Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

As Khartoum Floats Aid Cut Off, Juba Says Harun Should Be In The Hague, Not El Obeid, UN Flew Him, Says All Is Fine

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 20, updated -- Amid reports of ethnic cleansing in Southern Kordofan as well as Abyei, the UN Security Council assembled in its chamber at 10 am on Monday for a briefing by video from Addis Ababa by mediator Thabo Mbeki and UN Mission in Sudan chief Haile Menkerios.

After a delay, Mbeki appeared on screen to describe a just-signed agreement on Abyei, and predict that one will be reached on Southern Kordofan. Ethiopian troops will be sent into Abyei, after Security Council authorization of the deployment and, it seems, an understanding about “Somalia-style” rules of engagement.

After the briefing, the Ambassador of Sudan, following by the South Sudan representative, came to the stakeout to take Press questions. Inner City Press asked the National Congress Party's Permanent Representative Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman about his statement that humanitarian aid to Southern Kordofan “might” be restored shortly -- was this an admission that it has been cut off, and food used as a weapon?

He blamed it on the SPLA, and said that they had tried to install Al Hilu “who lost the election” as governor of South Kordofan. Video here.

Moments later, the representative of Southern Sudan Ezekiel Lol Gatkouth told Inner City Press that Ahmed Harun the supposed winner of the Southern Kordofan election, which the UN praised, doesn't even come from Southern Kordofan, has fled to El Obeid and “should be in the Hague” for war crimes. Video here.

Since the UN has in fact offered helicopter flights to Harun, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, Inner City Press asked the South Sudan representative if he thought the UN should arrest Harun, rather than flying him around. “He should be in the Hague,” he repeated.

Ezekiel Lol Gatkouth at stakeout, Haroun not shown

With these deep disagreements, it is difficult to know what to make of the 10 page Abyei agreement announced with such fanfare by Mbeki and the UNMIS' Menkerios. He has been in Addis for day, meanwhile UNMIS has been “categorically denying” it did anything wrong on Southern Kordofan. This UN's reflexive denial undermines its credibility.

In the middle of the Security Council debate, Inner City Press ran through the UN's garage to the day's noon briefing. But neither of the two Sudan questions put to Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky got answered. Confirm or deny The Guardian / Observer's report that UNMIS in Kordofan lost control of its weapons -- Nesirky said he'd look into it.

In Darfur, over the weekend Inner City Press asked the spokesperson both for UNAMID and the UN World Food Program to confirm or deny a report that the UN stopped delivering food to IDPs in El Geneina. Neither responded, and neither did Nesirky at Monday's noon briefing.

And now the UN peacekeeping presence in Abyei is being jettisoned for a different one, from Ethiopia. And in Southern Kordofan? Watch this site.

Footnote: Ezekiel Lol Gatkouth presented to Inner City Press this timeline: South Sudan will formally declare independence on July 9, followed by Security Council vote-in as a state on July 13, and General Assembly on July 14. We'll be here.

Update of 4 pm: Later, this arrived:

Subject: Your question on Darfur and Sudan
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 3:45 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

The World Food Programme has confirmed that the food distributions to El Geneina are on track, and any reports suggesting that such distributions have stopped are inaccurate.

As for any reports of UNMIS losing control of heavy weaponry, UNMIS does not have heavy weapons. Its weaponry includes AK-47s and armoured personnel carriers.

The first answer, then, has the UN denying in entirety a story (with quotes) from Radio Dabanga. The second denied a story in The Guardian about Southern Kordofan, on which WFP has separately told Inner City Press that

“On Kadugli, we still have not been able to obtain access to our warehouse. However we have received assurances from the local authorities that our food is intact.”

And so it goes at the UN.

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On Sudan, As Mbeki Presents Ethiopian Solution, “Somalia-Like” Mandate in Play?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 20 -- As Thabo Mbeki briefed the UN Security Council about Abyei in Sudan on Monday morning, he mentioned that the mandate of the Ethiopian troops to replace Sudan's forces is still being worked on.

Sources close to the negotiations tell Inner City Press that Ethiopia has said it will not be as “passive” as the UN peacekeepers have been. “Look at the UN blue helmets,” a source told Inner City Press. “They let people just take their guns away. Is that a military force?”

Most recently the UN forces in Southern Kordofan are reported to have allowed heavy artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns to be taken from them.

But others harken back to when Ethiopia went into Somalia in 2006, blasting away until it reached Mogadishu. Is this the solution the UN and Security Council members want in Abyei?

Mbeki said he'd met with Southern Kordofan SPLA leader Al Hilu. As Inner City Press reported last week, Al Hilu through his spokesman accused the UN peacekeepers in Kadugli of rape. After first delaying, the UN subsequently denied the charges, saying that no evidence had come forward.

But as Kordofan sources point out, Hilu is on the run from the forces of Khartoum. Top UN peacekeepers Alain Le Roy on June 16 told Inner City Press he hadn't spoken to Al Hilu, then said seeming uncertain that the Mission (UNMIS) had spoken with Al Hilu about the charges. But had they? Watch this site.

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UN Admits Kadugli Peacekeepers Refused Convoy Escort, France Downplays It

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 -- When the UN Security Council met behind closed doors Thursday about the humanitarian situation in South Kordofan, Sudan, much criticism was directed at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, whose troops in Kadugli reported declined to leave their base and do their jobs, as recently happened with the Zambian peacekeepers in Abyei.

After the meeting, Inner City Press asked DPKO chief Alain Le Roy about the criticism. He acknowledged that a UN battalion in Kadugli was “not willing to escort a convoy... there was heavy shelling.”

Moments later, Inner City Press on camera asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud if the Council discussed if a peacekeeper battalion declined to provide escort or come out of its base. According to the French Mission's transcript, Araud replied that

“a question was specifically asked whether all the instructions had [always] been followed. Alain [Le Roy] told us 'yes, they have always been followed.' The only example - which was an example where the personnel was requested to evacuate, so it’s not a question of protection - was when the personnel hesitated for a few hours because of their own safety on the ground.”

But Le Roy spoke about a battalion refusing to escort a convoy, presumably not only of soldiers. In fact, the UN evacuated -- or relocated, as UN OCHA put it -- international staff from Kadugli to El Obeid. In any event, refusing orders to escort a convoy is a “command and control” problem, as one Council delegation put it.

Some skeptics wonder if the French Mission's and Ambassador's speed to speak on these issues is entirely attributable to a concern for protection of civilians, or might involve defending the performance of DPKO whose past, current and seemingly future chiefs as promised by S-G Ban Ki-moon seeking a second term are all French.

France's Araud & spokesman point finger, DPKO top post now shown

Inner City Press asked Le Roy about the safety of Sudanese UN staff, who were not evacuated by the UN to El Obaid. Le Roy to his credit said that the UN was trying to contact all of them by radio, but had not been able to reach those in “downtown Kadugli because we have no access to downtown Kadugli.”

Some question how UNMIS can be said to be protecting civilians in Kadugli if it has “no access to downtown Kadugli.” Watch this site.

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

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

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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