Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general, despite objections from Egypt, spoke out many times, as did Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights, as well Irina Bokova, the executive director of UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). But the major UN bodies did not back them up.
The 102-member General Assembly was quiet as was the prestigious 15-nation Security Council. 'It's an internal matter, not international peace and security,' said one diplomat, although the regional implication was clear along with the impact on Israeli-Palestinian ties that is often a subject in the Council.
Brazil's Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, the rotating president of the Security Council for February, told reporters no member had requested a meeting -- or even a background briefing -- on the latest events in the Middle East. Members, through their capitols, were issuing statements, she said, adding: 'The council is an institution (of) last resort.'
DiCarlo of U.S. speaks up
During the monthly scheduled meeting on the Middle East on January 19, only Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.S. deputy ambassador, mentioned Tunisia. She said in part:
'The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights that we must all uphold.....We call on the interim Tunisian government to respect human rights and to hold free and fair elections that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people.'
Quipped one diplomat: 'It is as if someone had made a rude noise. Everyone looked the other way.'
There is also a more direct tie-in with the United Nations: Mohamed ElBaradei, 68, the Nobel Prize winning former head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. He appears to be the closest thing to a spokesman for the opposition. Although well-known in Egypt, he has spent most of his career in Vienna. No word about him at the United Nations either, although to his credit he is not a cocktail party figure.
Ban Ki-moon mentioned Egypt several times in recent days, at press conferences in Davos, at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, at Oxford University and in Munich at a meeting of the Quartet (composed of the U.S., the E.U., Russia and U.N.) on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And several of his statements prompted Egypt to conduct a demarche of objections to his office, U.N. spokesmen confirmed. But Ban has been careful not to call for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
'Reforms, not repression'
At Oxford University in England, for example, Ban condemned the attacks on peaceful protestors (which appeared engineered by the government and backed by an army that did not interfere.) He said the government should respond with 'reforms, not repression' and warned about instability across the Middle East.
Navi Pillay, the Geneva-based U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave two press conferences last week saying on February 4:
'I warned then, and I reiterate again, that governments must listen to their people and put in practice their human rights obligations. Regimes that deprive people of their fundamental rights, that depend on a ruthless security apparatus to impose their will, are bound to fail in the long-term. Stability depends on the development of human rights and democracy...The violence must stop.'
Taking an indirect swipe at the government, she said:
'In the last two days we have seen chaos in central Cairo, and one of the prime drivers of this chaos seems to have been the actions of Egypt's security and intelligence services,' Pillay said adding that perpetrators of the violence should be investigated.
And in Paris, UNESCO's Bokova urged protection of cultural sites, saying Egypt as has seven named by the World Heritage, some with UNESCO support. She then said that 'silencing the media or attempting to intimidate them is an unacceptable assault on the right of citizens to be informed.'
Security Council still silent, Russia speaks
All this passed by the Security Council. Some speculated that Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Maged Abdelaziz, carried a lot of political clout as did his predecessor Ahmed Aboul Gheit, now Cairo's foreign minister.
At the same time the United States and its European allies believe that Russia and China, who view this dispute, along with many others, as a domestic conflict and would bar any discussion.
According to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's U.N. ambassador, in comments to reporters on Friday: 'There are some extremely delicate domestic political matters, and I think that should be left for the sovereign states to deal with.'
The same evidently goes for rapping Khartoum on the violence in Darfur, which is on the Council's agenda, or putting an arms embargo over the entire territory of Sudan or discussing Zimbabwe and other violators of peace and security.
Read more: Egypt Protests, Tunisia, Unesco, Egypt, Ban Ki-Moon, Navi Pillay, United Nations, UN General Assembly, Irina Bokova, World News
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