UN
Bash for US
Independence
Grows
Cautious,
Exclusions,
Censors &
Seals
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 26 -- For
the so-called
Arab Spring,
what a
difference
a year makes,
at least as
reflected by
the US Mission
to the UN's
Independence
Day bash at
the Central
Park Zoo.
Last
year
defected Libyan
Deputy
Ambassador
Ibrahim
Dabbashi at
the same event
predicted
to Inner City
Press that Tripoli
would fall in
mid-July.
Click here for
that story.
This
year, his
superior and
even longer
term Gaddafi
official
Shalgam was
present, but
despite US
statements to
the contrary,
events in
Libya are
hardly
unequivocally
good. Militias
rules whole
areas;
Africans are
mistreated;
even
International
Criminal Court
staff are
detained.
The
mood and
invitations,
it seemed,
were less
expansive than
last year.
There were
some
surprising
inclusions, to
some the
second
presence of
the Press
despite the context.
While Sudan's
white-suited
Permanent
Representative,
freshly back
from Rio like
his
South African
and other
counterparts,
was present
Tuesday night,
decidedly not
present was
Syria's Bashar
Ja'afari, or
it seemed
Eritrea's
ambassador.
Ban
Ki-moon came
and left
quickly, while
his right hand
man who now
goes under the
title of
Change
Management was
present at the
end. Ban's
speechwriter
Michael Myer
was there, and
consummate UN
insider James
Traub.
It was
a comfortable
crowd, perhaps
befitting a
Permanent
Representative
playing for a
larger stage,
playing out
the clock.
Of
course there
was learning
to be had. Jan
Egeland, who earlier
in the day
slavishly
defended his
new employer
Human Rights
Watch from
the
previous day's
probing by
Rwanda's
foreign
minister,
was described
as being from
Norway's "deep
south," who
could have
chosen between
religious
evangelism or
this
humanitarian
impulse. But
is HRW
director Ken
Roth now using
Egeland and
his
humanitarian
capital as
ground cover?
There were
still the
seals, and in
a New York
touch, Asian
salad in
Chinese
take-out
containers.
China's Li
Baodong, soon
to throw him
own bash, came
to show his
respects.
There
was a lot of
talk about the
right to
reply, with
ascendant
countries
saying that
they chose not
to use it, and
others saying
that their
opponents
couldn't take
the heat and
so were
countered at
every turn.
There
was talk of
Nordic
ghettos, and
of elections
on which the
UN has to role
the
dice,
including
Madagascar.
The jovial
representative
of a country
with a long
time leader,
Cameroon, was
this year not
present, back
in his
country, Inner
City Press was
told, with the
budget
committee
finished,
hardly
scrutinized.
Those
journalists
there mostly
hung together,
or rushed up
and embraced
the hostess.
Questions of free press
and witch hunt
were raised,
but will be
addressed in
coming days.
Not only for
this reason,
the mood was
different and
less hopeful.
While of
course part of
this is
projection,
objectively
even the
exhibit of sea
birds smelled.
Who will be
the host next
year? And what
will be
different?
Watch
this site.
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