Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1chad060608.html
SPECIAL UN PLANE, June 6 -- As UN Security Council members head from Sudan to Chad, questions have arisen to be asked. Sudan's display of armed pickup trucks captured during the Justice and Equality Movement's May 10 assault on Omdurman included purported evidence of Chad's involvement in the attack, including photos of 18 child soldiers Sudan is holding one hour from Khartoum. Late on June 5, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed to the press a 16-minute DVD including interviews with some of the children, one saying for example that he had been kidnapped to "the place of Deby," that is, N'djamena. The DVD ends by urging the international community to pursue the issues not only with and against JEM, but also Chad.
Even while Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, in his closed-door meeting with the Council on June 5, said he will never turn over Ahmad Harun or Ali Kushayb to the International Criminal Court, it is something of a test of fairness to see if in fact these questions are asked of Chadian authorities. Al-Bashir also alleged Thursday that the humanitarian groups' vehicles which are carjacked in Darfur are taken to Chad, with the knowledge of both the UN and of Deby's government. Essentially, Sudan is accusing Deby of involvement in carjacking.
One imagines a sequel version of the video game Grand Theft Auto.
In a large meeting room in the compound of the Wali of North Darfur on June 5, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN issued a criticism of France's role in the "kidnapping of children" by the French NGO L'Arche de Zoe, including in getting the NGO workers pardoned by President Deby. France's Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert rushed back into the room and said that France played no role in Deby's pardons. Afterwards on the tarmac of El Fasher airport in Darfur, Inner City Press asked Sudan's UN Ambassador for his response to Ripert's claim. "Nothing move in Chad without the wish of France," he said. One wonders what motive Deby could have had, absent a French request, to pardon Europeans who tried to kidnap his country's children. This too should be pursued.
France has promised a better-organized leg of this Security Council tour, including taking all journalists to refugee camps in Eastern Chad, and allowing them and the Ambassadors time and place to speak directly with the refugees. We'll see. Watch this site.
