|
In Darfur, Zamzam Camp Food Rations Cut
in Half,
Balsamic Vinegar for Sale in El Fasher
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner
City Press in Africa
ZAMZAM IDP CAMP,
DARFUR, June 5 -- In a convoy of
more than a dozen vehicles complete with UN peacekeepers brandishing
rocket-propelled grenades, the members of the UN Security Council on
Thursday
visited the Zamzam Internally Displaced Persons camp here, thirteen
kilometers
south from El Fasher. They arrived on the camp's market day: pancakes
and
re-strung beds and cellular phones were for sale at small stalls amid
the smell
of donkey dung and the presence of UN police and peacekeepers.
Residents
interviewed by Inner City Press said that the rations provided by the
UN's
World Food Program have been cut in half. The peacekeepers, too, asked
the
press to publicize their needs. "Tell them we need resources," Abu
Mansaray instructed. He spoke bitterly of the recent murder in the camp
of a
Ugandan peacekeeper, killed as he sat alone in his vehicle. "They
didn't
even steal his cell phone or his money," another person marveled.
The
Council's convoy was watched over throughout by a looming UN
helicopter. The
road was patrolled by Sudanese military and police, parked in pickup
trucks in
the shade of the few trees.
In the Zamzam camp: El Fasher's balsamic
vinegar not shown
"Where are the janjaweed?" one journalists
demanded, impatiently.
"Further west on the border with Chad," answered
another.
"The JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] is based there, and there's a
lot
of retaliation."
The members
of the Security Council entered a compound near where the convoy of
busses came
to park. Camp resident pressed up
against the compound's fence, holding up handwritten signs for the
Council,
some with drawings of helicopter gunships killing people, one saying
"No
for war, yes for peaces!" The woman holding the sign said she was fifty
years old; she used to grow vegetables until danger drove her into
ZamZam camp.
El Fasher
on the other hand has become another UN boom town. One returning
visitor
complained of houses now renting for four thousand a month. You can buy
balsamic vinegar here now, it was noted. There is even a pizzeria.
There are
signs for CHF and German Agro Action. At
the entrance to the UN Mission in Darfur camp, before the sand-filled
barriers
and the barbed wire, there is a white metal sign with large blue
letters: PAE
Darfur. It is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. military
contractor.
Their rations are
not being cut. In fact, they were awarded a multi-million
dollar no-bid contract to serve food to peacekeepers, and place trailer
homes
in rows and call it a military base. How the pizza oven made its way
into
Darfur is not yet known. The question will be pursued.
Full disclosure: this
column was written in a
windowless trailer in the UNAMID camp... courtesy of Lockheed Martin
and the
$250 million no-bid contract it was given.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017 USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
