For UN
GA Chairs,
Germany Takes
Budget,
Indonesia
& Latins
Fill Others
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 21,
updated -- In
the fight to
chair UN
General
Assembly
committees,
Germany had
grabbed the
Fifth (Budget)
Committee from
Sri Lanka in
an August
deal, Inner
City Press has
learned.
Asia
now gets the
First
Committee, but
it will be
Indonesia and
not Sri Lanka.
Source say
that the
African Group,
in the shape
of Gabon, is
taking the
Fourth
Committee.
The
Latin American
and Caribbean
Group, GRULAC,
has is getting
two chairs,
Second and
Third, for
Suriname and
Guyana.
And it's said
the Eastern
European
Group, which
could not get
it together to
vote between Serbia's Vuk
Jeremic and
Lithuania for
the next
President of
the General
Assembly --
Jeremic won
-- will chair
the Sixth
(Legal)
Committee.
In a
strange
proviso, it's
said that
Germany will
chair the
Fifth
Committee at
the Deputy
Permanent
Representative
level: that
is, Ambassador
Berger rather
than Peter
Wittig.
Update:
Berger
confirmed this
to Inner City
Press,
explaining
that Germany
will still be
on the
Security
Council until
the end of
2012, and that
he (Berger)
has worked on
budget issues
in the past.
Back
in July, Sri
Lanka was said
to have
"bagged" the
Fifth
Committee.
Inner City
Press wrote
about it, and
questioned it
in that Sri
Lankan
Permanent
Representative
Palitha Kohona
is named in
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's own
Panel of
Experts report
on the
killings in
May 2009, just
as Sri Lanka's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
Shavendra
Silva's
battalion is
named.
Silva
managed to
squeeze onto
Ban Ki-moon's
and DPKO chief
Herve Ladsous'
Senior
Advisory Group
on
Peacekeeping
Operations.
While Ban
Ki-moon never
commented on
the irony,
telling Inner
City Press it
was a decision
of member
states, much
opposition was
expressed
after detailed
reports.
Now
the idea of
Sri Lanka
chairing the
Fifth
Committee
appears to be
dead. Germany
will want to
save money.
There is a
separate fight
for seats on,
and the chair
of, the
Advisory
Committeee on
Administrative
and Budgetary
Questions, as
Inner City
Press exclusively
reported, with
the able
Botswanan
chair Collen
Kelapile
wanting
to stay on,
but Eritrea
and then Kenya
clamoring
for a rotation
to the North
which didn't
in the past
take place.
Senegal
and
Benin are said
to be vying
for another
seat. Watch
this site.
, 
