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UN Council Has Questions to Ask Chad,
from Child
Soldiers to Pardons and Carjacking
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner
City Press in Africa: News Analysis
SPECIAL UN PLANE,
June 6 -- As UN Security Council
members head from Sudan to Chad, questions have arisen to be asked.
Sudan's
display of armed pickup trucks captured during the Justice and Equality
Movement's May 10 assault on Omdurman included purported evidence of
Chad's
involvement in the attack, including photos of 18 child soldiers Sudan
is
holding one hour from Khartoum. Late on
June 5, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed to the
press a
16-minute DVD including interviews with some of the children, one
saying for example
that he had been kidnapped to "the place of Deby," that is, N'djamena.
The DVD ends by urging the international community to pursue the issues
not
only with and against JEM, but also Chad.
Even while
Sudan's president Omar
al-Bashir, in his closed-door meeting with the Council on June 5, said
he will
never turn over Ahmad Harun or Ali Kushayb to the International
Criminal Court,
it is something of a test of fairness to see if in fact these questions
are
asked of Chadian authorities. Al-Bashir
also alleged Thursday that the humanitarian groups' vehicles which are
carjacked in Darfur are taken to Chad, with the knowledge of both the
UN and of
Deby's government. Essentially, Sudan is accusing Deby of involvement
in
carjacking.
UN's Ban with Chad's Deby and CAR
counterpart: carjacking not shown
One imagines a sequel version
of the video game Grand Theft Auto.
In a large
meeting room in the compound of the Wali of North Darfur on June 5,
Sudan's
Ambassador to the UN issued a criticism of France's role in the
"kidnapping of children" by the French NGO L'Arche de Zoe, including
in getting the NGO workers pardoned by President Deby. France's
Ambassador to
the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert rushed back into the room and said that
France
played no role in Deby's pardons. Afterwards on the tarmac of El Fasher
airport
in Darfur, Inner City Press asked Sudan's UN Ambassador for his
response to
Ripert's claim. "Nothing move in Chad without the wish of France," he
said. One wonders what motive Deby could have had, absent a French
request, to
pardon Europeans who tried to kidnap his country's children. This too
should be
pursued.
France has
promised a better-organized leg of this Security Council tour,
including taking
all journalists to refugee camps in Eastern Chad, and allowing them and
the
Ambassadors time and place to speak directly with the refugees. We'll
see.
Watch this site.
* * *
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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