On the other hand he pointed out that India this year did not oppose, but rather abstained from, the country specific human rights resolution on Iran. We don't favor stoning women, he dryly pointed out.


UN's Ban and Manhohan Singh - abovenamed "Indian Diplomat" not shown

Inner City Press asked the diplomat how India's growing economic interests in Africa will interplay with its votes on the Security Council. The diplomat replied grandly that he sees very little connection, that his country and he hopes others take “a broader view.”

But, Inner City Press pointed out using the example of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India could vote with or against President Joseph Kabila of the DRC, where India has more and more interests. No, the diplomat disagreed, India would be voting for or against other Council member, not Joseph Kabila.

Even before joining the Security Council -- for the first time in 19 years, following what he called a depressing past loss to Japan -- India has been a major force in the UN budget process, especially on questions regarding peacekeeping. 

On the topic of Security Council reform, the Indian diplomat predicted that a proposal for up or down voting will emerge in six months. He was dismissive of the so called UFC, United for Consensus, which he said has 12 members at most. He contrasted it to Africa with 54 (he singled out Morocco, Algeria and Egypt as important), Asia with 54, small island states and Least Developed Countries.

  People in India will say I've lost my mind, in predicting action in six months, the diplomat said, they will know who I am. We'll see.

* * *

On Darfur, As UNAMID Covers Up Killings by Sudan, ICC Reports Them

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- After the UN refused to release what it knows about the killing of civilians at Tabarat and the destruction of Soro and other villages in Darfur in September, the International Criminal Court's report unveiled in the Security Council on December 9 names 13 other destroyed villages (with Soro transliterated as “Souroo”), and has witness quotes what it calls the government sponsored killing in Tabarat (which it calls Tabra).

After ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's presentation to the Security Council on Thursday, Inner City Press on camera asked both him and Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN Dafallah Osman about the Tabra killings and the destruction of villages.

Sudan's Ambassador said that the killings were “tribal,” involving kidnapping and promises to pay blood money. He praised UNAMID and its leader Ibrahim Gambari (calling him a “seasoned diplomat”).

Inner City Press asked if he thought UNAMID should release what it knows about the Tabra killings. This, he did not answer, instead ranging from saying that Ocampo's report shows NGOs were engaged in “espionage” to claiming that Radio Dabanga was disseminating destabilizing and even “genocidal” information.

Ocampo had stood several yards away, unlike with the previous Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, whom Ocampo stood right next to during their final stare down. When Ocampo came to the microphone, Inner City Press asked him if he thought UNAMID was in essence covering up Sudan's and Bashir's acts by not reporting on them.

Ocampo said that UNAMID is under threat, that's why it doesn't report. This means that UNAMID is not reporting, which is its job. What will Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and Obama administration do?


ICC's LMO close to Sudan's last Ambassador, new backing away mirrored by UN- & US?

Earlier on Thursday, Mark Hanis of the Genocide Intervention Network / Save Darfur Coalition on a press conference call said Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden campaigned on (among other things) protecting civilians in Darfur, and named Samantha Power and Susan Rice as officials. Hanis called them “disappointing” so far. Inner City Press asked what UNAMID should do. Report, Hanis said. But UNAMID does not.

On both December 8 and 9, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky about fighting and death in Darfur, including in Tabarat / Tabra:

Inner City Press: a request made to UNAMID [African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur] for the report that they were supposed to do on the Tabarat killings of 2 September, near Tawilla, the one that the Secretary-General summoned Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari to speak about. Anyway, somebody that asked him was told that there is no report for external dissemination available on it, and I just wonder, what is the UN’s final finding? Did it do the right thing, in apparently not getting out to the site despite the warning by relatives of those killed? Are all such reports confidential, and in which case, how is the Security Council or the international community to assess the level of violence and killing in Darfur if these new reports never come out?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, that’s a very long question.

Question: This is the only time I’ll ask it, but if there is anything the UN can say about those killings, I’d like to know.

Spokesperson: Well, I hear your question, I think, and let’s look into what the Mission tells us.

More than a full day later, UNAMID has said nothing. When Inner City Press asked again about UNAMID on December 9, Nesirky claimed he had already answered questions, including about attacks the Sudanese government had just bragged about.

In assuming Presidency of the Security Council for December, Susan Rice told Inner City Press that UNAMID (and UNMIS) are required to investigate and report on attacks on civilians. Does that mean report to the public, as the ICC does? What will Susan Rice and the US Mission do?

The press had been told that Susan Rice would speak at the stakeout, where Ocampo and Sudan's Ambassador did. But she did not. A reporter given advance notice that she would not come was told that “one country” had blocked the elements to the press that she would have read. But she could have spoken, especially after what Sudan's Ambassador said, including denying things that the US Mission has previously said, about the Council's interlocutors being harassed and Radio Dabanga's Khartoum office being shut down.

Footnote: Inner City Press also asked Ocampo about Guinea -- he said he is watching “national proceedings” -- and Kenya, where witnesses are under threat. Ocampo answered by bragging that none of his witnesses have been injured. But how about retaliated against, given what Sudan's Ambassador said about the NGOs. Watch this site.

 Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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