UNITED
NATIONS, April
3 -- When U,S
Ambassador
Susan Rice
spoke to the
press
in front of
the Security
Council on
Wednesday, her
first topic
was
Mali.
Inner City
Press asked
her about
Sudan, about
Omar al
Bashir's
announcement
that political
prisoners
would be
released.
What's the
US view, Inner
City Press
asked, of this
supposed
glasnost in
Khartoum?
“That
would be
nice,”
Ambassador
Rice said and
smiled. Then
she added the
hope that the
term political
prisoner be
defined as
broadly for
release as
while being
taken into
custody.
Also
on Wednesday
Fatou Bensouda
the prosecutor
of the
International
Criminal
Court, where
Bashir has
been indicted
for genocide,
is
visiting the
US State
Department in
Washington,
meeting
Stephen J.
Rapp.
One
wonders if the
UN not only
partying with
Bashir, but offering free
flights to his
fellow ICC
indictee Ahmed
Harun,
will come up
between
Bensouda and
Rapp.
At
a UN press
conference on
Tuesday, Inner
City Press
asked April's
Security
Council
president
Eugene Richard
Gasana if he
or Rwanda
thought the
Council should
have given
Sudan mediator
Thabo Mbeki
the
press
statement he
asked for,
praising the
Sudans for the
Implementation
Matrix.
Gasana
said the
relationship
between the
Security
Council and
African Union
is improving.
But if Mbeki
favored a
Council press
statement for
the
Implementation
Matrix, how
much more so
for actual
releases of
political
prisoners?
Forget
glasnost -
compare it to
the West's
reaction to
Myanmar's
releases,
notwithstanding
or ignoring
the violence
against
Muslims in
that
country. A
cynic or
inciter might
conclude that
religion is
the
difference.
Watch this
site.
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