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Comedy of Errors Delays UN Council in Kigali, Fuel Cash
Collected, Wired Assurances
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press in Africa: News Analysis
KIGALI
AIRPORT, June 9 -- In the
UN Security Council's continuing comedy of errors attempting to travel
from
Goma to Abidjan, Ambassadors took up an impromptu collection of cash in
the
Kigali Airport's VIP suite. The UN plane needed fuel, and contractor
CalTex
would not accept any UN promise of payment in the future. Even the
travelling
press corps was ask to, in essence, put up or shut up. While some
speculated
that this was Rwanda's response to the UN's inaction during the 1994
genocide, and
spoke of telephoning president Paul Kagame, South Africa's Ambassador
Dumisani
Kumalo responded that this would be like blaming and calling U.S. Vice
President Dick Cheney for a delay at an American airport.
Finally, the UN wired
the $20,000 to CalTex, and the delegation was told it would take off in 15 minutes. Another problem loomed: had the
pilot, from the UN contractor Swift, flown too many hours without a
break? Swift flies two planes for the UN
Mission in
the Sudan, and has another plane in service from Kuwait to Iraq,
cork-screwing
down for landing. In the middle of the trip, one of the two back
toilets went
out of order, leading to odor, and the spraying of air freshener. They
were
asked, when will you fix it? Not until the end of the trip. And it just
keeps
getting better.
* * *
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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