Asked
to
Confirm Sudan
Attack on Jau,
UN Cites
Separate
Internal Fight
in
Bor, "Bad
Mistake"
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 7 --
After
declining for
two days to
confirm the
Sudanese Armed
Forces'
incursion into
Jau in South
Sudan, when
Inner
City Press
asked for a
third time
about Jau on
Wednesday, the
UN
responded with
an entirely
separate
violent
attack, in Bor
County,
saying 37 were
killed but the
UN couldn't
say who was
responsible.
Video here,
from Minute
16:09.
Jau,
which
neighboring
Sudan entered
over the
weekend, is
entirely
separate from
Bor, to which
the UN Mission
in South Sudan
went and from
which it
evacuated four
wounded people
to Juba.
A
South Sudan
diplomat later
on Wednesday
told Inner
City Press
that the UN
"needs
to go to Unity
State;" for
the UN to
respond to
questions
about
Jau in Unity
with answers
about Bor is
"a bad
mistake."
South
Sudan
suffers the
double whammy
of attacks
from Khartoum
as well as
violence with
renegades like
General George
Athor. But the
UN, with
peacekeeping
missions not
only in South
Sudan but also
Darfur and
Abyei, should
be able to
keep such
attacks
separate, as
they have
different
implications.
While
it was
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
who has in
the first
instance
fielded Inner
City Press'
questions
about Sudan's
entry into Hau
in South
Sudan, and
finally
responded
about the
separate and
distinct
violence in
Bor, the blame
may be
assigned to
the Department
of
Peacekeeping
Operations.
Questions
like
the one about
Jau are
referred to
DPKO; somehow
the team of
Herve
Ladsous at
DPKO felt it
is acceptable
to not provide
confirmation
for
three days
running to a
bloody cross
border attack
in an area
they
have a mission
in. What is
DPKO doing?
, 
