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Zimbabwe Is On but Not On UN
Council Agenda, Ban Soldiers On, Kenya and Sergio in Background
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 23 -- Peace
and security in Africa is a code phrase the UN Security Council is
using to consider
conflicts on the Continent without fully putting them on the agenda.
Post-election violence in Kenya was treated under this heading. Now on
Zimbabwe, pre-election or pre-run-off violence appeared Monday under
this name.
The presidential statement was introduced hearkening back to the the Movement
for Democratic Change's results in March's round of elections.
It was watered down before passage, and
afterwards Zimbabwe's Ambassador to the UN said that the run-off will
go
forward on Friday, even though MDC has dropped out due to violence and
threats.
UK Ambassador John Sawers said this reflects an unpredictable regime
pursuing
its "self-serving interests." Kenya, widely described as a triumph of
diplomacy and mediation, resulted in power-sharing made possible by the
creation of many new ministerial seats. While South Africa, for now, is
pitching this model for Zimbabwe, it seems highly unlikely. Peace and
security
seem far away indeed.
Zimbabwe meeting last week in UN basement, spot on Council agenda not
shown
Ban Ki-moon took four questions on Zimbabwe, one of
which went a bit
further, noting that Ban "also met with the leaders of Myanmar
and
the leaders of Sudan, and many would say there has been very little
progress." Ban replied that
"I have
met, as you said, during the last one and a half years, many leaders
who made
commitments for peace and stability in the region. These commitments
must be
implemented. That is the ground rule, that whatever commitment has been
made,
those should be implemented. That is democratic rule. I have been
frustrated by
the lack of progress in many parts of the conflict areas, but I am
committed to
continuing my role as Secretary-General."
Whether Ban will continue as Secretary-General has
not been raised. Eliciting
commitments and then saying they should be implemented is a strategy
that
Sergio Vieira de Mello, then rumored as a candidate to succeed Kofi
Annan,
deployed "with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and with the Serbs in
Bosnia," according to Samantha Power's "Chasing the Flame" (page
404). She goes on to described on Sergio's third night in Baghdad his
"dinner with John Sawers, the British diplomat who served as Bremer's
deputy... Sawers suggested that the UN co-locate with the Americans and
the
British in the Green Zone."
On Monday, Sergio having been killed with 17 others
in Iraq, Sawers
stood at the Council stakeout denouncing Robert Mugabe's regime, while
Kofi
Annan's successor Ban Ki-moon said he will continue to plug away at
Mugabe.
We'll see.
* * *
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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