At UN, D'Escoto's R to P Methods Questioned, Team Ban Off Record on Sri Lanka, Off to China
By Matthew Russell Lee
July 21, 2009
The Inner City Press
Original Source: 
http://www.innercitypress.com/pga3r2pban072109.html http://www.innercitypress.com/pga3r2pban072109.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 21, updated -- While this week's UN debates on the Responsibility to Protect looks to many like just another pro forma gab fest, R to P proponents view it as an attempt by the Sandinista President of the General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockman to undermine the concept, perhaps through a last minute outcome document. 
On July 20, at an event across the street from the UN attended by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's main advisor on R to P Ed Luck, William Pace of the World Federalist Movement* denounced d'Escoto for having refused to hold the session in April, to coincide with the 15th anniversary of Rwanda's genocide. 
   Pace said d'Escoto now gave only 10 days notice, then circulated an inappropriate document and proposed a debate between Noam Chomsky and, for R to P, Gareth Evans, also slated to appear at a press conference on July 22. The inappropriate concept paper, or non-paper as it's called in the UN, was described by several pro R to P Ambassadors as laughable, worse than D'Escoto Brockmann's unilateral draft on the global financial crisis.
   A staffer from d'Escoto Brockmann's office sat taking notes. Interviewed later by Inner City Press, he said Pace's vehemence surprised him: all d'Escoto is asking for is a debate. He said the concept wasn't really debated in 2005; he mentioned the humanitarian pretext for the invasion of Iraq. 
   Pace said that d'Escoto had inappropriately politicized the position of PGA and was trying to undermine the support of 150 heads of state for R to P. Pace even accused d'Escoto of timing the debate for July 23 specifically to occur when Ban will be out of town, in China.

   Because of Ban's trip to China -- some wondered if he would raise the situation of Uighurs in Xinjiang in Western China, as a matter of R to P or otherwise -- he unveiled his report to the General Assembly on the morning of July 21. The report was only half unveiled: journalists complained that the UN's Media Resource Center had no copies of the report. Whatever happened to the Responsibility to Print? 
   And why did Team Ban, when it held a press conference on June 20 about R to P, demand that its two speakers not be identified by name? Afterwards, Inner City Press asked one of them, who had said regarding Sri Lanka that it is somehow too early to tell if R to P was implemented, if the quote could be used with attribution, since the persons is a senior Ban administration official. I'd rather you didn't, the senior official said? Who took the responsibility out of the Responsibility to Protect? Watch this site.
Update of 10:17 a.m. -- Former Ambassador of India Nirupam Sen, also denounced by Pace for his positions in 2005 about R to P, arrived in front of the General Assembly. A staffer for D'Escoto's Office, for which Sen now works, spirited him further along the second floor. The door to the PGA's Office was closed. D'Escoto, his spokesman said, will be returning to New York today.
Update of 10:56 a.m. -- the GA session ended, much faster than most had expected. Only five countries? one attendee snarked to Inner City Press, calling Ban's delivery flat and predicting the real fireworks will be Thursday. The deputy permanent represenative of North Korea -- the DPR of the DPRK, as he's called -- ambled out, looking bemused. Ban rushed out, with his advisors Vijay Nambiar and Kim Won-soo. Sen stayed to schmooze the crowd. Inner City Press asked a Georgian diplomat what he thought of the Responsibility to Protect. We need some, he said.
* -- it was later pointed out at the full name is the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy, which is part of the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect, duly noted.