[Debate] Why Kofi Annan for Syria? Russia vetoed Martti Ahtisaari and US vetoed Boutros Boutros Ghali

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://bit.ly/wn5M4Y>
On Syria, of Kofi & "Mission Impossible," Double Pensions & Boutros, Baker

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 24 -- Around the UN in New York the day after
former Secretary General Kofi Annan was appointed joint Arab League -
UN special envoy to Syria, diplomats and staff were abuzz about other
candidates considered, and what the naming of "Kofi" meant.

Sources told Inner City Press that the other candidates considered
included not only Finland's Martti Ahtisaari, who garnered Russian
opposition for his Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence from Serbia,
but another former UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, vetoed
by the US for a second time.

An American, James Baker, was in the mix, as was Algerian former prime
minister Mawloud Hamrouch and Kuwaiti former foreign minister Mohammad
Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

Annan was selected. Inner City Press asked his former chief of
communications Edward Mortimer, who replied, "I salute Kofi for his
courage in undertaking what looks like the ultimate 'mission
impossible.'"

Another long time UN source told Inner City Press that this work might
be a way of "making Kofi pay for his two pensions," referring to his
double dipping of pensions as former UN staffer and then Secretary
General. Inner City Press has asked Ban Ki-moon's top two spokesmen
about this, and how Annan's mission will be funded, after for an
answer before noon. Watch this site.

-- 
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>