By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unque1sudan102009.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 20 -- As the UN in Sudan warns of rebel and government troops massing in Darfur, and in the South airlifts an opposition figure's fighters from his stronghold to Juba, its Mission faces other troubles as well. The UN's envoy Rodolphe Adada has not yet been replaced. Interviews, Inner City Press is told, will take place the first week in November.
These sources say that the future of Nigeria's peacekeepers in Darfur is not certain. Nigerian Martin Luther Agwai is no longer the UN's Force Commander -- although he's still on the UN payroll -- and U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to visit Ghana and not Nigeria makes the latter less willing to help, including in Darfur. As the U.S. announces a new strategy of carrots, other pieces are not falling into place.
At the UN's noon briefing on Tuesday, Inner City Press asked about the troops massing in Darfur, and the UN Mission in South Sudan's airlift of the fighters of Paulino Matip to Juba. Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe said didn't have an information about either. Inner City Press asked how that could be.
Later in the briefing, a staffer came in and handed Ms. Okabe a sheet of paper. She read out a statement about the UN's concern about troops massing in Darfur. On South Sudan, nothing.
Khartoum sees the SPLA's "harassment" of Matip's fighters as an abuse, now abetted by the UN, both Peacekeeping and Political Affairs. Of the two, they prefer the former. They have particular scorn for the DPA official currently "preparing the ground" in Guinea for a board of inquiry, essentially ordered up by Bernard Kouchner of France, they say. They marvel at how the possible referring of the Goldstone report on Gaza can be kept away from even a vote on referral to the International Criminal Court, while their case got referred. The House of Double Standard, they call the UN. There's double dipping, too. But more on that anon. Watch this site.
