By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 2 --
While the UN
purports to be
"deeply
concerned" by
South Sudan
authorities'
banning of Nuer
national staff
from traveling
this week,
only earlier
this year the
UN
itself segregated
Nuer from
Dinka in
its UN camps.
So how
surprised can
the UN be?
When UN
spokesman
Stephane
Dujarric on July
2, fresh from
misleading
/ incomplete
answers about
the UN flying
sanctioned
FDLR militia
leaders around
in Eastern
Congo,
read out an
if-asked of
deep concern,
he did not say
and his
partner
scribes did
not ask about
the UN's own
segregation -
but rather about
soccer, with
censors.
So it goes at
this UN.
Back
on January 13
with the UN in
South Sudan
still
separating
those in its
camps into
"Dinka" and
"Nuer," Inner
City Press
on asked
Dujarric's
predecessor
Martin Nesirky
what the UN's
policy on
making such
separations,
particularly
after
Srebrenica,
is. Video
here, from
Minute 12:20.
UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
Ladsous'
spokesperson
Kieran Dwyer
had told some
hand-picked
scribes that
the
segregation
"initiative is
on request of
community
leaders.
They’ve
advised that
this is the
best way to
keep things
calm and
stable inside
the base. If
there is any
policy here
it’s not
ethnic
separation.
It’s to work
with community
leaders."
Nesirky
first
said that
thousands have
been saved by
sheltering in
ten UN bases,
and that the
separation is
ongoing. He
said his
colleagues in
UN
Peacekeeping
have answered.
But,
Inner City
Press asked,
where would
such deference
to the
requests of
"community
leaders," such
as could have
been made even
by the
authorities in
Rwanda in
early 1994,
stop --
segregation by
race or
religion?
Would this be
done in, say,
the Central
African
Republic or
Syria? By the
UN?
Nesirky
said
that the
situation
inside the
camps in South
Sudan is
precarious
because things
are crowded,
and "tensions
could arise."
All the more
reason to have
a policy. So
what is the
UN's policy?
Watch this
site.
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