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Troops Cited by Sudan Means “10 to 15” Monitors, Not UN, Maybe European

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 20 -- Sudan's UN Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman narrowly interpreted to Inner City Press on Wednesday the July 19 statement by Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Southern Kordofan that “if there's an agreement with local leaders specifying the sending of foreign troops, it will be welcome.”

When Inner City Press first asked him about it, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said Karti was referring to “international forces, not peacekeepers, not UN.”

  Inner City Press had asked the US Ambassador Susan Rice about Karti's quote as she went into the Security Council. “I don't quite know what to think of that,” Rice said.

  Now Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman has told Inner City Press that she should look at history, that in the run up to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement there was a deal, in Southern Kordofan, involving the US, Norway and UK.

   Sudan is harkening back to that, he said, but is referring only to a small, “high ranking” force on monitors.

When asked how many people, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman replied, “ten to fifteen.” It has been speculated that Karti's quote was related to a July 20 deadline set in the resolution winding down the UN Mission in Sudan. But only ten to fifteen?


Daffa-Alla & Ban Ki-moon, who took no Qs on Sudan Wednesday morning

   When asked from what countries, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said they “could be European.” But again: only ten to fifteen? The representative of another Security Council member, not unsympathetic to Khartoum, when Inner City Press conveyed this said, “Oh, that's far too small.” Watch this site.

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As Sudan's Karti Says Open to Foreign Troops, US Unclear, UN Takes No Qs

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 20 -- On July 19 Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti said of Southern Kordofan “if there's an agreement with local leaders specifying the sending of foreign troops, it will be welcome.”

  On July 20 Inner City Press asked Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman about Karti's quote. He said Karti was referring to “international forces, not peacekeepers, not UN.”

  Inner City Press had asked the US Mission to the UN on July 19 about Karti's statement, and on July 20 asked Ambassador Susan Rice about it as she went into the Security Council. “I don't quite know what to think of that,” Rice said.

When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came to the Security Council stakeout on Wednesday, one expected him to say something about the fighting in Southern Kordofan, and the allegations that UN peacekeepers, even before July 9, were at best inactive, or some say complicit.

 He did not; nor did his spokesman Martin Nesirky respond to request that Ban take “a question on Sudan.”

 We will have more on this, including the UN's own report critical of its peacekeepers inaction in Southern Kordofan. Watch this site.

* * *

At UN on Kordofan, Who Should Call for Probe Was Issue, No One Urging Action

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 18 -- On Southern Kordofan it emerges that the fight in the Security Council on July 15 was about whether the Council should be calling for an investigation of war crimes.

  “Navi Pillay is already doing it,” a Council member told Inner City Press. “Why do we have to call for it?”

  A UN official confided that a real investigation will show misdeed by the UN peacekeepers from Egypt as well. The conflict of interest is that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was only in Sudan as a component of the peacekeeping mission UNMIS. How can the UN report on itself?

  The balance for the UN involves at least four legs: political, peacekeeping, humanitarian and human rights. And they may well be the pecking order, with human rights right at the bottom, at least under Haile Menkerios -- who flew indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun on a UN copter -- and Ibrahim Gambari in Darfur.

What should future UN envoys do? How should they be judged? Watch this site.

Footnote: Meanwhile the Justice & Equality Movement is bragging that it teamed up with SPLM-North and fought and killed 100 Northern soldiers. It is a war, and the UN sits impotent. We will continue on this.

Click for July 7, 11 BloggingHeads.tv re Sudan, Libya, Syria, flotilla

Click for Mar 1, '11 BloggingHeads.tv re Libya, Sri Lanka, UN Corruption

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

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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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