Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
UNITED NATIONS, April 30 -- The final night of April, and of South Africa's presidency of the Security Council, stretched past nine p.m. when the Council members emerged to vote on a South Sudan (UNMIS) resolution, and a statement on Eritrea and Ethiopia. After the vote, Sudan's Ambassador spoke to the few reporters remaining. "We prevailed over many suggestions of the sponsor, the United States," he said. "We killed the reference to the Sudan mission working together with MINURCAT," the acronym for the UN's new mission in Chad and the Central African Republic.
The UNMIS resolution refers in two places to assisting with, or reporting on, the Uganda peace process. It "requests the Secretary-General to submit for the Council's consideration a report on possible measures UNMIS would take to assist, with the implementation of a future Final Peace Agreement between the government of Uganda and the LRA," the Lord's Resistance Army. Sudan says it can live with this paragraph, and argues that it is the International Criminal Court which is blocking peace in Uganda. The argument's purpose is to say that the ICC's indictments in Sudan are a hindrance to peace.
Inner City Press asked outgoing Council president Dumisani Kumalo about the Sudanese statements. "MINURCAT involves police, it can only work with UNAMID," he said, referring the hybrid UN-African Union Mission in Darfur. He expressed some surprise that the LRA paragraphs remained in the resolution. "Well, they do negotiate in Juba," he said. We'll see.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2unmis043008.html
