As
UN
Confirms Sudan Arrest of Staff, Council Stalled on Wau Airport for
Abyei
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 10 -- The day after Security
Council president Gerard
Araud told the Press the Council's Sudan trip later this month will
definitely go to Abyei, only “which airport” is being discussed,
Sudan continued to maintain that it has not yet given approval, even
that the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations has not yet issued
its final recommendation.
Inner
City Press
asked top UN Peacekeeper Alain Le Roy about this, and if Khalil
Ibrahim of Darfur's Justice & Equality Movement is still trapped
in Tripoli.
Yes, Le Roy
said, Ibrahim is still there. He could not
or would not explain the UN's response to requests that they
extricate Ibrahim from Libya, as the UN did with its own
international staff.
On
Abyei, it is
explained to Inner City Press that a choice would have to be made
between airports in Kadugli and Wau. (The latter was supposed to be a
stop on the Council's October 2010 trip to Juba, Darfur and Khartoum,
but plane trouble canceled it -- click here
for Inner City Press'
coverage.)
Wau
cannot
accommodate the large plane on which the Council will fly from Addis
Ababa to Khartoum. Kadugli can, but the helicopters needed for
further transport to Abyei are easier staged out of Wau and not
Kadugli.
The
Sudanese,
meanwhile, say the Council was first considering flying to the UN's
El Obeid base. They confirm that DPKO cannot give its final
recommendation until these “logistical” issues are solved.
UN air craft in Wau, UNSC and IDP answers not shown
On
May 9, Inner
City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq:
Inner
City
Press: a person active in the [internally displaced persons]
camps, Hawa Abdullah, has been arrested by the Government and charged
with Christianization and being a member of the Abdul Wahid Nur
group. There is some uproar there, and I wonder if UNAMID has any
awareness of this case or comment on it.
Acting
Deputy
Spokesperson Haq: We’ll check with UNAMID whether they have
any reaction. They haven't disclosed any reaction so far. But we’ll
see whether they say anything down the line.
The
following
morning at 11 am, Haq's office sent the following:
From:
UN
Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Tue, May 10, 2011
at 11:14 AM
Subject: Your question on UNAMID staff member
To:
Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Regarding
your
question from yesterday, UNAMID has said the following:
UNAMID
confirms
that on 6 May a female national staff member was detained by
National Security personnel at her residence in Abu Shouk Internally
Displaced Persons camp. The Mission is in contact with local and
state authorities to determine the cause behind her detention.
Meanwhile,
questions
from a full week ago have still not been answered. On May 3, Inner
City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky:
there
have
been two separate reports of children dying in IDP [internally
displaced persons] camps in Darfur due to, they say, lack of medical
care, the residents of the camps...And I am just wondering how to
square with this, I saw a recent UN News Centre, UN press release,
about increased humanitarian access. Is UNAMID [African Union-UN
Hybrid Operation in Darfur] aware of people dying in camps due to
lack of medical care and if so, what is being done to gain access to
those camps?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
I’ll ask my colleagues in DPKO [Department of Peacekeeping
Operations] to provide an update.
But
there's been no
answer from DPKO or Nesirky's Office. Now the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has been asked. Watch this site.
* * *
In
Sudan,
UN Council Will Bypass Darfur, Of Juba Hotels & Abyei
Agreements
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 9 -- When UN Security
Council members travel to Sudan
later this month, they will not go to Darfur.
Council
president
for May Gerard Araud of France told Inner City Press on Monday that
the members definitely will go to Abyei, they are just figuring out
which airport to use.
From
the
French
Mission to the UN's transcript:
Inner
City
Press: On the trip, has Sudan agreed that the Security Council
goes to Abyei ?
Araud:
Sudan
has agreed to the visit to Abyei. There is no problem. We are
discussing the technical organisation i.e to which airport we are
going.
But
Sudan's
diplomat outside the Council on Monday told Inner City Press that
Khartoum hasn't yet approved any trip to Abyei. “We have to see the
Terms of Reference,” he said.
Another
Council
member agreed that Sudan had not yet consented. “The President of
the Council will have to speak with Sudan about it,” the diplomat
said. But Araud said it is already set.
The
concern about
Abyei includes security. Two Council members told Inner City Press
that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations says that they can
safety get the members to Abyei “for now.” They discussed two
“rapid reaction” teams of Indian peacekeepers.
There
was also
discussion, sources say, of hotel accommodations in Juba. On the
Council's last trip there on October, which Inner City Press reported
on, the delegation was split up into two hotels. (Click here for
Inner City Press' review of the Beijing Juba hotel, essentially
trailers with the Chinese consulate behind it).
This
time, there
have been complaints about double standards or disparate treatment.
All Council members must be treated the same, it'd been agreed. Watch
this site.
* * *
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.
Update
of
4:43
pm
--
this
too
has
come
in, perhaps in response:
Date:
Fri,
Mar
4,
201
Subject: Haroun and Abyei
To: Matthew.Lee [at]
innercitypress.com
You
guys
ask
great
questions!
Have
you
noticed
perhaps
that the United
Nations seems to be unaware of who is causing the violence in Abyei.
And yet "diplomatic sources" report seeing the burial of 33
bodies - all southerners.
The
Arab
nomads
say
the
violence
started
when
SPLM
police shot at them
(Hitler used a similar ploy to invade Poland) - and today thousands
of civilians fled Abyei fearing another crisis like in June 2008. The
Dinka Ngok villages north of Abyei, such as Maker, have been
burnt to the ground. The end explains the means. There is a
creeping ethnic cleansing going on in the Abyei region despite the
agreements of 2005 and the Court of Arbitration ruling in 2010.
Why
fly
Haroun
to
Abyei
-
what
is
his
cv? It is, as you correctly point
out, that of arming arab militias to burn villages. I hope to see
more of your questions pinning the UN to the responsibility to
protect.
, 
