As
Sudan's
Karti Says Open to Foreign Troops, US Unclear, UN Takes No
Qs
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 20 -- On July 19 Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti
said of Southern
Kordofan “if there's an agreement with local leaders specifying the
sending of foreign troops, it will be welcome.”
On
July 20 Inner
City Press asked Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN
Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman about Karti's quote. He said Karti was
referring to “international forces, not peacekeepers, not UN.”
Inner
City Press
had asked the US Mission to the UN on July 19 about Karti's
statement, and on July 20 asked Ambassador Susan Rice about it as she
went into the Security Council. “I don't quite know what to think
of that,” Rice said.
When
UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon came to the Security Council stakeout on
Wednesday, one expected him to say something about the fighting in
Southern Kordofan, and the allegations that UN peacekeepers, even
before July 9, were at best inactive, or some say complicit.
He did
not; nor did his spokesman Martin Nesirky respond to request that Ban
take “a question on Sudan.”
We will have
more on this, including
the UN's own report critical of its peacekeepers inaction in Southern
Kordofan. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
on Kordofan, Who Should Call for Probe Was Issue, No
One Urging Action
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 18 -- On Southern
Kordofan it emerges that the fight in
the Security Council on July 15 was about whether the Council should
be calling for an investigation of war crimes.
“Navi Pillay is
already doing it,” a Council member told Inner City Press. “Why
do we have to call for it?”
A
UN official
confided that a real investigation will show misdeed by the UN
peacekeepers from Egypt as well. The conflict of interest is that the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was only in Sudan as
a component of the peacekeeping mission UNMIS. How can the UN report
on itself?
The
balance for the
UN involves at least four legs: political, peacekeeping, humanitarian
and human rights. And they may well be the pecking order, with human
rights right at the bottom, at least under Haile Menkerios -- who
flew indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun on a UN copter -- and Ibrahim
Gambari in Darfur.
What
should future
UN envoys do? How should they be judged? Watch this site.
Footnote: Meanwhile
the Justice & Equality Movement is bragging that it teamed up with
SPLM-North and fought and killed 100 Northern soldiers. It is a war,
and the UN sits impotent. We will continue on this.
* * *
In
S.
Kordofan, UN Says It Can't Move, No Comment on Sudan
Currency War
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 18 -- Amid reports of worsening violence in Southern
Kordofan, not only at the UN peacekeepers there preparing to leave:
even while still there, they “cannot move” even if they see war
crimes committed in front of them, the UN told Inner City Press on
Monday.
Last
week
outgoing UN Peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told Inner City Press
that while they cannot patrol or use force, if the peacekeepers saw
something happen in front of them, they would respond “as
humanitarians.”
But
Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky on Monday disagreed
when Inner City Press asked for confirmation of Le Roy's statement.
“They cannot move,” Nesirky said, “whether you like it or not
or whether we like it or not, the United Nations does not have a
mandate to operate there.”
If
UN personnel
present in a war zone are told by the Secretary General's spokesman
that they “cannot move,” what does it mean to repeatedly say
“never again”? We'll see.
Beyond
saying its
peackeepers “cannot move” in Southern Kordofan, the UN didn't
even have a comment on North Sudan declaring itself ready for a
currency war with South Sudan, refusing to redeem billions in
Sudanese pounds circulating in the South.
Inner City
Press asked for
comment, from envoy Haile Menkerios or new envoy to South Sudan Hilde
Johnson, but Nesirky said the UN has nothing to say.
So
what is the UN's
role in and on Sudan? From the UN's July 18 noon briefing
transcript:
Inner
City
Press: In South Kordofan, I understand that a lot of it rides on
the Security Council mandate, but there have been over the weekend
more and more reporting of bombing, and of surrendering Nuba
soldiers. And so,have any of the existing peacekeepers left the
area? Are they there? What are they doing? What does the UN say
about events in the last 48 hours in South Kordofan?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well, I think the answer remains the same as last week. Whether you
like it or not or whether we like it or not, the United
Nations does not have a mandate to operate there. It is something
that, clearly, we had wished to be otherwise. And the
Secretary-General made very clear that there should not be any vacuum
or gap in our ability to monitor what is happening. But that is the
case. That is the case. And as for the presence of the troops, the
peacekeeping troops there, they are in the process of moving out as
they are required to do under this liquidation resolution. But they
have not yet fully withdrawn. That’s where we are.
Inner
City
Press: [inaudible -- per the UN]
Spokesperson:
I think it’s very important here to look at the reality. The
reality is that the Security Council passed a resolution. The
reality is that the Government of Sudan did not allow the mission to
continue. Did we want it to be otherwise? Yes, we did. That’s
why the Secretary-General went to Khartoum. It’s regrettable that
we do not have the ability to do what needs to be done.
Inner
City
Press: Is it Alain Le Roy, when at the stakeout, he’d said
they have no mandate to use force or to patrol, but if they witness
things, they will respond as humanitarians. So, have they witnessed
anything? Have they responded? He seemed to say that they wouldn’t
just sit entirely idly by, that there was some sort of baseline--
Spokesperson:
Well, they are not in a position to do that, they are not in a
position to move. They are not in a position to move, and that’s
the reality. That’s the reality at the moment, okay.
Inner
City
Press: this just less, less physical violence, but there is this
idea of a currency war that South Sudan is creating its new currency
and so North Sudan has said it is going to create a new currency and
won’t redeem any of the Sudanese pounds that are in circulation in
South Sudan. I am just… one, I am wondering if the UN has any
comment, and two is, is this the kind of issue that Menkerios would
work on or who is there? It seems to be…
Spokesperson:
No, I don’t think we have any comment on that at the moment. If
that changes, I’ll let you know.
Inner
City Press
later sent the question to the spokespeople of the International
Monetary Fund, which is ostensibly a part of the UN system:
“We've
seen the IMF Survey stating on South Sudan that 'the parties have not
yet agreed on what will happen with the Sudanese pounds that are
currently circulating in the South.' But the deputy governor of the
Central Bank of Sudan, Badr al-Deen Mahmood, has said the north is
ready for a 'currency war.' Central Bank governor Mohamed Kheir
al-Zubeir say said: 'We do not want to buy [the old currency]. We
want them to surrender it to us because it is valueless.'
This
is
a request for the IMF's view of this 'currency war.'
The IMF
has a
briefing later this week. Watch this site.
, 
in