At
UN,
Colonial
Lineup on Mali
and Somalia,
US on Sudans,
Outside PSC
Confab
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 13,
updated 11:47
am -- The UN
Security
Council's
meeting with
the
African Union
Peace &
Security
Council would
seem like a
big
deal. But it
was not listed
in the UN
Security
Council's
program or
the UN
Journal, and a
total of four
reporters
wanly waited
outside.
Inside,
Inner
City Press has
learned, of
the five
issues on the
agenda, each
one has a UN
Security
Council "lead"
to begin the
discussion.
For Sudan and
South Sudan,
the lead is
the United
States.
For
Mali, the lead
is former
colonial
master France.
For Somalia,
it is
the UK.
This
is similar to
the Security
Council's
recent trip to
West Africa,
where the UK
co-led on
Sierra Leone,
the US co-led
on Liberia and
France co-led
on Cote
d'Ivoire -- as
it invited its
head of UN
Peacekeeping
Herve Ladsous
to give a
"newsless"
briefing on
an attack on
Nigerois
peacekeepers,
after which
Ladsous
refused to
answer Inner
City Press'
question of if
one or more
Ivorian
security
forces were
also killed.
Tuesday night
Inner City
Press heard
from
Ivorian
sources that
between one
and three were
killed.
Not
all colonial
powers are
equal. On June
12 for Guinea
Bissau, it is
not Portugal:
the co-leads
are Togo and
Morocco. South
Africa handles
UN - AU
relations.
As
the meeting
started, Inner
City Press
asked Libyan
representative
Ibrahim
Dabbashi if
and why he was
attended.
Libya is a
member of the
PSC. A
representative
of Djibouti,
too, went in,
presumably for
the
Somalia
discussion.
Mali,
as Inner City
Press reported
yesterday,
will also be
the subject of
a
meeting
between the
Security
Council and
ECOWAS on
Friday. Watch
this
site.
Update
of 11:48 am
- As leads on
the PSC side,
which Inner
City Press
asked for
quasi
officially
then after
denial
reported out,
on Somalia it
is Kenya, on
Sudans it is
Guinea, and on
Mali it's
Cameroon.
, 
