Tag: United Nations General Assembly

Army officers appear on Burkina Faso TV, declare new coup

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OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — More than a dozen members of Burkina Faso’s army seized control of state television late Friday, declaring that the country’s coup leader-turned-president, Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, had been overthrown after only nine months in power.

A statement read by a junta spokesman said Capt. Ibrahim Traore is the new military leader of Burkina Faso, a volatile West African country that is battling a mounting Islamic insurgency.

Burkina Faso’s new military leaders said the country’s borders had been closed and a curfew would be in effect from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The transitional government and national assembly were ordered dissolved.

Damiba and his allies overthrew the democratically elected president, coming to power with promises of make the country more secure. However, violence has continued unabated and frustration with his leadership has grown in recent months.

“Faced by the continually worsening security situation, we the officers and junior officers of the national armed forces were motivated to take action with the desire to protect the security and integrity of our country,” said the statement read by the junta spokesman, Capt. Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho.

The soldiers promised the international community they would respect their commitments and urged Burkinabes “to go about their business in peace.”

“A meeting will be convened to adopt a new transitional constitution charter and to select a new Burkina Faso president be it civilian or military,” Sorgho added.

Damiba had just returned from addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York as Burkina Faso’s head of state. Tensions, though, had been mounting for months. In his speech, Damiba defended his January coup as “an issue of survival for our nation,” even if it was ”perhaps reprehensible” to the international community.

Constantin Gouvy, Burkina Faso researcher at Clingendael, said Friday night’s events “follow escalating tensions within the ruling MPSR junta and the wider army about strategic and operational decisions to tackle spiraling insecurity.”

“Members of the MPSR increasingly felt Damiba was isolating himself and casting aside those who helped him seize power,” Gouvy told The Associated Press.

Gunfire had erupted in the capital, Ouagadougou, early Friday and hours passed without any public appearance by Damiba. Late in the afternoon, his spokesman posted a statement on the presidency’s Facebook page saying that “negotiations are underway to bring back calm and serenity.”

Friday’s developments felt all too familiar in West Africa, where a coup in Mali in August 2020 set off a series of military power grabs in the region. Mali also saw a second coup nine months after the August 2020 overthrow of its president, when the junta’s leader sidelined his civilian transition counterparts and put himself alone in charge.

On the streets of Ouagadougou, some people already were showing support Friday for the change in leadership even before the putschists took to the state airwaves.

Francois Beogo, a political activist from the Movement for the Refounding of Burkina Faso, said Damiba “has showed his limits.”

“People were expecting a real change,” he said of the January coup d’etat.

Some demonstrators voiced support for Russian involvement in order to stem the violence, and shouted slogans against France, Burkina Faso’s former colonizer. In neighboring Mali, the junta invited Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to help secure the country, though their deployment has drawn international criticism.

Many in Burkina Faso initially supported the military takeover last January, frustrated with the previous government’s inability to stem Islamic extremist violence that has killed thousands and displaced at least 2 million.

Yet the violence has failed to wane in the months since Damiba took over. Earlier this month, he also took on the position of defense minister after dismissing a brigadier general from the post.

“It’s hard for the Burkinabe junta to claim that it has delivered on its promise of improving the security situation, which was its pretext for the January coup,” said Eric Humphery-Smith, senior Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.

Earlier this week, at least 11 soldiers were killed and 50 civilians went missing after a supply convoy was attacked by gunmen in Gaskinde commune in Soum province in the Sahel. That attack was “a low point” for Damiba’s government and “likely played a role in inspiring what we’ve seen so far today,” added Humphery-Smith.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday that nearly one-fifth of Burkina Faso’s population “urgently needs humanitarian aid.”

“Burkina Faso needs peace, it needs stability, and it needs unity in order to fight terrorist groups and criminal networks operating in parts of the country,” Dujarric said.

Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkina Faso Movement for Human Rights, called Friday’s developments “very regrettable,” saying the instability would not help in the fight against the Islamic extremist violence.

“How can we hope to unite people and the army if the latter is characterized by such serious divisions?” Zougmore said. “It is time for these reactionary and political military factions to stop leading Burkina Faso adrift.”

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Mednick reported from Barcelona. Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

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September 30, 2022
Russia vetoes UN resolution calling its referendums illegal

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UNITED NATIONS — Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Friday that would have condemned its referendums in four Ukrainian regions as illegal, declared them invalid and urged all countries not to recognize any annexation of the territory claimed by Moscow.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 10-1 with China, India, Brazil and Gabon abstaining.

The resolution would also have demanded an immediate halt to Russia’s “full-scale unlawful invasion of Ukraine” and the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all its military forces from Ukraine.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that in the event of a Russian veto, the U.S. and Albania who sponsored the resolution will take it to the 193-member General Assembly where there are no vetoes, “and show that the world is still on the side of sovereignty and protecting territorial integrity.”

