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In Cote d'Ivoire,
Elections Distant, Choi Upbeat on Sex Abuse but No Specifics, Trip
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 28 -- The UN's Ban Ki-moon's envoy to Ivory Coast, Choi
Young-jin, gave a decidedly upbeat report Tuesday even as the
Forces
Nouvelles rebels threaten to pull out of the peace process if
President Laurent
Gbagbo doesn't finally hold the country's promised election
before the end of 2009.
Stopping outside the Security Council where
Inner City Press waited to ask questions, Choi acknowledged
disappointment caused by the switch in temporal order under the
“Ouaga IV” agreement, now putting unification before the holding
of the election. But he pointed out that Cote d'Ivoire has a security
force of 40,000, backed by an annual $200 million of a budget of $5
billion.
If the governments of Liberia or the Democratic Republic of
the Congo had similar security forces, he said, the UN could be
preparing to leave those countries. But it cannot leave Cote d'Ivoire
until unification has happened, he added.
Choi's
counterparts in Liberia and DRC, Ms. Loj and Alan Doss, might find
this analysis surprising. In Congo, for example, the FDLR rebels are
back on the rampages, as is the Congolese Army. Choi of course is
better plugged in, on the UN's 38th floor at least.
Inner City
Press asked Choi about what a Security Council Ambassador who was on
the June
2008 Council Africa trip to Abijan said, that Gbagbo told
him that France said that as long a French company was chosen and
paid for the technical work of the election, the timing of voting
didn't matter so much. Choi protested, but the fact remains that a
Security Council Ambassador said it.
UN's Choi in Council, update on discipline of
peacekeepers not shown
Inner City
Press asked for an update on the
Moroccan UN peacekeepers sent home
for investigation and discipline after being charged with sexual
abuse and exploitation in Ivory Coast. Choi said that all had gone
well, Morocco is getting training. But what about discipline and
accountability? Inner City Press e-mailed a request early Tuesday
after noon to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations for simply
information on the outcome of the repatriations to Morocco from Cote
d'Ivoire, and to Sri Lanka from Haiti. But despite confirmation of
receipt, 12 hours later no information had been provided. When it is,
it will be reported here.
Footnote:
the
Security Council's upcoming Africa trip, presided over by Russia
because it is its month with the Council's presidency, will now
bypass not only Sudan but also Dungu in the Congo. Inner City Press
joked with a Russian diplomat that perhaps the Lord's Resistance Army
would arrange to meet and brief the Council elsewhere at the Council
members' convenience.
Russia is much more focused on its May 11
meeting about the Middle East, to which neither the U.S. nor China
have yet said who they'll send. If it's not Hillary, the Quartet cannot
meet. And since Russia does not want to invite the new Israeli
foreign minister, Arab ministers won't be able to come. What kind of
meeting will it be? 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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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