Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc2darfur060508.html
ZAMZAM IDP CAMP, DARFUR, June 5 -- In a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles complete with UN peacekeepers brandishing rocket-propelled grenades, the members of the UN Security Council on Thursday visited the Zamzam Internally Displaced Persons camp here, thirteen kilometers south from El Fasher. They arrived on the camp's market day: pancakes and re-strung beds and cellular phones were for sale at small stalls amid the smell of donkey dung and the presence of UN police and peacekeepers. Residents interviewed by Inner City Press said that the rations provided by the UN's World Food Program have been cut in half. The peacekeepers, too, asked the press to publicize their needs. "Tell them we need resources," Abu Mansaray instructed. He spoke bitterly of the recent murder in the camp of a Ugandan peacekeeper, killed as he sat alone in his vehicle. "They didn't even steal his cell phone or his money," another person marveled.
The Council's convoy was watched over throughout by a looming UN helicopter. The road was patrolled by Sudanese military and police, parked in pickup trucks in the shade of the few trees.
"Where are the janjaweed?" one journalists demanded, impatiently.
"Further west on the border with Chad," answered another. "The JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] is based there, and there's a lot of retaliation."
The members of the Security Council entered a compound near where the convoy of busses came to park. Camp resident pressed up against the compound's fence, holding up handwritten signs for the Council, some with drawings of helicopter gunships killing people, one saying "No for war, yes for peaces!" The woman holding the sign said she was fifty years old; she used to grow vegetables until danger drove her into ZamZam camp.
El Fasher on the other hand has become another UN boom town. One returning visitor complained of houses now renting for four thousand a month. You can buy balsamic vinegar here now, it was noted. There is even a pizzeria. There are signs for CHF and German Agro Action. At the entrance to the UN Mission in Darfur camp, before the sand-filled barriers and the barbed wire, there is a white metal sign with large blue letters: PAE Darfur. It is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. military contractor. Their rations are not being cut. In fact, they were awarded a multi-million dollar no-bid contract to serve food to peacekeepers, and place trailer homes in rows and call it a military base. How the pizza oven made its way into Darfur is not yet known. The question will be pursued.