The council vote came hours after a lavish Kremlin ceremony where President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to annex the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, saying they were now part of Russia and would be defended by Moscow.

Thomas-Greenfield said the results of the “sham” referendums on whether the regions wanted to join Russia were “pre-determined in Moscow, and everybody knows it.” “They were held behind the barrel of Russian guns,” she said.

Adding that “the sacred principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” at the heart of the U.N. Charter must be defended, she said, “All of us understand the implications for our own borders, our own economies, and our own countries if these principles are tossed aside.”

“Putin miscalculated the resolve of the Ukrainians,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “The Ukrainian people have demonstrated loud and clear: They will never accept being subjugated to Russian rule.”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia defended the referendums, claiming that more than 100 international observers from Italy, Germany, Venezuela and Latvia who observed the voting recognized the outcomes as legitimate.

“The results of the referendums speak for themselves. The residents of these regions do not want to return to Ukraine. They have made a an informed and free choice in favor of our country,” he said.

Nebenzia added: “There will be no turning back as today’s draft resolution would try to impose.”

He accused Western nations on the council of “openly hostile actions,” saying they reached “a new low” by putting forward a resolution condemning a council member and forcing a Russian veto so they can “wax lyrical.”

Under a resolution adopted earlier this year, Russia must defend its veto before the General Assembly in the coming weeks.

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September 30, 2022
Top Pakistan diplomat urges flood aid, patience with Taliban

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Pakistan’s foreign minister says the international community should work with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, not against them, when it comes to combatting foreign extremist groups and the economic and humanitarian crises in that country — even as many U.S. officials say the Taliban have proved themselves unworthy of such cooperation.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s top diplomat, spoke to The Associated Press in the final days of a trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and to Washington that has focused on trying to draw more world attention to unprecedented flooding that has one-third of his country underwater.

Unrelenting monsoon rains that scientists say are worsened by climate change have killed more than 1,000 people in Pakistan, caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and destroyed much of the country’s staple food and commercial crops.

Pakistan is among many countries hardest-hit by climate change that have become increasingly outspoken in seeking more financial assistance from richer nations. Past and current economic and industrial booms of China, the United States and other leading economies are the biggest contributors to climate change, which is primarily caused by burning fossil fuels.

The roughly 30 million people in Pakistan reported to be displaced by the floods are “truly paying in the forms of their lives and their livelihoods for the industrialization of other countries,” said Zardari.

“And justice would be that we work together” globally, “that we’re not left alone, to deal with the consequences of this tragedy,” he said.

Zardari is the son of a past Pakistani prime minister and a past president. He became foreign minister in April.

He met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday. The Biden administration on the same day announced another $10 million in food aid for Pakistan, on top of more than $56 million in flood relief and humanitarian assistance this year.

More broadly, however, the Biden administration and other governments of leading economic nations have delivered only a small part of the $100 billion in annual aid they have pledged to help less-wealthy nations survive the droughts, rising seas and other disasters of climate change and switch to cleaner energy themselves.

“We expect the United States to be one of the leading players” in that, said Zardari, who also spoke approvingly of a nascent proposal out of the U.N. in which developed nations could cancel out existing debt as a form of climate aid.

“We’ve not yet seen — and that doesn’t mean we won’t see — the translation of this vision to practicalities on the ground” in terms of the overall climate aid, he said.

Zardari, who spoke to the AP on Tuesday at Pakistan’s embassy, also gave contentious recommendations that the U.S. work more directly with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Pakistan and the United States have shared widely varying amounts of cooperation against violent armed groups sheltering in Afghanistan over the decades. The U.S. long has been at odds with many Pakistani officials over sympathetic handling and support for the Taliban.

No country recognizes the Taliban, a group sanctioned as a terrorist organization that retook power by military force in August 2021, as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. The United States and the international community at large have sought to deal with billions of dollars in frozen Afghan Central Bank funds, to institute financial reforms, and to deliver badly needed aid to ordinary Afghans with minimal involvement by the Taliban.

“At the risk of hurting anyone’s feelings, I think it’s important to mention that these funds, it’s not the Taliban’s funds, it’s not the Americans’ funds. These are funds that belong to the people of Afghanistan,” Zardari said.

Economic isolation and privation such as Afghanistan has experienced since the Taliban takeover only feed authoritarianism and extremism, he said. The best financial outcomes would work through existing institutions, now in Taliban hands, not through “some sort of parallel government.”

Asked if he meant the U.S. needed to hold its nose and deal with Afghanistan’s ruling power, Zardari said, “Pretty much.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. discovery that the global leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had taken up refuge in the heart of Afghanistan’s capital since the Taliban had returned to power has left U.S. leaders condemning Taliban officials for alleged complicity. The U.S. killed Zawahiri in a drone strike in July.

