UNITED NATIONS, September 12 -- A week after the UN claimed that the chief of its Department of Field Support was misquoted as saying that the UN Mission in Sudan would need a change of mandate to effectively protect civilians from the rampaging Lord's Resistance Army rebels, its regional coordinator for South Sudan David Gressly offered the same analysis of UNMIS' insufficient mandate, in some detail. Video here, from Minute 20:57 to 28:23.
By video link from Ethiopia, Gressly told the Press that the worst period for South Sudanese with the LRA was in 2005 and 2006, not now. Inner City Press asked Gressly to respond to reports that, after the failed attack on the LRA in December 2009 involving troops from the UN Mission in the Congo, the LRA now also kidnaps child in South Sudan, and that its young and vicious forces speak not only the Acholi language of northern Uganda but also Arabic. Gressly acknowledged that for those where the LRA now attacks, things are no better.
Gressly said that until August 2005, with the Government of South Sudan set up its capital in Juba, the LRA controlled the area. Once driven out, the LRA closed roads and slaughtered civilians until its April 2006 ceasefire with the GoSS.
That led to the peace talks, which stalled when LRA leader and indicted war criminal Joseph Kony demanded assurances the International Criminal Court warrant against him wouldn't be executed. Now the LRA has become more titled toward the Central African Republic, the Congo and South Sudan, where some of its fighters speak Arabic.
Inner City Press asked Gressly about what Ms. Malcorra was quoted, or supposedly misquoted, as saying, that the current UNMIS mandate doesn't allow it to offer protection from the LRA.
Gressly said that UNMIS has a Chapter VI mandate, weaker than under Chapter VII of the UN charter, and as such offers protection only to its own observers. We don't have the equipment or man power or mandate, Gressly said, to protect South Sudanese from the LRA.
So it sounds like what Ms. Malcorra was quoted as saying is true, even if as UN Headquarters quickly claimed, she was misquoted.
Footnote: Referring to the now rarely mentioned incident in which Somali pirates seized a ship of tanks in boxes marked "GoSS," Inner City Press asked Gressly if the GoSS has tanks, what he thinks of the reports of weapons coming in through Kenya. Gressly said that yes, the Goss has tanks, but "we were not monitoring that aspect." Video here, from Minute 28:23.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/lra1unmis091209.html
