At
UN,
Sudan
Ignores
Finding That It Bombed, Council Largely Ignores
Darfur
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
16
-- Fighting continued in Darfur
on Thursday, as
the UN Security Council met about Sudan, mostly South Sudan. The
Council issued a press statement about the secession referendum
scheduled for January 9, including condemning Khartoum's bombings in
Western Bahr al Gazal State.
Outside
the
Council,
Inner
City Press asked the Sudanese State Minister of
Humanitarian Affairs Mutrif Siddiq about the bombings, and his
government's fighting with the Minni Minawai faction. It's not with
the whole faction, he quickly said, naming a subcommander who he said
tried to “collect taxes after the harvest.” Video here.
The fact
remains that Minni Minawi, the sole Darfur rebel to sign a deal with
Khartoum, has walked away from it. So what does the "Doha process" with
the LJM really mean?
Despite
UN
confirmation
of
the bombing, Sudanese minister Mutrif Siddiq would
only concede that it was under investigation, as if the investigation
weren't finished. Inner City Press later asked Council president
Susan Rice about this.
She replied,
"you heard Under-Secretary- General LeRoy in the Council speak very
plainly to that as he also did in consultations."
Southern
Sudan's
Ezekiel
Lol
Gatkuoth and Pagan Amum, Secretary General of the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement came to the stakeout. Inner City Press
asked about the bombing and Pagan Amum said it had already been
condemned. He called for a peace agreement in Darfur. This seems a long
way off.
Inner
City
Press asked about comments attributed to Benjamin Mkapa that “some
Southerns” were intimidating other Southerns in the North to not
register to vote in the referendum.
Pagan
Amum
denied
that,
saying that instead it was the National Congress Party which
threatened Southerns with harassment if they voted for secession.
Video here.
SPLM's Pagan Amum w/ Alain Le Roy,
registration of Southerners in North not shown
Inner
City
Press
asked
Mkapa himself who he blamed for the low registration in the
North. He said that it was understandable if Southerners who have
lived in the North for years didn't register. Video here.
Then
he
was
gone.
Footnote:
The
International
Organization
on Migration gave a press conference
on Thursday as well. Inner City Press, along with questions about
Sudanese refugees returned from Israel and elsewhere, asked about
IOM's role in the Sudan referendum. It's in their law, was the
answer. IOM was asked to run the process in North Sudan but declined.
IOM
says
they didn't choose the sites in the eight diaspora
countries. But are they observing for fairness? Watch this site.
* * *
On
Darfur,
As
UNAMID
Covers
Up Killings by Sudan, ICC Reports Them
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December
9
--
After the UN
refused
to release what it knows
about the killing of civilians at Tabarat and the destruction of
Soro
and other villages in Darfur in September, the International Criminal
Court's report unveiled in the Security Council on December 9 names
13 other destroyed villages (with Soro transliterated as “Souroo”),
and has witness quotes what it calls the government sponsored killing
in Tabarat (which it calls Tabra).
After
ICC
prosecutor
Luis
Moreno
Ocampo's presentation to the Security Council
on Thursday, Inner City Press on camera asked both him and Sudan's
Permanent Representative to the UN Dafallah Osman about the Tabra
killings and the destruction of villages.
Sudan's
Ambassador
said
that
the
killings were “tribal,” involving
kidnapping and promises to pay blood money. He praised UNAMID and its
leader Ibrahim Gambari (calling him a “seasoned diplomat”).
Inner
City
Press
asked
if
he thought UNAMID should release what it knows about the
Tabra killings. This, he did not answer, instead ranging from saying
that Ocampo's report shows NGOs were engaged in “espionage” to
claiming that Radio Dabanga was disseminating destabilizing and even
“genocidal” information.
Ocampo
had
stood
several
yards
away, unlike with the previous Sudanese Ambassador
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, whom Ocampo stood right next to
during their final stare down. When Ocampo came to the microphone,
Inner City Press asked him if he thought UNAMID was in essence
covering up Sudan's and Bashir's acts by not reporting on them.
Ocampo
said
that
UNAMID
is
under threat, that's why it doesn't report. This means
that UNAMID is not reporting, which is its job. What will Ban
Ki-moon, the Security Council and Obama administration do?
ICC's LMO close to Sudan's last Ambassador,
new backing away mirrored by UN- & US?
Earlier
on
Thursday,
Mark
Hanis
of the Genocide Intervention Network / Save
Darfur Coalition on a press conference call said Obama, Hillary
Clinton and Joe Biden campaigned on (among other things) protecting
civilians in Darfur, and named Samantha Power and Susan Rice as
officials. Hanis called them “disappointing” so far. Inner City
Press asked what UNAMID should do. Report, Hanis said. But UNAMID
does not.
On
both December
8
and 9, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin
Nesirky about
fighting and death in Darfur, including in Tabarat / Tabra:
Inner
City
Press:
a
request
made to UNAMID [African Union-United Nations
Hybrid Operation in Darfur] for the report that they were supposed to
do on the Tabarat killings of 2 September, near Tawilla, the one that
the Secretary-General summoned Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari to speak about.
Anyway, somebody that asked him was told that there is no report for
external dissemination available on it, and I just wonder, what is
the UN’s final finding? Did it do the right thing, in apparently
not getting out to the site despite the warning by relatives of those
killed? Are all such reports confidential, and in which case, how is
the Security Council or the international community to assess the
level of violence and killing in Darfur if these new reports never
come out?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well,
that’s
a
very long question.
Question:
This
is
the
only time I’ll ask it, but if there is anything the UN
can say about those killings, I’d like to know.
Spokesperson:
Well,
I
hear
your question, I think, and let’s look into what the
Mission tells us.
More
than a full
day later, UNAMID has said nothing. When Inner City Press asked
again about UNAMID on December 9, Nesirky claimed he had already
answered questions, including about attacks the Sudanese government
had just bragged about.
In
assuming
Presidency of the Security Council for December, Susan Rice told
Inner City Press that UNAMID (and UNMIS) are required to investigate
and report on attacks on civilians. Does that mean report to the
public, as the ICC does? What will Susan Rice and the US Mission do?
The
press had been
told that Susan Rice would speak at the stakeout, where Ocampo and
Sudan's Ambassador did. But she did not. A reporter given advance
notice that she would not come was told that “one country” had
blocked the elements to the press that she would have read. But she
could have spoken, especially after what Sudan's Ambassador said,
including denying things that the US Mission has previously said,
about the Council's interlocutors being harassed and Radio Dabanga's
Khartoum office being shut down.
Footnote:
Inner
City
Press
also
asked Ocampo about Guinea -- he said he is
watching “national proceedings” -- and Kenya, where witnesses are
under threat. Ocampo answered by bragging that none of his witnesses
have been injured. But how about retaliated against, given what
Sudan's Ambassador said about the NGOs. Watch this site.
, 