The Taliban had yet to have the time and ability to grapple with extremist groups as a government should, Zardari said. “For them to demonstrate their will to take on terrorist organizations, we need to help them build their capacity to also do so” before judging them, he said.

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September 28, 2022
Regional fights take stage at UN where Ukraine has dominated

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Two of the world’s most persistent conflicts punctuated debate at the United Nations on Friday, as the annual gathering of world leaders deviated from the dominating issue of the war in Ukraine.

Addressing hostilities thousands of miles apart and sharing little more than their decades of longevity, the Palestinian and Pakistani leaders nonetheless delivered similar messages, accusing a neighbor of brutality and urging world leaders to do more.

“Our confidence in achieving a peace based on justice and international law is waning,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said. “Do you want to kill what remains of hope in our souls?”

With Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank in its 55th year and no substantial peace talks in 13 years, it was a stark if perhaps unsurprisingly pessimistic assessment. Israel’s prime minister backed a two-state solution to the conflict in his own speech a day earlier — but there is almost no prospect for one in the near term.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly after the Palestinian leader, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan similarly addressed a generations-old fight, accusing India of a “relentless campaign of repression” in Jammu and Kashmir. Those mountainous lands have been claimed by both sides since British rule of the subcontinent ended 75 years ago and India and Pakistan were born.

Sharif urged world leaders and the U.N. to “play their rightful role” in resolving the fight and said India “must take credible steps” too.

India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, might provide a rebuttal to Sharif when he gets his turn at the rostrum on Saturday. India has called the region an integral part of its nation.

After days of world leaders returning again and again to Ukraine, Sharif and Abbas provided a reminder of the other problems facing the international community.

Later, Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi spoke of the “political impasse” gripping his country for nearly a year and preventing the formation of a new government. He called for “serious and transparent dialogue” among the various factions.

And Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, repeated complaints that 1 million Rohingya refugees in crowded camps in her country are a threat to its security.

“The situation can potentially fuel radicalization,” she said of those who fled a harsh crackdown by Myanmar’s military.

Hasina has said that repatriation is the only solution to the crisis, but that Bangladesh would not force them to go back to Myanmar, where members of the Muslim minority face extensive discrimination.

Throughout the first three days and 104 leaders’ speeches, many criticized how Russia had managed to block U.N. action on Ukraine because of the veto it wields as a permanent member of the Security Council. Abbas shifted the attention to the power of Israel and its allies, which he said meant no matter how many hundreds of resolutions pass, none would be implemented.

“Do you know who is protecting Israel from being held accountable? The United Nations,” he said in a speech more than three times the 15-minute limit leaders are asked to respect.

Israel, in turn, has complained that it has been treated unfairly by the world body and has been held to a different standard from other member states, as when it comes to complaints about human rights violations. Its ambassador to the U.N., Joshua Lavine, issued a statement calling Abbas’ speech “a lie-filled rant.”

Even as other issues bubbled up, many leaders continued to call for action against Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.

“He won’t stop at Ukraine if we don’t stop him now,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Friday.

Major battlefield developments in Ukraine cast a shadow over the week – nuclear threats by Putin, the activation of some military reservists and votes in Russian-held territories derided by many world leaders and seen as a prelude to annexation.

Russia and Ukraine faced off Thursday at a Security Council meeting — an extraordinary if brief encounter during which the top diplomats from nations at war were in the same room exchanging barbs and accusations, albeit not directly to each other.

Meanwhile, on Friday, a team of experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body, said its initial investigation turned up evidence of war crimes committed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.

Besides Ukraine, familiar refrains have resounded in U.N. speeches, with repeated mentions of climate change, economic crises and inequality. The gathering is a rare moment for many leaders to grab the spotlight on a global stage dominated by the biggest, richest and most militarily mighty countries and issue calls for action.

“The obligation of each leader before history is not to overlook failings and shortcomings in favor of wishful thinking or flattery,” President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus said Friday in his final General Assembly speech as leader of the Mediterranean island nation.

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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

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For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly

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September 23, 2022
World opinion shifts against Russia as Ukraine worries grow

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NEW YORK (AP) — The tide of international opinion appears to be decisively shifting against Russia, as a number of non-aligned countries are joining the United States and its allies in condemning Moscow’s war in Ukraine and its threats to the principles of the international rules-based order.

Western officials have repeatedly said that Russia has become isolated since invading Ukraine in February. Until recently, though, that was largely wishful thinking. But on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, much of the international community spoke out against the conflict in a rare display of unity at the often fractured United Nations.

