In
Darfur,
UN Says Travel Restrictions Break Agreement, But No Attribution of
Pilot Hostake Taking or Kalma Camp Violence
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 2 -- In Darfur, the embattled UN - African Union
mission UNAMID has been instructed to only travel, including on the
roads of Nyala, after giving prior notice to the government, which
has also said it will search UNAMID personnel's bags in airports.
Inner
City Press
asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky about these new Sudanese government
rules. “If implemented, then these restrictions on movement would
not be consistent with the Status of Forces Agreement,” Nesirky
replied in what seemed a prepared statement. Video here,
from Minute
33:38.
Does
that mean
that UNAMID is resisting the restrictions, in a way it did not resist
the orders to only use its helicopters on 48 hours notice, even to
defend its peacekeepers? “We're working with the local authorities
in South Sudan,” Nesirky said.
Inner
City Press
last week repeatedly asked if and when the UN would disclose what it
knows about who took hostage the Russian pilot, and beat his
passengers. On July 30, Inner City Press was told that the pilot,
already then released, would rest before being interviewed as to who
had taken him.
But
when on August
2 Inner City Press asked the UN, which has presumably now interviewed
the pilot, to say whether as reported it was pro-government militia,
Janjaweed, who were responsible for the incident, Nesirky said the UN
still does not know.
Asked
if the UN
and its Department of Peacekeeping Operations has begun work toward
the Security
Council required (and compromised) “full understanding of the facts”
behind the deaths and
violence in the Kalma camp last week, Nesirky said that DPKO chief
Alain Le Roy will conduct a previously scheduled briefing for the
Press on August 4.
In Nyala, UN copters still unused, now roads off
limits, no pilot report
Nesirky
then read a
prepared that the situation in Kalma has “improved but remains
tense,” and that deputy joint Special Representative Mohamed Younis
visited
Nyala and spoke with the Wali of South Darfur sheiks and UNAMID
staff. Nesirky did not fully confirm until after the briefing that
three UNAMID peacekeepers, from Sierra Leone, while accompanying
Younis died in a car crash. RIP.
We
will have more
about the roads of Nyala. Watch this site.
* * *
On
Darfur
Camp Violence, Nur's Role as Unclear as US Stance on Doha, Sudan Says
Camp Is Under UN Control, Lobbies
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 30, updated -- Darfur camp violence was
taken up by the UN
Security Council on Friday afternoon. According to UN sources,
members of
the Liberation and Justice Movement group which is negotiating with
Khartoum were targeted by members of the Abdel Wahid Nur faction,
which is not.
While
the United
States called for the consultations, it is not clear if the US stands
with the UN and its Darfur envoy Ibrahim Gambari in saying that the
solution to Darfur is to be found in Doha across the table from Omar
al Bashir's negotiators.
French
foreign
minister Bernard Kouchner loudly announced that Paris based Abdel
Wahid Nur would be joining the Doha process. Nearly immediately,
Abdel Wahid Nur qualified this with the conditions previously listed,
including safety in Darfur.
Inner
City Press
asked Ibrahim Gambari on July 27 about Abdel Wahid Nur's
participation. Gambari said no, and characterized the conditions,
including safety, as something you get at the END of negotiations,
not as a precondition. One can see this as either realism or a too
cavalier attitude to the protection of civilians, especially for one
in charge of a peacekeeping mission with such a mandate.
More Kalma from the past, Gambari not shown
Sudan's
acting
Ambassador, on his way at 4 pm into the Council's suite where he
would not be allowed into consultations, said that Gambari had told
him at 2:30 that he would be placing some calls to get information,
and would himself be giving the briefing at 4. But at that time, he
was spotted by an Inner City Press source strolling the streets
outside the UN, dress in white national dress.
Gambari
also said
on June 27 that he has gone to Paris twice to meet Abdel Wahid Nur.
Three days later, he is still in New York, but not in the
consultations room. Briefing was Alain Le Roy of Peacekeeping, joined
at 4:40 by Lynn Pascoe of Political Affairs.
The
South Sudan
referendum Eminent persons monitoring group the UN is moving to set
up, which Inner City Press exclusively reported earlier today, would
be staffed by Pascoe's Department of Political Affairs and not the UN
peacekeeping mission run by Haile Menkerios. Whether Pascoe's arrival
at the Council was about this, or the Doha process implications of
the attacks in the Darfur IDP camps is not yet known. Watch this
site.
Update
of
5:09 -- Sudan's charge d'affaires was lobbying in the hall outside
the Council. “We cannot live with a paragraph about inspecting the
Kalma camp... the camp is under the control of UNAMID...” Then,
after fumbling with their passes, they went into the Council's suite.
Coming out were the outgoing Nigerian presidency's plants and bean
bag chairs with Islamic script. Coming in -- Russia's set up, for
August..
Update
of
5:29 p.m. -- there will be a press statement. Unclear if it will
include the paragraph about inspecting or investigating in Kalma
camp, which Sudan is opposing.
Update
of
5:55 p.m. -- while UN TV had been told the press statement would
be ready and read by now, the Council has gone into recess. Inner
City Press is told by Council source that France has proposed the UN
send an investigation team to Kalma camp. China and Russia have
opposed it, as does Sudan. Developing.
Update
of
6:13 p.m. -- Here's what happened: France “aggressively” asked
for an investigation, setting of “red lights” among some other
delegations. But wait - the US asked the meeting, but France made the
proposal. Why? Le Roy pointed the finger at the Abdel Wahid Nur
group, but France says they've spoken to him and he denies it. THAT's
why France wants the investigation. You heard it here first....
* * *
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