By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 17 --
Running
unopposed for
two-year seats
on the UN
Security
Council on
Thursday,
Nigeria, Saudi
Arabia, Chad,
Chile and
Lithuania were
assured of
victory. The
only questions
were what
gifts they
would
nevertheless
give, and
which would be
denied the
most votes as
a protest.
The
answer to the
latter turned
out to be
Saudi Arabia,
which got only
176 votes out
of the 191
states
present. Saudi
Arabia had
given out two
gifts, or
gifts in two
different
boxes: a small
red box, and a
larger white
box.
(Nigeria,
by contrast,
gave in a
single format,
a photograph of
which Inner
City Press
tweeted here.)
Afterward
Inner
City Press
asked Syrian
Permanent
Representative
Bashar
Ja'afari about
Saudi Arabia's
election to
the Security
Council, which
now has
chemical
weapons in
Syria on its
agenda.
Ja'afari shook
his head and
hearkened back
to when Qatar
was elected to
the Security
Council, and
then got the
President of
the General
Assembly
position.
Money.
But
what was the
gift?
Dates.
Dates without
women.
Chad
got the second
fewest votes,
with 184, two
fewer than
Nigeria and
Chile. A cynic
might call it
the two-vote
penalty for
being on the
UN's list of
child soldier
recruiters. UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous even
accepted Chad
into the UN
mission in
Mali, MINUSMA.
So why not on
the Council?
But
just as Saudi
Arabia will
have a
particular
interest in
Syria on the
Council, so
will Chad on
Sudan / Darfur
as well as
other
FrancAfrique
crises like
the Central
African
Republic.
The
top vote
getters, at
187, was
Lithuania,
which faced a
previous
dust-up with
Serbia around
former
President of
the General
Assembly Vuk
Jeremic.
There
were some
protest (or
error) votes:
Senegal two,
Gambia (which
dropped out)
two; Lebanon
and Croatia
one a piece.
With
Chile and
Argentina on
the Security
Council, will
the Malvinas /
Falkland
Islands fall
out of the
UK's sphere?
No. The UK has
the veto.
The
reality is,
not only do
the Permanent
Five
veto-wielding
members
dominate the
Elected Ten --
even AMONG the
P5, the
designated
"pen holder"
on a country,
often the
former
colonial
power,
dominates or
works about
the other
four. Take for
example that
France was
alone allowed
to hand pick
which media
could go -- on
a "UN" plane
-- to cover
the Council's
recent trip to
DRC, Rwanda,
Uganda and
Ethiopia.
We'll have
more on this.
, 
