In
Darfur,
UN Works With Authorities on Kidnapping, Refuses Kalma
Questions
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 18 -- While the UN Security Council and Press were
in Darfur earlier his month, a civilian staff member of the UN -
African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur was kidnapped in El
Fasher. UNAMID spokesman Kemal Saiki and his associate Christ
Cycmanick refused to say the nationality of the victim, or much about
the crime.
It
emerged that
the victim was Hungarian. Finally, giving the name Istvan
Papp, the
peacekeeper called local station Radio Dabanga and complained he had
been unable to reach UNAMID.
Inner
City Press
on Monday asked UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq to confirm this
account on Radio Dabanga.
“First, in
terms
of Radio Dabanga, I wouldn't confirm media accounts,” Haq said. He
went on to in fact deny the account, saying that UNAMID has spoken to
the victim and gotten proof of life, as recently as the day before.
Haq
said UNAMID is
working with the government of Sudan to obtain the victim's “safe
and unconditional release.” This is reminiscent of UNAMID's earlier
working with the government of Sudan to obtain the release of the
Russian pilots captured and beaten by government supported janjawiid.
Inner
City Press
has repeatedly posed questions to Kemal Saiki and Chris Cycmanick,
without receiving any response.
Istvan Papp, per media, UNAMID and answers not shown
Questions
UNAMID and the UN have
refused so far to answer include
Approximately
how
many people are left in Kalma Camp? Separately, is it being
relocated?
What
is
the status of the Kalma Camp Five? What happened to the sixth?
Long ago I emailed [Ibrahim Gambari] the following, which I now ask
you to answer:
1)
since
there were initially six suspects in the Kalma Camp and now
there are five, what can you say about the sixth?
2)
these
five, are they in some sort of custody of or detention by
UNAMID? What would prevent them from fleeing before UNAMID were to
turn them over to the Sudanese authorities?
3)
please
say more about the situations in which UNAMID would await
permission or word from Sudanese authorities before trying to protect
civilians, including detailing how information about the safety of
going to certain areas is sought from the authorities, on what time
line, etc -- including what safeguards are in or being put in place
to avoid the delay that occurred in response to Tarabat Market.
Also,
how
could Radio Dabanga speak with (and name) the Hungarian hostage,
and you all haven't spoken with him?
See,
http://www.politics.hu/20101013/radio-station-contacts-kidnapped-hungarian-peacekeeper
"István
Papp,
a 55-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, also told the radio
station that he suspects there is a local pyramid scheme behind his
kidnapping, adding that several members of the ruling party may be
involved. He said he has been unable to speak with the joint UN and
African Union peacekeeping force that employs him since his
abduction. "
---How
long
has UNAMID had a Lear Jet? Why did it get it? How was it
procured? Who pays for it now? What other head of UN (affiliated)
peacekeeping mission has a Lear Jet?
What
do
you say about, and what has been done about, reports that the IDPs
with whom the Security Council spoke have been interrogated by
Sudanese authorities? See, e.g., http://195.190.28.213/node/4653
Please
disclose
all that you know about the reported (by OCHA) destruction
of
the village of Sora / Soro in the week before the Council's visit,
including whether it was destroyed by aerial attack or ground.
From
your August 11 responses, below, for now this one follow up:
7.
Q:
What data do the UN / UNAMID have on Global Acute Malnutrition?
Why isn't it being collated and released publicly? Please provide
your most recent data for the three Darfur states.
OCHA:
A
limited amount of malnutrition data for Darfur has been verified,
which will be available in the next 1-2 days. Remaining data is still
in the process of verification and will be released once verification
is complete.
Fifty
five days later, none of this information has been provided (contra
"1-2 days"). Can the information now be provided, and an
explanation of its delay also be provided?
[And
later] please confirm that Kalma Camp is being closed, and how UNAMID
can assure that the moves are 'voluntary.'
Days
and days have
passed, since Inner City Press met and conversed with Kemal Saiki and
Chris Cycmanick in UNAMID's El Fasher Supercamp, where Ibrahim
Gambari's “went off” on Inner City Press for exposing his deals
with the Al Bashir government. Now Kemal Saiki and Chris Cycmanick
are ignored and not responded to Inner City Press' written questions
for some days. Watch this site.
* * *
As
UN
Admits Burning of Darfur Village, It Had a Health Center But
Now “No Access”
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 17 -- A recently destroyed
Darfur village, mentioned
in a document of UN humanitarian coordinator Georg Charpentier but
not to the Security Council during their visit last week, has been
belatedly been acknowledged by the UN, in a prepared statement
issued
October 14.
After
Inner City
Press asked about the village, and the UN's silence, on October 11
and 12, on October 14 spokesman Martin Nesirky
said “I have been
asked
a couple
times about reports of attacks on a village in Jebel
Marra. We have actually had reports of attacks on as many as six
villages, including the one already named, Soro, as well as other
villages in eastern Jebel Marra. These villages have not all been
identified, as the information about the reported attacks is very
sketchy. Confirmation is difficult, and there is no access in these
areas.”
First,
Inner City
Press which traveled to Darfur last week can name other attacked
villages: Dera and Jawa, whose residents fled to Sebi village, and
Suni whose residents fled to Logi village.
Second,
it is
worth comparing the UN's October 14, 2010 statement “there is no
access to these areas” to a job advertisement of the village of
Soro in 2008, recruiting a coordinator to work in a health clinic
there. (See below.)