The tide had already appeared to be turning against Russian President Vladimir Putin even before Thursday’s U.N. speeches. Chinese and Indian leaders had been critical of the war at a high-level summit last week in Uzbekistan. And then the U.N. General Assembly disregarded Russia’s objections and voted overwhelmingly to allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be the only leader to address the body remotely, instead of requiring him to appear in person.

That shift against Russia accelerated after Putin on Wednesday announced the mobilization of some additional 300,000 troops to Ukraine, signaling the unlikelihood of a quick end to the war. Putin also suggested that nuclear weapons may be an option. That followed an announcement of Russia’s intention to hold referendums in several occupied Ukrainian regions on whether they will become part of Russia.

Those announcements came at the very moment that the General Assembly, considered the premier event in the global diplomatic calendar, was taking place in New York.

Numerous world leaders used their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday to denounce Russia’s war. That trend continued Thursday both in the assembly hall and at the usually deeply divided U.N. Security Council, where, one-by-one, virtually all of the 15 council members served up harsh criticism of Russia – a council member — for aggravating several already severe global crises and imperiling the foundations of the world body.

The apparent shift in opinion offers some hope to Ukraine and its Western allies that increasing isolation will add pressure on Putin to negotiate a peace. But few are unduly optimistic. Putin has staked his legacy on the Ukraine war and few expect him to back down. And, Russia is hardly isolated. Many of its allies depend on it for energy, food and military assistance and are likely to stand by Putin regardless of what happens in Ukraine.

Still, it was striking to hear Russia’s nominal friends like China and India, following up on last week’s remarks, speak of grave concerns they have about the conflict and its impact on global food and energy shortages as well as threats to the concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity that are enshrined in the U.N. Charter.

Brazil registered similar concerns. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa make up the so-called BRICS bloc of countries, which has often shunned or outright opposed Western initiatives and views on international relations.

Only one country, Belarus, a non-council member and Russia ally that was invited to participate, spoke in support of Russia, but also called for a quick end to the fighting, which it called a “tragedy.”

“We hear a lot about the divisions among countries at the United Nations,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “But recently, what’s striking is the remarkable unity among member states when it comes to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Leaders from countries developing and developed, big and small, North and South have spoken in the General Assembly about the consequences of the war and the need to end it.”

“Even a number of nations that maintain close ties with Moscow have said publicly that they have serious questions and concerns about President Putin’s ongoing invasion,” Blinken said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was careful not to condemn the war but said that China’s firm stance is that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected. The purposes of the principles of the U.N. Charter should be observed.”

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said “the trajectory of the Ukraine conflict is a matter of a profound concern for the international community.” He called for accountability for atrocities and abuses committed in Ukraine. “If egregious attacks committed in broad daylight are left unpunished, this council must reflect on the signals we are sending on impunity. There must be consistency if we are to ensure credibility,” he said.

And Brazilian Foreign Minister Carlos Alberto Franca said immediate efforts to end the war are critical. “The continuation of the hostilities endangers the lives of innocent civilians and jeopardizes the food and energy security of millions of families in other regions, especially in developing countries,” he said. “The risks of escalation arising for the current dynamics of the conflict are simply too great, and its consequences for the world order unpredictable.”

Foreign ministers and top officials from Albania, Britain, France, Ireland, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico and Norway delivered similar rebukes.

“Russia’s actions are blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations,” said Albanian Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka. “We all tried to prevent this conflict. We could not, but we must not fail to hold Russia accountable.”

Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard called the invasion a “flagrant breach of international law” and Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said: “If we fail to hold Russia accountable we send a message to large countries that they can prey on their neighbors with impunity.”

Unsurprisingly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was unapologetic and defensive at the same time and specifically targeted Zelenskyy. Citing a phrase often attributed to President Franklin Roosevelt, Lavrov called Zelenskyy “a bastard,” but said Western leaders regarded him as “our bastard.”

He repeated a long list of Russia’s complaints about Ukraine and accused Western countries of using Ukraine for anti-Russia activities and policies.

“Everything I’ve said today simply confirms that the decision to conduct the special military operation was inevitable,” Lavrov said, following Russian practice of not calling the invasion a war.

Russia has denied being isolated and the foreign ministry used social media to publicize a number of apparently cordial meetings that Lavrov has held with foreign minister colleagues at the UN in recent days.

Still, Blinken and his colleagues from other NATO nations seized on what they believe to be growing opposition to and impatience with Putin.

And, several speakers, including Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, pointed out that Lavrov skipped the meeting except for his speaking slot.

“I notice that Russian diplomats flee almost as quickly as Russian soldiers,” Kuleba said, referring to Lavrov’s hasty exit along with recent Russian troop retreats in Ukraine.

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This story has been corrected to show the Indian official’s title and name are Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, not Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jayashankar.

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September 23, 2022