By KUNA,
United Nations : Security Council President Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa late Wednesday expressed regret that the body failed to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza during his presidency.
“The most frustrating experience we had was that we could not have the council to pronounce itself on the humanitarian situation in the middle East, particularly in Gaza. the difficulties for that are well known,” Kumalo told a press conference on the last day of his council presidency, in an indirct reference to the US which has always blocked any council action on the issue.
But Kumalo referred to the “most unfortunate” incident that complicated the situation when the Libyan deputy Ambassador compared during the debate on the issue the humanitarian situation in Gaza to what happened in the concentration camps during the Nazi period.
“This is unfortunate because we can’t imagine how we could even compare the tragedies that happened in the concentration camps, because they don’t compare at all,” he said.
“Unfortunately this emotional outburst (by Libya) diverted us from addressing the fundamental issue that this council will have to deal with, particularly the situation in the Palestinian occupied lands,” he noted.
On the issue of Western Sahara and the draft resolution that the council would adopt later in the day to extend the mandate of the UN force there (MINURSO) for one more year, Kumalo expressed regret that each time there is a resolution on the issue “there is always a new language that tilts towards Morocco”.
This language is “unnecessary,” he said.
What also bothers him, he added, is the use of the word “realism” in the draft resolution when it comes to the Polisario Front only, even though the Secretary-General called on both parties – Morocco and the Polisario Front – to find a way out of the current political impasse through “realism and a spirit of compromise from both parties”.
“I will tell them when we adopt the resolution that we have to be careful about this realism, because if we are in the business of realism, we should tell the palestinians to become real and accept their fate, tell the Serbs to be real and accept Kosovo. If you are going to have realism, do it all over the place, don’t just do it to the poor Sahrawis because they are weak, they are not Morocco which is supported by the big permanent ones,” he argued.
On the issue of Peacekeeping, he said “unfortunately, it has become very expensive because it has favoured the big countries”.
He noted that the procurements for the UN Peacekeeping forces in Africa, such in the DR Congo, cost a lot of money to transfer them by air, while the UN can get the same procurements from near by countries like South Africa or Tanzania.