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On Darfur, As UNAMID Covers Up Killings by Sudan, ICC Reports Them

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- After the UN refused to release what it knows about the killing of civilians at Tabarat and the destruction of Soro and other villages in Darfur in September, the International Criminal Court's report unveiled in the Security Council on December 9 names 13 other destroyed villages (with Soro transliterated as “Souroo”), and has witness quotes what it calls the government sponsored killing in Tabarat (which it calls Tabra).

After ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's presentation to the Security Council on Thursday, Inner City Press on camera asked both him and Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN Dafallah Osman about the Tabra killings and the destruction of villages.

Sudan's Ambassador said that the killings were “tribal,” involving kidnapping and promises to pay blood money. He praised UNAMID and its leader Ibrahim Gambari (calling him a “seasoned diplomat”).

Inner City Press asked if he thought UNAMID should release what it knows about the Tabra killings. This, he did not answer, instead ranging from saying that Ocampo's report shows NGOs were engaged in “espionage” to claiming that Radio Dabanga was disseminating destabilizing and even “genocidal” information.

Ocampo had stood several yards away, unlike with the previous Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, whom Ocampo stood right next to during their final stare down. When Ocampo came to the microphone, Inner City Press asked him if he thought UNAMID was in essence covering up Sudan's and Bashir's acts by not reporting on them.

Ocampo said that UNAMID is under threat, that's why it doesn't report. This means that UNAMID is not reporting, which is its job. What will Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and Obama administration do?


ICC's LMO close to Sudan's last Ambassador, new backing away mirrored by UN- & US?

Earlier on Thursday, Mark Hanis of the Genocide Intervention Network / Save Darfur Coalition on a press conference call said Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden campaigned on (among other things) protecting civilians in Darfur, and named Samantha Power and Susan Rice as officials. Hanis called them “disappointing” so far. Inner City Press asked what UNAMID should do. Report, Hanis said. But UNAMID does not.

On both December 8 and 9, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky about fighting and death in Darfur, including in Tabarat / Tabra:

Inner City Press: a request made to UNAMID [African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur] for the report that they were supposed to do on the Tabarat killings of 2 September, near Tawilla, the one that the Secretary-General summoned Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari to speak about. Anyway, somebody that asked him was told that there is no report for external dissemination available on it, and I just wonder, what is the UN’s final finding? Did it do the right thing, in apparently not getting out to the site despite the warning by relatives of those killed? Are all such reports confidential, and in which case, how is the Security Council or the international community to assess the level of violence and killing in Darfur if these new reports never come out?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, that’s a very long question.

Question: This is the only time I’ll ask it, but if there is anything the UN can say about those killings, I’d like to know.

Spokesperson: Well, I hear your question, I think, and let’s look into what the Mission tells us.

More than a full day later, UNAMID has said nothing. When Inner City Press asked again about UNAMID on December 9, Nesirky claimed he had already answered questions, including about attacks the Sudanese government had just bragged about.

In assuming Presidency of the Security Council for December, Susan Rice told Inner City Press that UNAMID (and UNMIS) are required to investigate and report on attacks on civilians. Does that mean report to the public, as the ICC does? What will Susan Rice and the US Mission do?

The press had been told that Susan Rice would speak at the stakeout, where Ocampo and Sudan's Ambassador did. But she did not. A reporter given advance notice that she would not come was told that “one country” had blocked the elements to the press that she would have read. But she could have spoken, especially after what Sudan's Ambassador said, including denying things that the US Mission has previously said, about the Council's interlocutors being harassed and Radio Dabanga's Khartoum office being shut down.

Footnote: Inner City Press also asked Ocampo about Guinea -- he said he is watching “national proceedings” -- and Kenya, where witnesses are under threat. Ocampo answered by bragging that none of his witnesses have been injured. But how about retaliated against, given what Sudan's Ambassador said about the NGOs. Watch this site.


On Sudan, As US Says No Abyei Referendum Jan 9, UN Silent, on Darfur Killings Too

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 8 -- On Abyei, the day after US State Department spokesman PPJ Crowley told the Press “we have a recognition that that referendum will not go forward on January 9th,” the UN on December 8 declined to join in the recognition.

  Inner City Press had asked Crowley about Sudan, including the referenda and bombings, regarding which the SPML has asked for an investigation by the UN Security Council, led this month by the US.

  Crowley did not answer about the bombings, but called the South Sudan referendum among the most important issues of the first half of 2011. He added on “the situation on Abyei... we have a recognition that that referendum will not go forward on January 9th, but we continue to encourage the parties to work on a solution to Abyei.”

  At the UN's December 8 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky if the UN and its Mission in Sudan UNMIS agree or disagree with the US assessment.

  Nesirky woodenly repeated that Abyei is important to the UN, just as he has repeated platitudes from the UN Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, about looking into Khartoum's actions and statement, in order to speak with the Bashir government behind the scene.

   In fact, the lone Darfur rebel group which signed a deal with Bashir has now broken it off and had its offices raided. UNAMID won't confirm this. Inner City Press is informed that when asked for the results of its inquiry into peacekeepers' inaction while civilians were killed in Tabarat near Tawilla in early September, UNAMID said there is no report for public dissemination.

  Nesirky on Wednesday called this a "long question" -- it has been a long story, including a claim by Ban Ki-moon himself that he was taking the killings and protection of civilians by UNAMID seriously, ending in a whimper: no public report.

  Also, the US Mission has still not answered questions put to it last week and on Tuesday about murder and bombings in Sudan, including a call by the SPLM for a Security Council investigation...



US' Crowley, Abyei referendum not shown

Here is the US' transcript of December 7 Q&A with PJ Crowley on Sudan (and Yemen)


 Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

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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