After
UN
Dodges Jau
Killings for 3
Days, Rice
Says Jau Is In
Sudan - or
Not
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 8,
updated
-- With Abyei
the topic of
the UN
Security
Council on
Thursday, the
deadly
fighting in
the town of
Jau slowly
came out of
the fog into
which the UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations had
cast it.
For
three days,
the UN has
told Inner
City Press
that DPKO is
unable to
confirm the
fighting in
Jau. On
December 9, UN
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
answered Inner
City Press'
question about
Jau by describing
entirely
separate
fighting in
Bor.
Now
the unstated
reason for the
UN's
stonewalling
and then misdirection
has come into
focus: there
is a dispute
about whether
the UN Mission
in South Sudan
can even go to
Jau. Inner
City Press
asked US
Ambassador
Susan Rice,
"Is Jau in
Sudan or South
Sudan?"
"It
looks like it
is in Sudan,"
Rice said.
Later
on her way out
of the
Security
Council
meetings,
Ambassador
Rice
graceously
asked to
"revise and
extend" her
earlier
remarks,
saying "the
bottom line is
nobody knows"
if Jau is in
South Sudan or
Sudan.
Inner City
Press then
asked Sudan's
Permanent
Representative
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman about it
- follow up
story soon,
watch this
site.
Before
Thursday
morning's
meeting,
Sudan's
Permanent
Representative
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman told
Inner City
Press, Jau is
in Sudan and
the Yide camp
is only ten
kilometers
away, it is a
"breeding
ground" for
rebels.
What
it now appears
is that DPKO
decided it
would not even
try to go to
Jau, because
of the dispute
about which
side of the
border it is
on.
(c) UN Photo
Ladsous
of DPKO checks
troops but not
Jau
What
ever
happened to
the supposed
primacy of
protection of
civilians? Or
simple
transparency
of what the UN
is doing and
why? Watch
this site.
Update:
in
the Council's
open session
ostensibly on
Abyei,
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman insisted
that Jau is in
Sudan. David
Choat of South
Sudan said
that Division
9 of the SPLA
has been based
there.
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali
Osman agreed,
but had that
was an illegal
occupation.
Ended
unilaterally,
impacting
civilians,
with the UN's
DPKO casting
its own fog
over it. What
will the
Security
Council do?
Watch this
site.
, 
