Welcome to This Week @UN: Accountability for Russian strikes in Syria; Q/A with Kuwait’s envoy; Iraq ousts the UN mission. Plus: Rafah; Libya; Rwanda; UN peacekeeping; Gaza pier.
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• Our top story this week: Iraq Wants the UN Mission Gone by 2025 Amid a Global Wave of Similar Shakeups
• The month: Serbia Is Resisting a UN Resolution to Mark the Srebrenica Genocide
From PassBlue this week:
• Iraq Wants the UN Mission Gone by 2025 Amid a Global Wave of Similar Shakeups, scoop by Damilola Banjo
• Kuwait’s Blueprint for War’s Aftermath: Our Q/A With the UN Envoy, our newest small states story, by Ilgin Yorulmaz
• The Day of Reckoning for Russian Hits on Syrian Hospitals May Be Here, op-ed by Jada Sadler-Forster and Anna Khalfaoui
• Spotlight/Women: Our latest newsletter on women’s rights
• Our special podcast episode of UNSCripted: An interview with a US State Department spokesperson who quit over Biden’s “failed” Gaza war policy. (In an ad swap, our episodes were promoted recently on the Doha Debates Podcast, hitting 10,000 impressions.)
• Despite weeks of nationwide protests, the Georgian government passed a contentious “foreign agent” law on May 13. Throughout Tbilisi, the capital, demonstrators often blocked traffic, waving Georgian, European Union and Ukrainian flags (in solidarity with the latter), using whistles and vuvuzela-like horns to make themselves known. In the days before the vote, graffiti on the parliament steps and the surrounding blocks — many expressing pro-EU and anti-Russia sentiment — grew denser, conveying the main gripe against what critics called the “Russia law.” The bill requires media and nongovernmental organizations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” It has drawn comparisons to a 2012 Russian bill, and it could be used to threaten civil liberties and threaten Georgia’s joining the European Union.
The crowds were always exuberant, consisting mostly of young adults and students, some wearing the red-and-white Georgian flag as face paint and wielding laser pointers to project a message atop the parliament columns, roughly translating to “We cannot be owned.” Signs written both in Georgian and English expressed a desire for representation and justice and disdain for the officials who backed the bill, with one reading: “No to Russian Law. Can’t believe we still have to protest this shit again.” Nevertheless, parliamentarians took only 67 seconds of deliberation before voting 84 in favor and 30 against the law. Although Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili will likely veto the bill, the parliament can overrule her by holding another vote. Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the effects of the law “on the rights to freedom of expression and association in Georgia unfortunately now risk being significant.” – ARTHUR BASSAS, from Tblisi
Top UN news:
Monday, May 13
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Secretary-General António Guterres was “deeply saddened” by the death of one UN Department of Safety and Security (DSS) staff member and injury to another, when their UN-marked vehicle was hit en route to a hospital in Rafah, Gaza, on May 13. When asked why they were heading to the hospital, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said that they were routinely assessing its security conditions. [UPDATE, May 14: Haq said that the deceased was Waibhave Anil Kate, an Indian national — the first UN international fatality in Gaza — and the wounded staffer was Jordanian. The UN believes the shots fired at the staffers came from a tank in the area — presumably Israeli, since it is the only combatant in the enclave with such equipment. Â
Tuesday, May 14
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), told the Security Council, referring to his latest report on Libya, that there was “enthusiasm” to open a Tripoli office for the ICC’s work, but that “a paradigm shift is still needed and that the rule of law must apply in Libya.” (In 2011, Council Resolution 1970 referred cases of alleged crimes against humanity to the ICC after demonstrations that year in the country.)  Taher El-Sonni, Libya’s envoy to the UN, diverted the Council to Khan’s perceived inaction on Gaza, saying, in part: “As the Holocaust of the 21st century — the “#Gaza Holocaust” unfolds, the world is wondering what is the #ICC waiting for to issue warrants against those involved in the children’s mass graves in #Gaza, the man made famine, the ethnic cleansing, and genocide! What are you waiting for Mr. Khan?” Â
Wednesday, May 15
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres “welcomes” the news that “all fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)” for crimes they committed during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi have now been accounted for since 2011.
• The revised Pact for the Future, the anticipated crowning glory of the Summit of the Future, slated to be held in the General Assembly from Sept. 22-23, debuted to member states.
Thursday, May 16
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Speaking at the Summit of Arab States in Bahrain, Guterres said he sees “much potential in the Arab region” to “build a more peaceful and prosperous future for the people of the Arab world and beyond.” He encouraged Arab leaders to overcome division, adding: “You have the resources. You have the culture. You have the people, . . . [but] there is one core condition for success in today’s world: unity.” At the summit, the 22-member League of Arab States called for a UN peacekeeping mission to be installed in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” but when asked whether the UN would back such a mission, Haq said that creating it must be mandated by the Security Council and that “acceptance by the parties of a UN presence” was also required.
Friday, May 17
• Spokesperson’s briefing: The UN will “support in receiving and arranging for the dispatch of [humanitarian] aid” entering Gaza by the newly installed but controversial US-led floating dock built off the coast to “supplement” land crossings, Haq said, “as long as it respects the neutrality and independence of humanitarian operations.” Haq noted that the World Food Program (WFP) will “handle the logistics on behalf of the UN, its different agencies, and the humanitarian community” and manage the flow of aid offloaded from the dock.
On Friday night, WFP confirmed that the first shipment of aid arrived from the pier and was transported to the agency’s warehouses in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza. It appears that the cargo is ready for collection and distribution by UN partners and is being processed through WFP, although what obstacles it may face remain unsaid. Meanwhile, Israel’s invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in the strip, continues. Nearly 640,000 Gazans have been forced to pack up and relocate to other unsafe zones in the last week or so as food, water, shelter and medicine grow scarcer. The three main land routes into Gaza to deliver aid have been shut down fully or partly since May 6 by Israel.
On May 17, Samantha Power, head of the USAID, championed the activation of the new sea route to sail lifesaving goods from the Cypriot port of Larnaca to Gaza’s central coast, noting that the project is led by her agency and the US Department of Defense, along with Cyprus, Israel, the UN and international donors. “The pier that opened today does not replace or substitute for land crossings into Gaza, every one of which needs to operate at maximum capacity and efficiency,” she said, not saying why Israel is blocking the primary land crossings. Notably, the UN’s Guterres did not release his own statement on the pier on Friday.
Don’t Miss It
• Foreign Affairs article: “A UN Trusteeship for Palestine“
• US Senate confirmed Courtney Diesel O’Donnell as the next UN permanent representative to Unesco
• GAO report: United Nations: State Department Should Better Assess Its Efforts to Increase Employment of Americans at UN Agencies
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on the US-led Gaza pier?
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Arthur Bassas is a researcher and writer who graduated from St. Andrews in Scotland, majoring in international relations and terrorism. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and speaks English and French.
