On
Sudan,
UN Won't Specify When
Khor
Abeche Blockade in Darfur Reported, Nor
When Le Roy Asked For More Troops
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 7 -- On Sudan, the UN appears
engaged in one-way communication, not
in answering questions. Two days after a senior UN official,
insisting that he not be named, told the Press that the government of
Sudan had blocked food resupply to Tanzanian peacekeepers in Khor
Abeche in Darfur, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky simply refused to
provide any information about the incident. Audio here,
from Minute
10.
Inner
City Press,
for the second day in a row, asked why the UN's envoy in Darfur
Ibrahim Gambari had not publicly complained of the blocking of
resupply to his peacekeepers. Nesirky said that blockage of resupply
of UN peacekeepers by host governments take place “not only in
Darfur.”
It
is not clear to
which UN missions Nesirky was referring: Liberia? Haiti? The UN in
Cote d'Ivoire last month loudly protested the mere threat of a
blockade, and Ban Ki-moon said other member states should break any
blockade. But this was and is not said in Darfur.
Turning
to South
Sudan, Inner City Press asked Nesirky to specify when top UN
peaceekeeper Alain Le Roy asked Sudan to agree to an increase in
peacekeepers. On January 6, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN said he had
been in a meeting with Le Roy for two hours the previous day, and Le
Roy never made the request.
“You don't
expect me to contradict the Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping
Operations,” Nesirky said.
UN's Ban & Le Roy: loud on Cote d'Ivoire
blockage, no answers on Darfur
It was another
opportunity to rebut a
public allegation of misspeaking by a high UN official, which the UN
Spokesperson's Office declined. “Ask DPKO,” Nesirky said, as
he's referred Inner City Press to the UN Mission in Kosovo about a UN
judge freeing a person accused of organ trafficking.
Several
Security
Council diplomats have told Inner City Press there is the Council
less and less satisfaction with the performance of Ibrahim Gambari,
who at the same time is drawing more and more praise from Sudan's
government. But will there be accountability? Watch this site.
* * *
On
Sudan,
Questions of Expulsion of Darfur Rebels & Ocampo on
Bashir's Billions
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 6 -- As the UN and Security Council engage in happy
talk about the South Sudan referendum, events in
Darfur get worse and
worse.
On January 6 Inner City Press put questions to the UN
Permanent Representatives of the US and Sudan, and to the UN itself. On
background, a number of Council sources said that the African
Union - UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur is not pushing hard enough for
access to civilians in harm's way. But the focus is on the
referendum.
Inner
City Press
asked US Ambassador Susan Rice:
Inner
City
Press: this agreement by Salva Kiir to eject or stop the rebel
groups from Darfur from being in South Sudan. Is it a positive thing?
Does it help resolve things in Darfur, the idea that they wouldn't
have to go back? It was announced by Salva Kiir.
Ambassador
Rice:
Our view has long been that it's vitally important that both
parties to the CPA refrain from, in any way, direct or indirectly
supporting rebel or proxy activity against the other. And so we urged
that, to the extent that that has been the case, that it cease.
But
if the fighting
that's hurting civilians is by the government against the rebels, how
is pushing the rebels back into Darfur going to make things better?
Inner City Press asked the UN:
Inner
City
Press: yesterday during a background briefing, a senior [UN]
official said — about Sudan — said of Sudan that there had been,
during the fighting in Khor Abeche in Darfur, that a Tanzanian
battalion had fed IDPs [internally displaced persons] with their own
rations and had been unable to be re-supplied due to Government
restrictions on the re-supplying, it seemed to be, of the
peacekeepers. Can you confirm that there was a time during that
fighting that even the UN peacekeepers were unable to get their
supplies in? And if so, was that ever said publicly, and — it
seems like in other countries, they complained when its peacekeepers
were being in any way blockaded. Did that take place in Khor Abeche,
as it seemed to be said yesterday?
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky: Let me find out.
But
seven hours
later there was no answer. Inner City Press asked Sudan's Permanent
Representative about Khor Abeche, if Sudan had blocked resupply of
peacekeepers. The Sudanese Ambassador again offered praise for
UNAMID, then said that when there is fighting, movement is restricted
for the peacekeepers' own good.
While top UN peaceekeeper Alain Le Roy had told the press that he
requested a boost in UN troop levels but Sudan would not agree, Sudan's
Ambassador said he was in a meeting with Le Roy on January 5 and Le Roy
made no such request. The UN should clarify this.
UN's Ban & Sudan's Ambassador, Khor Abeche
answer not shown
Inner
City Press
asked asked Sudan's Ambassador about the allegations by International
Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo that Omar al Bashir
spirited $9 billion out of the country. He replied it was
ridiculous, that Lloyds had immediately denied it.
(As
Inner City
Press reported at the time, Lloyds was in the news for violating
sanctions in Sudan and elsewhere.)
Inner
City Press
asked about the meeting on this topic between Ocampo and Susan Rice
and Alejandro Wolff at the US Mission to the UN, memorialized in a
Wikileaked cable. (Ambassador Rice has twice said she doesn't recall
the meeting.) Sudan's Ambassador said this showed that Ocampo was
“taking his orders” from sources other than the ICC. We will have
more on this.
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