Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/unsc5postafrica062408.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- There can be no solution in Darfur without changes in both Chad and Khartoum, negotiators Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim told the Press on Tuesday. But while pressure is applied in Sudan, who is pressuring Chad's Idriss Deby government? Eliasson said that every member state with bilateral relations should use them. While he avoided that part of the question, it seems clear that as to Chad this means France.
On the Justice and Equality Movement's assault on Khartoum which was stopped at Omdurman, Eliasson said he and Salim Salim met with Khalil Ibrahim two weeks before the May 10 attack, urging him to desist of military action, which Khartoum had been expecting. There was "no receptiveness by Khalil Ibrahim," Eliasson said. He felt his power has "not reached its peak."
On the question of the International Criminal Court, Salim Ahmed Salim said that while "impunity must never be allowed to prevail," the "timing of any decision becomes important." Inner City Press asked if he meant ICC prosecutor Luiz Moreno Ocampo's past or future indictments. Future, he answered, why speak about the past. Video here, from Minute 1:05:20. Ocampo has said that the government apparatus in Sudan, above the level of current indictee Ahmad Harun, is guilty of war crimes. He has implied he might also bring indictments of rebel groups and even their supporters. We'll see.
Eliasson said that on the UN's no-bid contract with U.S.-based military contractor Lockheed Martin for Darfur peacekeeping camps, "I have no information, we have to come back on that... no information on that in any detail." Video here, from Minute 54:37. The head of the hybrid UNAMID force, Rodolphe Adada, said that the UN and also the U.S. were trying to convince Sudan to allow another extension of the contract. The latter would seem to be at the level of envoy Richard Williamson, who in his last appearance at the UN, alongside Mia Farrow, criticized UN peacekeepers for failure to the respond during the attack on Abyei.
Tuesday the Security Council unanimously voted to request that Ban Ki-moon "examine the root causes of, and the role played by, UNMIS in connection with the violence ... in Abyei in May 2008, and consider what follow-up steps may be appropriate for UNMIS." Why not a similar inquiry into the JEM attack on Omdurman?
