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Under Fire for Inaction in Kordofan as Abyei, UN Pulls Staff Out, Silent on Jau

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 13 -- In Southern Kordofan UN peacekeepers are accused of inaction and even rape, by the SPLM's top official there, Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu. Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky on Monday for the UN's response.

  Nesirky focused on allegations about a single national staff member, denied that UNMIS is abandoning anyone while conceding that “non essential international staff” have been taken to El Obeid by Egyptian peacekeepers.

  Inner City Press again asked for a direct response to al-Hilu's and his spokesman's charges of rape and the turning over of six civilians to the Sudanese Armed Forces. Nesirky said he'd “sought guidance” from UNMIS and this was the read-out that he had.

  Amid widespread reports of Khartoum bombing Jau in Unity State, Inner City Press asked Nesirky if UNMIS could verify or deny this. It's not for us to deny, Nesirky said, adding that he had no information about the bombing.


Ban, Menkerios, Khare & Gambari: speak out on Sudan not seen

  Meanwhile the Security Council is set for a video briefing by Haile Menkerios and Thabo Mbeki from Addis Ababa on Monday afternoon, several Council members told Inner City Press on Monday morning.

  The idea is that each Council member will have to take a public position. But what about a position on the UN's own (in) action? Watch this site.

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Amid Sudan Fighting, UN SC Cancels June 10 Meeting, Waiting on Bashir

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 10 -- Amid the attacks and killings in Abyei and now Southern Kordofan, the US Mission to the UN last week pushed for a Security Council Presidential Statement calling for Khartoum's forces to withdraw.

The US had wanted the PRST to explicit set a follow up Council meeting on Friday June 10, but this, like references to Khartoum's “occupation” of and “ethnic cleansing” in Abyei was omitted. Instead it called for a monitoring meeting in the coming days. Even Khartoum's defenders, though, said that this meant June 10.

But now the June 10 follow up is canceled. Sources tell Inner City Press that based on a letter from Sudan, and an impending meeting between Thabo Mbeki, Salva Kiir and Omar al Bashir, under International Criminal Court indictment, the Council has canceled Friday's meeting.

This will be bad news for demonstrators who circulated a call for a protest at the UN on Friday morning, trying to get the killings in Southern Kordofan added to the Sudan issues set to be discussed on Friday. Now, Sudan will not be discussed by the Council on Friday. What will happen over the weekend? Watch this site.

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At UN on Abyei Draft, Sudan PR Denies Food Theft, Dismisses Burning of “Huts," UNSC to Set June 10 Meeting

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 3, updated -- Seventy hours after the US introduced a draft Presidential Statement on Abyei, Sudan's Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman walked into the Security Council in a bright white suit. Already a Council Deputy Permanent Representative had told Inner City Press that more work was needed on the Statement, to begin at 1 pm on Friday.

  As Sudan's Ambassador walked out of the Council, Inner City Press asked him about the draft. He said it had been inaccurate to call Sudan's tanks in Abyei an occupation. (Inner City Press is told that this word is being removed). He took issue with the phrase that the influx of Miseriya was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.

  “That is prejudging,” he said. “Let it happen, genocide or ethnic cleansing, and then talk about it.”


Sudan PR & Ban Ki-moon, follow through on food theft not shown

  When Inner City Press asked him about the accusation that tons of food was stolen in Abyei, he said he hadn't seen the World Food Program see that. Asked by another journalist about the burning of houses, he said, “those are huts, these things happen in war. Where are you from - Lebanon? These things happen there.”

And then he was gone, at least until 1 pm.

Update of 11:40 am -- a Deputy Permanent Representative tells Inner City Press that the meeting on the Sudan PRST has been moved up from 1 until just after the consultations on UNOCA, as early as noon. What else will come out of the draft? Watch this site.

Update of 12:30 pm -- Inner City Press is told that if the Council finally reaches agreement on this PRST, it will be adopted by being read out in the Chamber at 4 pm...

Update of 1:19 pm -- after a Deputy Permanent Representative tells Inner City Press that the Sudan PRST is “definitely” going to be adopted at 4 pm, another source explains to Inner City Press that there is only one paragraph open, in which the US wants to require new meetings on the topic every seven days, other members don't. Eminently solvable.

