In DC, Bush to Discuss Sudan with Salva Kiir, Senators Push to Scrutinize UN Funds

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in DC: Interim News Analysis

WASHINGTON, November 14 -- In announcing that President Bush would meet on November 15 with Salva Kiir of (Southern) Sudan, three issues to discuss were listed: "implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the situation in Darfur, and the status of ongoing peace talks to end the violence there." Three simple points, in a White House press release. But in the background there's a world of trouble. The Sudanese government in Khartoum, of which Salva Kiir has been first vice president, is reportedly miffed that the invitation came from Secretary of State Rice rather than a more direct parallelism: from vice president Dick Cheney. There are rumblings that an idea to be proposed, mediation by the U.S., China and Saudi Arabia, is not to Khartoum's liking.

    Salva Kiir's visit to the UN in New York, where Inner City Press interviewed him after his meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (click here), reportedly included a rejection of his request to address the Security Council. Salva Kiir has hung around an extra week in order to meet with President Bush. And at the UN on Wednesday, head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said that if the needed helicopters aren't contributed, and if Khartoum doesn't agree to contribution offers from Thailand and the Nordics, maybe the hybrid force should not be deployed. If so, does the UN get its money back from Lockheed Martin, on the $250 million no-bid contract for hybrid infrastructure? These and other questions will be pursued.

Salva Kiir and Bush, last time

  Meanwhile, Wednesday in Washington, seven Senators signed a letter to Secretary of State Rice, in support of the "UN Transparency and Accountability Initiative," which Inner City Press previously covered. The letter, obtained by Inner City Press and online here, refers to leaked audits and whistleblowers' tales. [That is does not mention the no-bid contract to U.S.-based Lockheed Martin is not surprising. Where are the other voices on reform?] The UN agency which triggered the initiative, UNDP, is now advertising, application deadline November 16, for 36 new jobs in Denmark, whose Carsten Staur is the chair of UNDP's executive board. UNDP, which fought off the jurisdiction and findings of the UN Ethics Office, is creating its own self-appointed ethics office, a post with no more security than one year, and answerable to UNDP's Administrator. This is independence?

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Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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