..train midwives in rural Afghanistan, thereby helping to reduce maternal mortality, empower young women and build up a broken country's health infrastructure.
Michelle at the Stop Genocide blog celebrates a welcome success for the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Here's how Xinhua rather heroically depicts the incident:
Troops from the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur have foiled an attempted abduction of several women who had strayed outside a makeshift camp in the war-torn western flank of Sudan, a UN press release said Wednesday. A patrol from the hybrid force, known as UNAMID, was dispatched Tuesday to the Hassa Hissa internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in West Darfur after being alerted that six women had been snatched while collecting firewood in nearby fields, the press release said. The kidnappers released the women when they saw the UNAMID team approaching the scene, it added.With so much attention focused on the numbers of peacekeepers deployed, it's worthwhile to reflect on situations like this one, in which what the peacekeepers are able to do is more important that how many of them there are. Of course, with more peacekeepers, successes like this would probably occur more frequently. (image of a Darfuri woman, from flickr user Hoisaeter under a Creative Commons license)
At first, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack told Ban Ki Moon that the shelling was a "grave mistake." But now, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the targeting was deliberate. From the AFP:
"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Olmert's office quoted him as telling Ban. "We do not want such incidents to take place and I am sorry for it but I don't know if you know, but Hamas fired from the UNRWA site. "This is a sad incident and I apologise for it."UNRWA officials are not buying it.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is charged with helping Palestinian refugees, said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza. He said that in the strike on the United Nations compound two buildings had been set ablaze and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site. He rejected the Israeli claim that militants had fired from in or near the compound as "entirely baseless." "With every false allegation, the credibility of those accusing us is incrementally diminished," he said. He said that Israel had used three shells of white phosphorous at the compound, according to people at the site, citing the fact that fires caused by the shells had burned all day as evidence that the chemical was used. White phosphorous creates smoke on a battlefield and can burn like a kind of napalm. There was no immediate response from Israel.The way I see it, even if the Israeli claims are true and Hamas militants did force their way into the UN compound (these UN workers, after all, cannot exactly fight back), how does that justify putting the lives of civilians at the UN headquarters at risk? Hamas, in this situation, are essentially holding the UN hostage. And Israel has apparently decided that it is worth risking the lives of the hostages just to get at the hostage takers. This is just terrible all around.
12:22. Kerry concludes, "the UN is too valuable, and the issues are too urgent." He expects to have Rice sworn in by next Wednesday at the latest.
12:20. Kerry's message to the UN: "this is a new moment," and it's time for the UN to reform. He seems to be addressing those few countries that frustrate reform efforts to "stick it in the eye of the UN." It'd be important to remember that this "new moment" may decrease the numbers of those countries.
12:13. Senator Casey brings up the General Assembly vote on decriminalizing homosexuality. Good for him.
12:06. Casey says "Lugarrrr" a day after Clinton does. A mutiny in the SFRC?
12:02. This is newsworthy: Rice says the incoming administration has not yet made a decision on whether or not to join the Human Rights Council.
12:00. "What might have been different with U.S. participation and leadership" in the Human Rights Council? A worthwhile question.
11:53. Wyoming Senator Barrasso asks the black helicopter questions on guns and global taxes. Rice responds that the UN can't change the U.S. constitution nor impose taxes on American citizens absent the consent of Congress. So your guns are safe, Senator Barrasso, and a UN "global tax" is about as likely as a UN attempt to raise an army of giant green swamp monsters.
11:50. Rice navigates a tricky answer about involving U.S. personnel in UN operations; they will not operate under UN "command responsibility," but can contribute to UN missions.
11:47. Boxer likes her International Human Rights Convention on the Rights of the Child. Rice calls it a " shame" that the United States stands only with Somalia in not ratifying the treaty.
The headquarters of the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) in Gaza has been hit by Israeli strikes.
