On
Sudan,
UN Blurs
Abyei, Rice
Says No Output
Until
Input, Ladsous
Test
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 5 --
Five days
after
Sudan violated
its agreement
to
leave the
Abyei region,
and two months
after four
Ethiopian UN
Peacekeepers
bled out there
when medevac
from Wau in
South Sudan
was
blocked, the
Security
Council
prepared to
belatedly
consider
Abyei,
Blue Nile and
Southern
Kordofan.
On
October 4
outside the
Security
Council, Inner
City Press
asked US
Ambassador
Susan Rice if
there was any
output being
readied for
the Council's
October 6
meeting: a
press or
presidential
statement,
even a
resolution, in
response to
Sudan's
continued
presence in
the
contested
zone.
Ambassador
Rice
replied,
"We're looking
forward to
seeing all the
input, then
we'll think
about an
output."
But
what would the
"input" be,
and by whom?
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
report on
Abyei, dated
September 30,
only covers
events up
to September
23, before
Sudan violated
the deadline
to leave
Abyei.
In
describing the
August 2
bleed-out of
the four UN
peacekeepers
says vaguely
that
"evacuation of
the casualties
by air was
significantly
hampered
by a delay in
the issuance
of a flight
clearance by
Sudanese
authorities."
It
fails to
disclose that,
while the UN
has deployed
1800 troops
without even a
Status of
Forces
Agreement
(SOFA) in
place, the
request was to
fly a
helicopter in
from Wau in
South Sudan,
now a separate
country.
Amazingly,
the UN
STILL does not
have a SOFA
with Sudan,
putting the
lives of these
peacekeepers
at risk.
During
all this
time, incoming
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
chief Herve
Ladsous, the
fourth
Frenchman in a
row to be
given the
post, has not
been present.
He was
appointed on
September 2,
reportedly
after a
single
interview the
day before,
but was only
sworn in this
week, a
full month
later.
Ban at
Ladsous'
belated
swearing-in,
answers on
Abyei &
Haiti not
shown
Inner
City Press is
told that it
will be
Ladsous, not
Edmond Mulet
who filled in
for him,
who will do
the briefing
for the
Security
Council on
October 6.
What
will have have
to say, on
this and the
UN
Peacekeeping
scandals in
Haiti, where
in his
previous work
for the French
government he
called
for the ouster
of elected
president
Jean-Bertrand
Aristide?
Watch
this site.
Footnote:
Also
on October 4,
Inner City
Press asked
this month's
Security
Council
president Joy
Ogwu of
Nigeria if
Southern
Kordofan and
Blue
Nile will be
addressed by
the Council
this month.
She said they
will
be part of the
October 6
meeting, under
what she
called a
"holistic"
approach. An
approach
without
outcomes,
without even a
SOFA? We'll
see.
, 
