For
US' Ethiopia Ambassador Trump
Taps Mike Raynor, 6 Months After Eritrea
Sanctions Fight
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
May 22– Now for US Ambassador
to Ethiopia Donald J. Trump
has made this nomination:
"President Donald J. Trump
today announced his intent to
nominate the following
individuals to key positions
in his Administration: Michael
Arthur Raynor of Maryland to
be Ambassador Extraordinary
& Plenipotentiary of the
United States of America to
the Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia.
Mr. Raynor, a career member of
the Senior Foreign Service,
class of Minister-Counselor,
has served as an American
diplomat since 1988. He
is currently the Director of
the Office of Career
Development and Assignments in
the Bureau of Human Resources
of the Department of
State. A former
Ambassador and senior official
at the State Department, Mr.
Raynor is known for his Africa
policy expertise leadership of
interagency teams in
high-threat
environments. He has
served at eight United States
Missions overseas, including
six in Africa. Mr.
Raynor earned a M.I.A. from
Columbia University and a B.A.
from Lafayette College.
He speaks French and Italian.
" When the UN Security Council
renewed its sanctions against
Eritrea last November, there
were five abstentions. While
the next vote won't be until
November 2017, on May 17 the
Council - with five new
members since the last time -
met again on Eritrea.
Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of
the UK, penholder on Somalia,
said "six months ago, the
Security Council was quite
divided on whether there
should be sanctions or not on
Eritrea. Before the next
decision on the sanctions
regime on Eritrea, coming up
in November, we are going to
do a review today of whether
there should be a sanctions
regime. We, as penholder on
that issue, are seeking to
find a way to unite the
Security Council so that there
can be some specific measures
in a roadmap that the
authorities of Eritrea would
need to meet in order to lift
the sanctions regime. Our
national position is that the
conditions are not yet right
to lift the sanctions. But
that if Eritrea did some of
the things which we will set
out today then we would look
at it on the basis of the
evidence."
When
the UN Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the
State of Eritrea Sheila
Keetharuth held a press
conference at the UN on October
28, Inner City Press went to ask
her if she considered the impact
of sanctions on Eritrea.
Video here. She
answered only in terms of arms
embargo, they said she simply
chose not to look at the issue.
On November 10, when Somalia
Eritrea sanctions were voted on,
five countries abstained:
Angola, China, Egypt, Russia and
Venezuela. Eritrea's charge
d'affaires made a statement,
which we've
published on Scribd, here.
Before the vote, Inner City
Press asked UK Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft a question; he
spoke about the Somalia Eritrea
sanctions helping to limit
support to Al Shabaab. Video
here. But the current lack
of evidence of Eritrean support
to Al Shabaab has been
repeatedly cited. And there are
new reports calling
the SEMG and its former
officials into question, here.
We'll have more on this.
By contrast to
Keetharuth, the Rapporteur on
the Democratic People Republic
of Korea Tomas Ojea Quintana
answered detailed questions from
Inner City Press about sanctions
including unilateral sanctions
on coal sales, for example. Is
there no consistency between UN
Special Rapporteurs? Video
here.
There were only three
journalists asking questions at
the October 28 press conference
- and yet Inner City Press was
in 2016 ousted and evicted, and
it is still under Antonio
Guterres restricted to a minder.
Petition
here.
***
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