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UK and UK Split on Kenya Explains UN Council Disfunction,
S. Africa's Kumalo Describes
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 18, updated --
Following his
mediation earlier this year of the violence in Kenya between supporters
of
Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki, Kofi Annan for months has been scheduled
to
provide a report and briefing to the Security Council. Inner City Press
on
Thursday asked outgoing South African Permanent Representative Dumisani
Kumalo
why it hasn't happened, if it had to do with the UK and U.S. taking
different positions on
Kibaki and Odinga, respectively. Ambassador
Kumalo agreed, and said that the Council
only works with all
of the Permanent Five members agree, if then. Video here.
Kumalo gave
Sudan as another example, and might as well have mentioned this year's
war in
Georgia. At that time, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin questioned the
objectively of the UN's own reporting, by "the American" Lynn Pascoe
of the Department of Political Affairs. Inner City Press asked Kumalo
whether
in his experience the UN Secretariat is also dominated by the Permanent
Five
members of the Council. Kumalo recounted that he was required to
intervene
before the release of a particularly one-sided UN Secretariat report.
It later
emerged that he was referring to a report on Western Sahara, in which
France on
behalf of Morocco exercised undue influence.
Kumalo
described a situation in which the Council's "lead countries" on
African conflicts are not themselves from Africa, but are the "former
colonial powers." He gave France's management of all things Chad as an
example,
and said that when he was in Chad this year, he asked "what are we
doing
here?" Inner City Press was along for that trip, and the degree to
which
Council members were asked to defer to France's views on Chad,
including
cover-up of human rights abuses there, was striking. Ironically,
Chadean
President Idriss Deby declined to even meet with the French-led Council
delegation, despite having returned in time from a trip to Libya. The
echoes of
that confrontation with the press corps continue to reverberate.
Dumisani Kumalo, and his able staffer
Zaheer
Laher, repatriating in January, both will be missed
Footnote: In
fairness, the South African mission
too, at least on Thursday, had some issues with the press. After
Kumalo's press
conference, a reporter who had asked about "Mbeki's failed mediation in
Zimbabwe" was challenged by a South African diplomat visiting the UN
Mission. "I challenge your
credentials as a journalist," he reportedly said. Inner City Press
asked
him about the incident, and that more apologetic approach taken in
response is
now anticipated. As Kumalo would be the first
to say --
and may in the book he is said to be planning -- none of us are
perfect.
It's said
Kumalo will be leaving his country's foreign service in early 2009. As
he said
during the press conference, in predicting that U.S. policy will not
change
much under Obama, he has lived in the U.S. a long time. Some predict he
will
stay here, perhaps seeking and landing a job with the UN. We'll see.
Update
of December 19 -- Inner City Press asked Amb. Kumalo what he
will do in February. I'll go back and see what they have for me, he
said. When Inner City Press asked if he'd consider working for the UN
-- for example as a Special Representative, maybe in Somalia -- Kumalo
just laughed...
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
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
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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earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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