UNITED NATIONS, July 18 -- With Darfur UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari being snubbed by the UK and US' Scott Gration, Vice President Joe Biden on July 18 said of the South Sudan referendum, "We are on it full-time. And I believe that we'll be able to pull -- they'll be able to pull (it) off, with our help and the UN's help, they'll be able to pull off a credible election.”
The UN's role in making elections credible of late hardly merits this belief. In Afghanistan, the UN stood by in the face of phantom polling places.
In Kyrgyzstan, the UN said nothing during a rushed referendum on a constitution which would outlaw minority ethnic parties, held while ethnic Uzbeks were chased in fear out of the country, or into IDP camps where few of them could vote.
In Burundi, just after the visit of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, opposition parties removed themselves from the ballot, leaving it a one party election replete with tossed grenades.
But it gets worse. At a UN reception on July 17, talk turned to a trial balloon, seemingly floated by the UN administration, that Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar might be outsourced to Sudan, to oversee the two UN Missions there, UNMIS in South Sudan, and UNAMID in Darfur.
The senior Sudanese diplomat who raised this to Inner City Press said to quote him, without name, as conveying that the government of Sudan would never agree to this. “We are not short of useless of international civil servants to suck the blood of our people... to prolong the thing, the referendum, everything, to get money. We don't need a Paul Bremer man. We would say no.”
(The second part of the "Nambiar to Sudan" theory he floated involves the return to New York of Ban's Cote d'Ivoire envoy Mr. Choi, essentially to run Ban's campaign for a second term, while taking over Nambiar's Myanmar and perhaps Sri Lanka roles. Nambiar, the Sudanese diplomat said, "has diminishing returns.")
Sudan, according to this diplomat, surmises that the UK is as suspect of Gambari as when he was in Myanmar, and that the US joins the UK in this. “They like their man, Bassole,” he said.
As reported, when asked by Inner City Press about Gration's absence from the meeting of Darfur envoys of China, Russia, the EU and others in El Fasher on July 4, the US Mission said only Gration's office would answer, and his spokesperson Marie Nelson refused to, despite three separate calls requesting comment. The US Mission has again declined comment, but notes Gration's more recent visit to Sudan.
Other interested countries' diplomats have told Inner City Press that the US does not want to be a mere part of a UN process, contrary to Biden's UN comments, but rather wants to have the central role.
And if and when it fails -- who will be responsible? Watch this site.
From the UN's July 17 noon briefing transcript:
Inner City Press: In Sudan, there are these reports that the Government made persona non grata, are throwing out, two representatives of the International Organization for Migration. Does the UN have concerns about the expulsion of these humanitarian workers?
Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq: We don’t have any comment about the treatment of this. We are aware of the reports, and we’ll check up on what was behind this decision and what the facts are on that. But we don’t have anything to say on that just yet.
And still, more than two days later, no comment from the UN.
