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In Sudan, UN Council Doesn't Know of Child Soldiers, Split on ICC

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

KHARTOUM, June 4 -- The Sudanese government has published the photographs of 18 children, who it says were recruited into and participated in the assault on Omdurman on May 10. The issue was raised today to the UN Security Council delegation in Khartoum by Nafie Al Nafie, advisor to President Omar Al Bashir. Afterwards Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers, the co-head of the delegation, what the Council and the wider UN are going to do about the issue. "We don't have proof of that," he said, "but it is quite right that UN agencies... should investigate this case now."

    But the case has been known for more than three weeks. On Wednesday, the UN in Khartoum offered the press, in a written flier, "the opportunity to meet and talk with a number of child soldiers arrested during the attack on the Sudanese capital."

   Arguably, presentation of those captured, particularly children, would violate the Geneva Conventions. That the Sudanese government would offer up this "opportunity" is perhaps understandable. But the propriety of the UN passing along the opportunity, and arranging to accompany and presumably translate on the trip to the captive children in El Gaily, an hour from Khartoum, raises the question of whether it is possible for the UN to violate the Geneva Conventions, as a matter of customary international law.

Amb. Sawers and Amb. Ripert, ICC non-compliance measures not shown

  In Omdurman, Inner City Press asked Sudanese Major Jamal, who narrated a tour including bloody uniforms and pictures of detainees, what will happen with the children. He mentioned capacity building -- a classic UN buzzword -- and rehabilitation. Only after that, he said, might the children be returned to their parents, some of whom are alleged to be in Chad.

  So what other than offering tours and interviews is the UN actually doing, more than three weeks after a state in which it has not one but two large peacekeeping missions announced it captured child soldiers?  We will continue to pursue this issue, including with UNICEF headquarters in New York.

  Meanwhile regarding the International Criminal Court indictments, Amb. Sawers said that "a significant number of members of the Council raised their concerns" about "the absence of Sudanese government cooperation" with the ICC. "We had an unsatisfactory response" in which Nafie Al Nafie argued that because Sudan is not a party to the Court, therefore it is not responsible to cooperate. Sawers said the resolution is binding and compliance is required.

  But Chinese Ambassador Liu, when asked, said that "Darfur is very complicated" and that the issues have to be addressed together in a "coherent and comprehensive way."  Some took this to imply that the indictments might be traded away, as some say is happening in slow motion with Northern Uganda indictee Joseph Kony.


   French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert jumped in to say that "on behalf of France, and as a member of the European Union," additional measures might be needed against those who are not cooperating with the court. Amb. Ripert heard but did not answer Inner City Press' question to the assemble Council members about Chad's involvement in the attack on Omdurman. Ambassador Sawers said there's another version that "we'll hear in N'jamena." We aim to have more on this from there.

Footnote: The Council's next stop, however, after a Wednesday night reception by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will be El Fasher in Darfur. Regarding UNAMID's deployment, Amb. Sawers said that the commitment has been confirmed, that contingents from Nepal and Thailand will be allowed, after deployments by troops from Egypt and Ethiopia. Remembering what the Council heard from nearly all interlocutors in Djibouti, one wag suggested that if the Ethiopian troops moved or were moved from Somalia to Darfur, something might be accomplished. We'll see.

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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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