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Troops
Cited by Sudan Means “10 to 15” Monitors, Not UN, Maybe
European
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 20 -- Sudan's UN Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman
narrowly interpreted to Inner City Press on Wednesday the July 19
statement by Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Southern Kordofan that “if
there's an agreement with local leaders specifying the sending of
foreign troops, it will be welcome.”
When
Inner City
Press first
asked him about it, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said Karti
was referring to “international forces, not peacekeepers, not UN.”
Inner
City Press
had asked the US Ambassador Susan Rice about Karti's quote as she
went into the Security Council. “I don't quite know what to think
of that,” Rice said.
Now
Daffa-Alla
Elhag Ali Osman has told Inner City Press that she should look at
history, that in the run up to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
there was a deal, in Southern Kordofan, involving the US, Norway and
UK.
Sudan
is harkening back to that, he said, but is referring only
to a small, “high ranking” force on monitors.
When
asked how
many people, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman replied, “ten to fifteen.”
It has been speculated that Karti's quote was related to a July 20
deadline set in the resolution winding down the UN Mission in Sudan.
But only ten to fifteen?
Daffa-Alla
& Ban Ki-moon, who took no Qs on
Sudan Wednesday morning
When
asked from
what countries, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said they “could be
European.” But again: only ten to fifteen? The representative of
another Security Council member, not unsympathetic to Khartoum, when
Inner City Press conveyed this said, “Oh, that's far too small.” Watch
this site.
* * *
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.
Click
for
July
7,
11
BloggingHeads.tv
re
Sudan, Libya, Syria, flotilla
Click
for Mar 1, '11
BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12
debate
on
Sri
Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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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2006-08
Inner
City
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