Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1khartoum060308.html
KHARTOUM, June 3 -- As members of the UN Security Council arrived in Khartoum fresh from hearing about escalating tensions in Abyei from South Sudan President Salva Kiir, U.S. envoy Richard Williamson was leaving Sudan, saying he was "sad and disappointed" at the lack of prospects for peace. Nafie Al Nafie, advisor to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, said "if they come back, we will engage." Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed, in Khartoum to greet the same Ambassadors he lobbies in New York, was more blunt, saying Williamson "did not negotiate in good faith... He came just to pollute the atmosphere and go."
Now the Security Council is here, slated to meet with Nafie on Wednesday before heading Thursday to Darfur. Some in the Council delegation seem fixated on not being deemed polluters. In Juba, UK Ambassador John Sawers listed several issues he said will be raised to the leadership in Khartoum, including President Bashir, but again did not mentioned the International Criminal Court among them.
Since the Council's meetings with Nafie and Foreign Minister Deng Alor are closed to the press, the Foreign Ministry has offered through the UN an "Alternative Media Program," complete with "child soldiers arrested during the attack on the Sudanese capital," some alleged to be from Chad. The UN's child soldiers envoy Radhika Coomaraswamy gave a briefing in New York about Chad, saying commitments had been won for the release of child soldiers. Whether she interviewed these particular children is not known. Also not known is the origin of a rumor that the UN's plane was shot at. It was not, a media on the trip rushed to clarify.
When the Council members arrived without incident in their special UN plane, it was dark in Khartoum. They were whisked into a greeting room and served tall glasses of fruit juice. Sudan's UN Ambassador was there, glad-handing reporters and diplomats. Busses swept the delegation to a spacious hotel, the Rotana, which is said to only take payment in cash. Out the window, the rides of an amusement park were visible. The UN set up a media room with a half-dozen computers, all tuned to the webpage of the UN Mission in Sudan. "Are they secure?" was a question asked more than once. The answer appeared to be no. Like the UN and its host, outside the carnival rides continued to spin.
