In
Sudan,
As Kalma
Sheikhs
Pardoned &
Leave UN, Only
Leak of
Gambari's Plan
Prevented
Torture, US on
Juba Beatdown?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 28 --
Eleven months
after the UN
came close to
turning over
to Sudanese
authorities
for punishment
five sheikhs
in
the Kalma camp
in Darfur, the
five were
finally
pardoned and
went
home without
being
punished.
Given that the
punishment
foreseeably
would have
included
torture if not
death, the
aborted
turnover is
viewed as
having saved
them.
In
late September
2010, Inner
City Press was
leaked a copy
of the
turn-over
agreement
that the UN
and AU Joint
Special
Representative
Ibrahim
Gambari was
negotiating
with Sudan.
The only
safeguard that
Gambari was
seeking
was a
commitment to
not execute
the sheikhs.
Inner
City Press
published the
draft
agreement. The
next month
while covering
the UN
Security
Council's trip
to Khartoum,
Juba and
Darfur,
Ibrahim
Gambari
approached
Inner City
Press in the
El Fasher camp
of UNAMID
and
called
the leaker --
and presumably
the
publication of
the document
--
"irresponsible"
and having
"put lives at
risk."
When
the chairman
of the UN
Committee
Against
Torture
Claudio
Grossman came
to the UN
not long
after, Inner
City Press
asked him
about what
Gambari had
been doing,
and he said no
one in the UN
system should
turn anyone
over to a
government,
like Sudan's,
which
tortures. Video
here,
from Minute
23:25.
As
it turns out,
the leak and
publication
seemed to have
saved the
sheikhs.
Gambari &
Ban Ki-moon:
they hate
leaks but what
saved sheikhs?
At
the
same time as
the sheikhs
are being
pardoned -- by
the local
wali, for
Eid al Fitr --
Khartoum has
sentenced to
death a
commander of
the
Darfur based
Justice and
Equality
Movement,
El-Tom Hamed
Toto, for a
joint attack
with the
SPLM-North in
Southern
Kordofan.
Footnote:
one
wonders if the
US will
"welcome" the
pardoning of
the
sheikhs.
Recently the
US State
Department
found time to
welcome the
dubious
ceasefire
announced by
Omar al Bashir
for Khartoum,
while as
yet seeming to
say nothing
about the UN's
top human
rights
official
in South Sudan
Benedict
Sannoh being
beaten by ten
South Sudan
police while
he lay in
the fetal
position.
We'll see.
, 
