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In Juba, UN Council Finds Rising Tensions and Rents, No Printing Press in S. Sudan

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa: News Analysis

JUBA, June 3 -- Three weeks after violence emptied the southern Sudanese town of Abyei, the UN Security Council arrived in Juba, to meet with the president of the South Sudan region, Salva Kiir. There was talk of a battalion from Khartoum moving into the South. Salva Kiir confirmed it, telling the press that "the troops are coming down from Khartoum to Abyei... I have already called upon [President al-Bashir] to order his military commanders" to leave, "we're not going to fight them."

    The UN Mission in Sudan's media handlers, meanwhile, showed the press a hospital complete with a warehouse funded by the UN Population Fund, and the UN's radio station, Mireya, headquarters in an expansive UN base with sandbags and Bangladeshi guards, rows of offices in sheds with air conditioners humming. Out in the streets of Juba, where goats walked free and garbage lay in piles on the ground, the economy was clearly in an upswing, or being UN-leashed into inflation, with construction signs praising USAID. High walls surrounded the South Sudan compound of the UN Development Program.

    At the government building where the Council met with Salva Kiir, South Sudan soldiers patrolled with machine guns, unconcerned with the swarm of white UN vehicles. Unlike in Darfur and Khartoum, these do not seem to raise concerns about sovereignty.  Local sources told Inner City Press that it's true that Ban Ki-moon (they called him "Moon") was cheered by thousands when he visited last year, as with the visit of South African President Mbeki. "It's been so isolated here, when big shots come, we all remember it."

   While it seems clear that a yes vote's to be expected in the independence referendum provided for in 2011 under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 between Khartoum and South Sudan, on the trip south from Djibouti on the special UN plane Russia's representative said not to speak of independence. The territorial integrity of Sudan is the Council's policy, he said. Perhaps he was preparing for Thursday's visit west to Darfur.

Salva Kiir and UN's Qazi, troop movements not shown

   In Juba, a town of round thatched huts and tents for IDPs, a vote for independence seems assured. In fact, sources tell Inner City Press that's why Salva Kiir so quickly supposed Khartoum when the Justice and Equality Movement attacked the capital last month. If the government changes, the CPA's deal might be off. Then again, the fighting in the oil-rich region around Abyei might also have that result.

  Local sources told Inner City Press that all oil leaves southern Sudan to be refined elsewhere. Some is re-imported to run generators. It seems clear that among many other things, South Sudan needs a printing press.The Juba Post is printed in Khartoum; the Southern Eye is printed in Kampala. The UN has distorted the economy in Juba: hotel rooms that are little more than tents cost $200 a night, houses without running water are overpriced. The services offered are run or invested in by people in Kampala and even further afield. Money pours outward from the area.

  The swarm of UN vehicles conjured up Kosovo, to Inner City Press and at least one Security Council Ambassador who, un-prompted, bought up to the Press on the plane, the issue of Kosovo, an area the UN supervised toward independence. In the case of Kosovo, it was a unilateral declaration of independence, whereas in South Sudan, it was be by agreement and by vote. But while the UN is often said to be the obsessed with sovereignty, in these two cases it stands for entropy or independence. Are these, then, cases in another UN strand, that of decolonialization?   To be continued.

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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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