http://www.innercitypress.com/rusun1eritrea120211.html
At UN as Eritrea Asks for Time, US Says "It's Monday," Russia's Sanctions
Concerns
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 2 -- Pushing for new UN Security Council sanctions
on Eritrea, the US and Gabon wanted a vote on November 30.
After running into opposition, it was decided that Eritrean President
Isaias Afwerki would to invited to address the Council on the morning of
December 5, along with representatives of neighboring countries, then the
vote would occur that afternoon.
Eritrea responded that the turn-around time was too short, and asked for
an extension. Inner City Press on December 2 asked US Deputy Permanent
Representative Rosemary DiCarlo about Eritrea's request for an extension.
"The schedule is Monday," she told Inner City Press with a smile. "See
you Monday."
When December's Security Council president Russia's Permanent
Representative Vitaly Churkin gave a press conference, Inner City Press
asked him about Eritrea's request, as well as for Russia's view of the
proposed sanctions, which refer to the mining sector and remittences to
Eritrea from its diaspora.
Churkin described the schedule for Monday, then said he thought the
President was coming, that "visas have been issued," but that if he could
not Eritrea could be represented by its foreign minister or Permanent
Representative Desta.
Churkin said Russia and others still have some concerns with the proposed
sanctions, which are still being negotiated.
South Africa's on the record comments to Inner City Press on the
sanctions are online, here.
On December 1, a self-described "senior Western diplomat" said of the
proposed new sanctions on Eritrea, "It is the tightening of the screw...to
deal with their taxes on diaspora income. They elicit taxes through their
embassies from the diaspora. It's a kind of extortion."
Some have pointed out, for example, that Nordic and other countries tax
the income of their citizens working overseas. The question of how taxes
are collected is an important one, but as some Council members complained
to Inner City Presss when the US and Gabon pushed for a November 30 vote,
there's been no briefing on the issue from the UN Secretariat, to get the
facts.
(c) UN Photo
Isaias Afwerki & Ban Ki-moon, briefing on diaspora taxes not shown
Now the vote is scheduled for December 5, but there has still been no
such briefing. While one hopes that the President of Eritrea comes, if only
as a matter of due process, as one Council member mused to Inner City
Press, "to put a head of state into a situation in which he speaks to the
Council in the morning, and they adopt sanctions against his country in the
afternoon, is a set-up for a no-show."
Another suggested that the Council should have scheduled the President to
speak as early in December as he could, and then hold the vote on another
subsequent day. But for now, the showdown is set for December 5. Watch this
site.
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Received on Fri Dec 02 2011 - 22:23:23 EST