THREE Israeli tank shells have smashed into a United Nations compound in Gaza City, wounding three UN workers. "Israeli tank shells fell inside the UNRWA complex in Gaza, injuring three of its employees," spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said. One building was on fire, while other parts of the compound were damaged by shrapnel.Secretary-General Ban is understandably upset, and Israeli Defense Minister Barak called the bombing a "grave mistake." UNRWA is -- illegitimately -- a favorite target of some UN detractors, but even if they cannot support the UN's efforts to care for over a million besieged Palestinians in Gaza, they surely cannot approve of bombing the building that has also become an emergency shelter for hundreds. Coupled with last week's accidental Israeli strike on two well-marked UN schools, this latest mistake is yet another reason that securing a ceasefire in Gaza becomes more imperative by the day. (image of UNRWA headquarters in Gaza)
I'm off the Hill to liveblog the confirmation hearings for Susan Rice, nominee to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations. Watch us watch her talk about the role of the United Nations in American foreign policy at Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Just prior to Dr. Rice's hearing is a "business meeting" of the SFRC in which they will vote on the nomination of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State....should be an exciting few hours on the Hill.
Moments before Susan Rice's confirmation hearing to become the next U.S. Ambassador to the UN (which we'll live-blogging shortly, as we did so vigorously with Secretary of State-designate Clinton's) begins, it seems appropriate to reflect on some of current Ambassador Khalilzad's pragmatic points from his "exit interview" at the New America Foundation yesterday.
"Reasonable" resolutions do wonders. Khalilzad revealed a simple strategy for reversing the Bolton-esque 14-1 votes, featuring a ham-handed U.S. veto, that made the United States look like a not very eager partner. If a country like Libya tried to introduce an inflammatory resolution on Israel-Palestine, Khalilzad related, instead of fulminating against it, he would take up the challenge and work to transform the piece of Israel-bashing into a reasonable resolution, including language, for instance, condemning terrorist attacks. Libya, beholden to its own domestic politics, could not then agree to its own resolution, and it would become the isolated 1 in the 14-1 vote, thus withdrawing its resolution.
Employ an "Adjective-Maker-in-Chief." This is the term that moderator Steve Clemons used to underscore Khalilzad's comment on the importance of coming to Security Council meetings prepared with a, er, flexible vocabulary. If one word doesn't work, try another. A thesaurus can be a handy tool for diplomacy.
Listen! Clemons reported that all the other UN ambassadors with whom he spoke expressed pleasant surprise -- and sometimes downright shock -- that Khalilzad would call upon them in their offices. Once there, Khalilzad stressed, he actually listened to what his counterparts had to say. Style and tone, in turns out, matter a lot up at Turtle Bay.
And finally, Khalilzad admitted: always have a resignation letter tucked away in a drawer somewhere, just in case.
Just returning from and event at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC in which Steve Clemons played host/inquisitor/moderator to a discussion with outgoing United States ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.
Khalilzad reflected that the United Nations was a "net positive" for the United States. He said he came into the job believing that "the United States needs the United Nations and the United Nations needs the United States" and left feeling the exact same way. When asked about his personal diplomatic style he responded that treating colleagues like equals -- even those from small nations -- can go a long way toward earning the United States the kind of trust and support that is required to effectively advance American interests at the United Nations.
Perhaps the newsiest bit came when Khalilzad addressed the controversy surrounding the United States abstention from the Gaza ceasefire resolution. He said that Rice spent an "unprecedented" three days working on the resolution, and that the United States drafted a big portion of the resolution, which he described as "very reasonable." He then made two somewhat contradictory points. 1) That there was an imperative to pass a resolution before Friday evening prayers in the Arab world because the United States feared that not doing so could result in violence directed at its embassies in the Middle East. 2) That the ultimate decision to abstain from the resolution was done to give ongoing Franco-Egyptian diplomatic efforts more time.
What's curious to me, at least, is why the United States would not vote in favor of a resolution that its ambassador considered "very reasonable" and its Secretary of State worked so hard on drafting?
Still, it is hard not to like and respect Ambassador Khalilzad, who brought a level of competency and passion to three critical posts in US government- ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations. He is unsure what his future holds, though he did rule out running for president of his native Afghanistan. He does, however, want to be an advocate for the people of Afghanistan and help that country in anyway he can. He suggested that he may work on projects related to education in Afghanistan. All the power to him.