That
this now
destroyed village was a health clinic is significant, as is the fact
that the access that existed is now gone. Under the tenure of Georg
Charpentier and UNAMID chief Ibrahim Gambari, so close to the regime
of Omar al Bashir that he is about to turn over supporters of Fur
rebel Abdel Wahid Nur to Bashir, there has been less and less
protection of civilians in Darfur.
Rather,
from
Charpentier we have propaganda like press releases such as the one
Nesirky read out on October 14:
“Georg
Charpentier, is concerned by limitations on humanitarian access in
view of intensified fighting in parts of Eastern Jebel Marra in
Darfur. The Humanitarian Coordinator welcomed the recent access by
the World Health Organization and UNICEF to some parts of Eastern
Jebel Marra, and he calls upon parties to the conflict to facilitate
humanitarian access on a regular basis. In this regard, he notes
recent assurances from the Government of Sudan that access will be
enlarged and sustained to allow for coverage of the national
immunization campaign that started today.”
As the local
press Radio Dabanga has
noted, “Past press releases from Georg Charpentier have been
screened by the Sudanese ministry of humanitarian affairs, a UN
official who is senior to Charpentier has told the New York-based
Inner City Press. Charpentier has denied this.”
Ambassadors including US
Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice have had this issue and now Soro
raised to them, but so far at least publicly have done nothing.
The
only reason
Inner City Press learned of Charpentier's awareness of the
destruction of villages in Jebel Marra was that he left a single copy
a binder marked “Internal Use Only” on the Press bus in El Fasher
on October 8.
The internal
document was from “September 27 -
October 4 2010” and referred to “Sora” with an A, and spoke of
“intense ground fighting and aerial attacks in Eastern Jebel Marra
over the past week, with several villages heavily affected, including
Sora, which was completely burned down.”
But
in the Dubai
airport on the way back to New York, Inner City Press managed to ask
two Permanent Five members of the Security Council if Charpentier had
mentiones this village destruction to them. One said plainly, “no;”
the other jumped ahead to use of the above quoted, whether the
destruction was aerial (direct government) or ground (government
supported janjawiid).
Once
back in New
York, Inner City Press asked
on October 11
Inner
City
Press: as we left there, some, Mr. [Georg] Charpentier had
provided a document that seems to indicate that, in the week before
the Council’s visit, a village called Sora in eastern Jebel Marra
was “entirely, completely burned down”. I know that Mr.
Charpentier briefed the Council” members, but none of them on the
way back seemed to… this wasn’t mentioned to them. I heard the
very positive upbeat report you gave, what does UNAMID and Mr.
Charpentier do when a village is entirely destroyed? Is it an
important thing? Is it the kind of thing that they should brief the
Council about?
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky: Can you roll back and tell me again, because it is
sort of confusing.
Inner
City
Press: Okay. Among documents that Mr. Charpentier provided at
the end of the trip…
Spokesperson:
To whom?
Inner
City
Press: He gave it into the Press bus, saying that this would
just verify things that he’d said about things not being a problem
in Jebel Marra. But deep in the document, it says that a village
named Sora was completely burned down. It doesn’t say whether it
was by ground fighting or an aerial attack. But if it’s aerial, it
seems it would be the Government. None of the Security Council
ambassadors on the way back had been aware of this or had been
briefed on this. So, I guess my question, it’s a twofold one,
factually it would be is it possible to discover from Mr.
Charpentier, whose document this is, whether the village of Sora was
destroyed from the air or by ground? And maybe some statement on
why, in the briefing that he gave to the Council, this destruction
was not raised?
Spokesperson:
I am assuming you didn’t raise it with him yourself, because it
was passed into the bus, and then you read it after the bus pulled
away?
Inner
City
Press: I read it actually on the way back, yes, yes.
Spokesperson:
Right. Okay, well let’s relay that back whence you just came.
At
the next day's
noon briefing, Nesirky provided update. So Inner City Press asked
again:
Inner
City
Press: Did you get anything back on this issue of this village
of Sora that was listed as being…?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
I can assure you that something is in the works. I don’t
have anything for you right now. Something is in the works.
It
was two days
later on October 14 with the above-quoted “thing in the works” was
unveiled.
Charpentier behind Gambari, Sora / Soro destruction not shown
It was a prepared
statement from Charpentier, read out by Nesirky,
that did not disclose whether the villages were destroyed by aerial
attack or ground fighting, but rather welcome access granted by the
government of Omar al Bashir and, like Gambari, Bashir's assurances.
Here's
from the
Medecins du Monde job notice about Soro
General
Coordinator
Médecins
du
Monde
Médecins
du
Monde is an international humanitarian organisation whose mission
is : to provide medical care for the most vulnerable populations when
they are faced with crisis or exclusion from society, the world over,
including France
The
rationale
of the project is to participate to the improvement of the
health care status and capacity of the population to maintain its own
health status, in Deribat region. It will seek to:
-
Reinforce
primary health care services for the population, covered by
six health care centres (Deribat, Jawa, Suni, Dera, Kebra, Soro) with
the focus:
-
of improving maternal and children health
-
of improving the nutritional state of children under 5
-
of preventing and treating common pathologies and those that could
lead to epidemics
-
Implement
a global and integrated evaluation of population needs and
a protection chapter on the question of human rights.
So
there was a
health care center in Soro. And now it's gone. Watch this site.
, 