Update of 2:26 pm -- while another Deputy Permanent Representative tells Inner City Press that the Council has agreed to hold another meeting on Sudan next week, says they have still not agreed on how to express it in language and “put it on paper.” A Western representative asks Inner City Press, if we put it out at 4, the news can still be distributed, right? But of course...

Update of 2:51 pm -- the Political Coordinators have just left the Council, a number of them telling Inner City Press that the agreement, to be typed up by the US and translated into French in which Gabon will read it out, is to remain seized of the matter and to calendar another meeting on Sudan for June 10... Timing of adoption now depends on US typing up, and translation...

Update of 4:32 pm -- while the players have arrived for adoption of the Sudan PRST at the Security Council, still the meeting hasn't started. Meanwhile, reports of a UN leak saying it WAS ethnic cleansing in Abyei, here

Update of 4:39 pm -- a Deputy Permanent Representative tells Inner City Press, “the French translation is not ready.”

* * *

UN Admits 2d Flight of ICC Darfur Indictee Haroun to Abyei in Sudan, Impunity

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 4, updated -- The UN has for a second time offered a free UN flight in Sudan to Ahmed Haroun, under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, the UN admitted Friday in response to questions from Inner City Press.

  On March 3 the UN Security Council met about renewed fighting in the disputed Abyei region. Back in January, Inner City Press got the UN to acknowledge they had flown ICC indictee Haroun from South Kordofan, where he serves fellow ICC indictee Omar al Bashir as governor, to Abyei.

  The UN has defended this controversial flight by saying that Haroun and Haroun alone could stop violence in Abyei. The UN never explained why the government of Sudan, which has an air force currently bombing civilians in Jebel Marra in Darfur, couldn't itself fly Haroun.

The UN said it was a scheduled flight, then UN Mission in Sudan chief Haile Menkerios admitted to Inner City Press that it was a special flight. Inner City Press is told such flights cost $40,000, and the UN has confirm no reimbursement has been sought from the Bashir government.

But now the violence has continued, making the UN flight of ICC indictee Haroun harder to justify even by the UN's own argument.

  March 3 in front of the Security Council, Inner City Press asked Council president for March Li Baodong of China if the UN Peacekeeping official who briefed the Council, Atul Khare, had mentioned if Haroun would again be flown in a UN helicopter. Li Baodong did not directly answer.

At the March 4 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm or deny that that the UN would once again fly ICC indictee Haroun to Abyei, even now that his work in connection with the first flight has proved ineffective.

Nesirky said he would check. Ten minutes later, Nesirky's deputy Farhan Haq announced by speaker to all UN correspondents that yes, Haroun attended today's meeting in Abyei, and yes, “he was transported” by the UN.

  This UN promotes impunity, even for one of the few people indicted for war crimes by the ICC. Meanwhile Ban Ki-moon brags about the Security Council's partial referral of the situation in Libya to the ICC -- a referral that Ban Ki-moon did not even call for until after the Council voted to make the referral.

  This UN is promoting and enshrining lawlessness, with no transparency or accountability. Watch this site.

Update of 3:48 pm -- Human Rights Watch, via Richard Dicker, submitted this comment:

This is the second time in recent weeks the UN has transported Ahmed Haroun who is charged by the ICC with war crimes in Darfur. We have real concerns because the U.N. should not be in the business of transporting Haroun. There needs to be an extremely high threshold of urgency for such action by UNMIS.”

Responses have been sought from the Missions to the UN of France, the UK and the US, with the latter two asked if they knew in advance of the UN's new flight of ICC indictee Haroun. Given her statements this year about social media, & after hours of non-response by the US Mission to the UN,@AmbassadorRice has been asked directly as well. Watch this site.

Update of 4:30 pm -- Then this, from UK Mission to the UN spokesman Daniel Shepherd:

As spokesperson, I would only reiterate the message that my two Ambassadors have both said on the record (and published by Inner City Press) first time around: that we aren’t going to second guess how UNMIS fulfills its mandate to provide good offices to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) parties in efforts to resolve differences through dialogue and negotiations. I’d only add that this work is particularly important at this sensitive time, to contain any potential escalation after the recent Abyei violence.”

We could note again that violence has persisted despite the UN flying ICC indictee Ahmed Haroun in the first time, and that it is the role of UN member states to oversee the UN Secretariat, not to defer in this case to what some see as its promotion of impunity - but at least the UK would put its position on the record.

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

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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