On the last day Monday of speeches by leaders at the UN General Assembly, Burma and the Afghan Taliban will not speak. One curiosity among others of the diplomatic marathon which will have seen a hundred leaders and dozens of ministers come to New York at the risk of creating a hotbed of Covid-19.
On the UN’s initial program, the general debate was to end with Burma, Guinea and Afghanistan successively. If Conakry, where a junta has seized power, should speak to the ambassador to the UN appointed by the deposed executive, Aly Diane, “an agreement has been reached between the United States, Russia and China” so that the rebel Burmese representative Kyaw Moe Tun does not speak, confides on condition of anonymity an ambassador from one of these three powers.
“Low profile”, confirms to AFP Kyaw Moe Tun, the recent target of an alleged plot to make him resign, even if it means killing him if he refuses. Since the military coup of February 1, this ambassador chosen by the former Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has retained his seat at the UN, supported by the international community. In May, the junta appointed an ex-soldier to replace him but not yet endorsed by the UN.
Request sent too late
His appointment as that of a new representative for Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban goes through a UN commission formed in particular of the United States, Russia and China. Consensus is the rule and for the two countries “there is none, so there will be a vote” of the General Assembly, specifies a UN official.
The Taliban appointed an ambassador to replace the Afghan representative who had served until then, Ghulam Isaczai, a member of the cabinet of ousted President Ashraf Ghani, and demanded that he deliver a speech. But “they sent their request too late,” said an ambassador on condition of anonymity. Will Ghulam Isaczai take the opportunity to demand a strengthening of sanctions against the Taliban as he did in the Security Council on September 9? It does not matter, assures an official, stressing that what counts for the UNO, “it is the vision of the government in place”.
“How encouraging to see the General Assembly meet again in person,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Friday, while last year it had mostly met virtually. “Don’t we all aspire to ‘get back to normal?’” He asked.
Emmanuel Macron’s enigmatic absence
However, not all Europeans followed his example. French President Emmanuel Macron successively announced to the UN that he would come to New York, then that he would speak by video the first day after the American Joe Biden, to finally give the voice of France to his leader diplomacy which will be expressed this Monday. By video, while he was physically present at the UN for five days.
“It is rare for one of the five permanent members of the Security Council to intervene on the last day,” said a European diplomat. “It’s surprising, I’ve never seen that,” replies an ambassador who is a member of the Security Council. Enigmatic, France confined itself to evoking the sanitary conditions.
If Washington, fearing a hotbed of a pandemic, has done everything to dissuade the leaders from coming to New York, with strict rules – masks, distancing, seven people per delegation to the UN – their application has remained uncertain. On Wednesday, ironically, it was US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who walked the corridors of the UN flanked by twenty people, AFP noted.
The ICRC on the sidewalk
In the end, four cases of Covid were officially identified, all in the delegation of Brazil, a country whose President Jair Bolsonaro remains anti-vaccine even if his wife took advantage of her visit to New York to receive a dose. But without any obligation to reveal his contamination, to test before entering the UN or to prove his vaccination, how many cases really? Without answering this question, the President of the Assembly, Abdulla Shahid (Maldives), assures AFP that the rules “were strictly followed by the delegations”.
The UN restrictions have been a deterrent. On the first day of the debate, only 1,929 people passed through the security gates compared to 26,000 in 2019, according to the Organization. In total, nearly 200 speeches will have been delivered while hundreds of bilateral meetings were organized in a frantic “speed-dating” inside and outside the UN. Banned from headquarters like all NGOs to limit the physical footprint, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, has increased improvised interviews with leaders on … the sidewalks bordering the UN.
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