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Even After Omdurman, UN Can Meet with JEM
Rebels Unless Sanctions Are Imposed, UN and U.S. Say
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 12 -- Should the UN be meeting
with the Justice and Equality Movement, which attacked Khartoum with
over a
hundred weaponized pickup trucks on May 10, reportedly with support
from Chad
and perhaps Libya? During the Security Council's trip last week through
Sudan,
JEM's attack was much discussed, with Sudan calling JEM a terrorist
group.
Thursday the question was put to UN spokesperson Michele Montas, that
through
diplomatic channels it is known that the UN's envoy to Chad and the
Central
African Republic Victor Angelo intends to meet with JEM -- Inner City
Press
asked if that is possible without at least informing Sudan, the site of
two
separate UN peacekeeping missions. Ms.
Montas said that the UN envoy is "authorized to meet whoever he thinks
is
necessary to move the peace process forward" without "checking with
member states." Video here,
from Minute 20:20.
A previous meeting of UN with JEM,
post-Omdurman meetings not shown
Inner City
Press asked Alejandro Wolff of the U.S., this month's Security Council
president, if there are moves to put JEM on the Sudan sanctions list.
Some
delegations mentioned that today," he replied. Inner
City Press asked if the U.S. thinks Special
Representative of the Secretary General Angelo should meet with JEM. Video here,
from Minute 3:05. "I think it
is inappropriate for an SRSG to meet with anyone who has been indicted
or
sanctions or prescribed by the Council," Amb. Wolff said. But "JEM is
a party in Sudan that will have to be brought in." Now
the aftermath.
Footnote: In light
of Amb. Wolff's statement that
SRSG's should not meet with people who have been indicted, UN envoy
Chissano's
engagement with the Lord's Resistance Army's Joseph Kony appears in a
different
light. We will have more on this.
* * *
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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[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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