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At UN, Talk of Rule of Law Doesn't Jibe with Africa
Tour by Council
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 11 -- As a UN Security Council
delegation returned from African nations where they were questioned
about the
politicization of the International Criminal Court and the lack of
action on
sexual and other abuses by UN peacekeepers, in the basement of
headquarters
there was a seminar entitled "Harmonizing UN Action on the Rule of
Law." The discussion which included, at least initially, Lakhdar
Brahimi
of the still-withheld report on the bombing of the UN in Algiers last
December,
focused mostly on the UN exhorting member states to move toward the
rule of
law. But what of the UN's own implementation of the rule of law? What
of the UN
system itself being consistent and accountable?
DPKO's pride, rule of law not shown
Inner City
Press asked about comments in the Congo by French Ambassador
Jean-Maurice
Ripert, in response to Congolese Senators questioning the timing of the
ICC's
indictment and arrest of main opposition figure Jean-Pierre Bemba, that
the ICC
and Council have nothing to go with each other. From Wednesday's panel,
the
Deputy Director in New York of the UN's Human Rights Office said "I am
not
in the position to comment on comments Security Council members made in
Africa," but noted that "there is a formal relationship" between
the Council and ICC.
Dmitry
Titov of UN Peacekeeping said that Peacekeeping is "a subsidiary of the
Security Council," and in that capacity has arrested for trial a former
present (Charles Taylor) and provides security to the (Sierra Leone)
Court in
which Taylor is being tried. On the
discipline of UN peacekeepers, Titov said that is up to the
"dispatching
states" from which he has seen "gradual improvement.
But at a
Kinshasa news conference on June 7, the UN's Alan Doss was asked by
Inner City
Press and a local media to address the failure to discipline admittedly
wrong-doing peacekeepers, including those shown to have helped
businessmen fly
in and fly out with gold and other resources. In that case, Pakistan
has rebuffed
all requests by the Secretariat for an update on the status of any
punishment.
In that case, where is the rule of law? Watch this site.
* * *
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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[at] innercitypress.com
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