Week
After Mbeki,
UN SC Still
Silent on
Sudans, of
Pipelines,
Map &
Playgrounds
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 16 -- A
full week
after Thabo
Mbeki briefed
the UN
Security
Council about
Sudan and
South Sudan,
the Council
has not
been able to
agree on a
Presidential
Statement
about the
situation.
Among
the disputes
is whether the
Statement
should
criticize
Khartoum for
not "accepting
Mbeki's map."
Khartoum
claims it has
four
supporters,
now including
Azerbaijan,
and even that
French
Ambassador
Gerard Araud,
this month's
Council
president, was
critical of
another
Permanent
member's
"playground"
approach.
The
playground is
expanding,
both in space
and time.
On August 15
Security
Council
experts met on
the stalled
draft in the
Council's
consultation
room. On
August 16
experts
wandering the
North Lawn
told Inner
City Press
they were
still working
on it. Talks
were said
to be
bilateral,
with the
expectation of
"coming back
together
at a higher
level" to make
decisions on
language still
left
open.
There
is a
difference, it
is pointed
out, between
demilitarizing
a zone and
agreeing on a
final border.
Still,
as South
African
Permanent
Representative
Baso Sangqu
told Inner
City
Press on
Thursday, it
is important
that the
Council agree
on a
statement
soon, so that
the parties
don't think
the Council is
divided.
On
August 15 when
Inner City
Press asked
Araud about
Darfur, he
answered
that the
Council IS
divided on
this issue,
as on Syria
and Israel -
Palestine.
Sudan / South
Sudan was
supposed to be
one of the
issues
on which the
Council works
together. So
what's
happening?
Meanwhile,
Japan's
Toyota Tsusho
Corporation
has put in a
$5 billion bid
to
build an oil
pipeline
linking South
Sudan to the
proposed
Kenyan port
of Lamu,
bragged Dennis
Awori,
Chairman of
Toyota Kenya
Limited.
When
Japan sent a
few people to
the UN Mission
in South Sudan
UNMISS, the
UN hyped it up
and media
covered it.
But this is a
more real and
telling
connection:
follow the
money. Watch
this site.
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