Burundi Resolution Passes,
Russian Yes,
China,
Egypt,
Venezuela,
Angola Abstain
By
Matthew Russell Lee,
Follow Up On
Exclusive
With links
http://www.innercitypress.com/burundi382banthirdterm072916
.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 29 --
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution to send up to 228 UN
Police to Burundi on July 29, with four abstentions: China, Egypt, Venezuela and Egypt. Surprisingly,
Russia voted yes. Here is the
French text;
English is below.
Minute before the
UN Security Council was to vote on the draft resolution to send up to 228 police to Burundi, French ambassador
Francois Delattre spoke with his
Chinese counterpart, tweeted photo here, while Angola's ambassador spoke with
US Ambassador Samantha Power and her deputy,
David Pressman. (Blurrier photo tweeted here.)
The UN of
Ban Ki-moon and
Herve Ladsous plans to accept 800 more soldiers from Burundi for "service" in the
Central African Republic,
Inner City Press was exclusively informed and got the UN to confirm on June 23. But why?
Especially now that the UN has belatedly acknowledged that the new rape charges in
CAR are against Burundi? And now that Burundi has “discontinued its interactive dialogue” with the
UN Committee Against Torture? On July 29 Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq about this; the generic response indicated to some that Ban's office is not even aware of it. The Security Council's vote on the Burundi draft, below, was postponed from 10 am on July 29 to 5 pm.
Meanwhile the
French embassy in
Bujumbura, via one
Florence VASIC, warned of a protest on July 30 to end at the French embassy, urges staying away.
As if in a parallel universe, on July 28 the French mission to the UN circulated and put “in blue” its belated draft resolution on Burundi, which as obtained by Inner City Press would among other things “authorize a ceiling of 228
United Nations individual police officers for the United Nations police component as referred to in paragraph 13 of this resolution, headed by a United Nations senior police adviser, to be deployed in Bujumbura and throughout Burundi, and requests the Secretary-General to ensure their progressive deployment.”
Inner City Press has obtained the draft - not from the French mission - and exclusively puts it online here. During this process, amazingly, Burundi's
Permanent Representative to the UN Albert Shingiro has been on vacation. Sources tell Inner City Press his goal is to be able to say he wasn't here, it wasn't his fault. But will that work?
And if
Pierre Nkurunziza, who is slated to come to the
UN General Assembly high week in September, does not accept the 228 police? Inner City Press is told of splits in the
CNDD-FDD party. We'll have more on this.
- published: 29 Jul 2016
- views: 37