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On Darfur, Need for "More Activity from
UN," US Envoy Says, France's Chad Support as a Problem
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 17 -- The U.S. envoy to Sudan
Richard Williamson on Tuesday announced that Khartoum has been asked
for
permission to open up six additional routes for humanitarian convoys to
Darfur.
Inner City Press had asked if the UN peacekeepers stationed in El
Fasher should
rather be deployed to protect at least some of the World Food Program
trucks
which have been subject to hijacking.
Williamson agreed there should be "more activity
from the UN."
Video here.
The non-governmental organizations which stood
beside him at the microphone, however, did not speak of what the UN
could be
doing on the ground, but rather only about obstruction from Khartoum
and
paralysis by the Security Council, which Mia Farrow and John
Prendergast said
is due to China, and China alone.
Inner City
Press asked if France's unqualified support for the Idriss Deby
government of
Chad, even as it is accused of supporting attacks on Sudan and
recruiting child
soldiers, is not at least part of the problem. Prendergast, who has
earlier
accused Sudan of waging a proxy war against Chad, did not answer this
question.
Rich Williamson and Ban Ki-moon, increased
protection activity by UN not shown
Williamson approached it diplomatically, speaking of "the bleed
between
Chad and Sudan." He said that the U.S. is "taking an active role"
in trying to defuse the "mutual destruction on the border." Apparently
referring to France, he said that "some of our friends are taking a
more
active role as well." But active how?
When he led the Security Council delegation in Chad
last week, French
Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert neither delivered nor allowed any
criticism of
Chad.
Footnote: some of
Amb. Ripert's sudden
standoffishness
with the press during the Council mission became more
comprehensible on Tuesday. Sources tell Inner City Press that it was
only on
the trip that Ripert learned that he would not be getting the job of
head of UN
Peacekeeping. At the last moment, these sources say, the Ban Ki-moon
administration because concerned that Ripert's constant references to
Bernard
Kouchner might create a problem of split loyalty. And so France was
asked for
another name, and forwarded that of Alain Le Roy. Who
ever takes the job should move quickly to
deploy existing UN peacekeepers in Darfur to protect the humanitarian
trucks.
* * *
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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