Gambari Reacts to Wikileaks

Posted by admin Top Stories Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

A former Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, has reacted to the Wikileaks exposure of US diplomatic cable of plans by the former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to remove him from the United Nations assignment in Myanmar.

According to Empowered Newswire, Gambari said that though the cable was dated October 2008, he kept the job until January 2010.

Gambari, who is the incumbent UN and African Union Joint Representative in Darfur, added that when he eventually left the Myanmar job, he was given greater responsibility. He denied claims of incompetence or any such assessment by the Secretary-General of the UN in moving him to another post.

“I was simply re-assigned to a bigger and more sensitive post where I currently serve,” he said.

Gambari said that his major assignment was to seek release of political prisoners like the famous Aung San Syu Kii.

He said, UN special envoy to Myanmar, he needed patience, perseverance and persuasion while building trust and confidence with both sides to the conflict, were tasks which demanded high level of integrity and ingenuity.

According to him, while a UN Security Council mandate under Chapter VII of the Charter provides for possible use of force, his assignment and mission as Special Envoy on Myanmar was only “blessed by the Security Council,”while its real mandate was from the General Assembly “and therefore did not provide any coercive tool.”

It would be recalled that recent Wikileaks cables exposed plans by the US government to seek the removal of Gambari from the UN Special Envoy to Myanmar in late 2008, more than a year before he assumed his current position as UN-AU Joint Special Representative in Darfur.wp_posts