Bolivia
Slams UK
"Colonial
Marketing,"
PNG Says
France Slow on
New Caledonia
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 11 --
Decolonization
was once the
UN's highest
calling. Now
it is a
ritual held in
a basement
conference
room, with
some Permanent
Members of the
second floor
Security
Council called
out but hardly
caring. Call
it Upstairs,
Downstairs.
Friday
afternoon in
the Fourth
Committee,
after a week
of speeches
denouncing the
UK for the
Malvinas or
Falkland
Islands,
UK Political
Coordinator
Michael Tatham
spoke. He
spoke of his
country's
"modern
relationship"
with its
territories --
if you want to
stay, you
can.
Moments
later
Bolivia's
Permanent
Representative
Sacha Llorenti
said that the
UK's
invocation of
self-determination,
for which
generations
fought,
was now being
used as
"colonial
marketing."
Llorenti
also
took on the
United States,
calling Puerto
Rico a colony
and
long-jailed
Oscar Lopez
Rivera a
political
prisoner.
Western
Sahara
was the
subject of
most speeches;
many called
for the
promised
referendum
with
independence
as an option,
but Democratic
Republic of
the Congo for
example
praised
Morocco's no
independence
as an option,
only autonomy
plan. It's a
French, or
Francophonie,
thing.
Papua
New Guinea
chided France
for not
turning over
education in
New
Caledonia.
Pakistan
raised Jammu
and Kashmir.
Through
it all, this
year's chair
of the
Committee, the
Permanent
Representative
of El
Salvador, kept
time by
cutting off
petitioners
but was
solicitous to
his fellow
diplomats, and
then to him.
He praised
Llorenti for
asking
for a moment
of silence to
reflect on the
consequences
of
colonialism.
This
Fourth
Committee
ended before
the Third, on
Human Rights.
There,
South Korea
and Japan went
a few rounds
on comfort
women, with
Japan
quoting for an
atonement
letter and
expressing
surprise it
wasn't
just, well,
bygones. But
what is? Watch
this site.
Footnote:
given that it
was Bolivia's
Permanent
Representative
who slammed
the UK, and
PNG's who critiqued
France, one
wondered where
PRs Lyall
Grant and Araud
were. At least
with Lyall
Grant, one
could find him
online,
tweeted that
the OPCW
should not
have gotten
the Nobel
Peace Prize (we agree).
But
where was
Araud, who
skipped out too
on the
Security
Council's
Africa trip,
after through
a colonial
process the
Press was
banned from
the trip and
others
hand-picked,
only by
France? We'll
have more on
this.
, 
