UNITED NATIONS, July 14 -- Less then six months from what is supposed to a referendum on the separation of South Sudan from the rest of Africa's largest country, the UN and others seem under-prepared.
On July 13, Inner City Press asked the UN to respond to reports that Japan won't give helicopters for the UN Mission in Sudan, saying that “the support isn't there.”
Inner City Press also asked about the renewed fighting in Darfur between the government and the Justice and Equality Movement rebels: could the UN confirm it, had it visited the areas or protected civilians?
On the latter, the UN could not initially say anything about this fighting in an area it has a $1 billion peacekeeping mission. Later in the day the UN issued a statement in response, that it was “aware of the reports” and would be doing to see. On the helicopter problem, almost nothing was said.
The senior military and peacekeeping diplomat of a major African country approached Inner City Press later on July 13 in the UN's new North Lawn building and asked: “what if South Sudan makes a Unilateral Declaration of Independence?”
This last, some times under the acronym UDI, hearkens to Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia and was immediately recognized by the United States, most but not all European Union countries, and now some 69 of the UN's 192 member states.
There, grenades have been thrown, an International Court of Justice case is pending, the UN is in stasis.
In South Sudan, the diplomat continued, it would be much worse. “Total war,” he called it. Are the UN and member states, the Guarantors referred to in a study out today, prepared or preparing for that?
Inner City Press put the question in writing to the US Mission to the UN on July 13, nearly positive it would not be answered. Earlier this month, when Inner City Press asked the US Mission why Scott Gration had not attended a meeting including his Russian, Chinese and EU counterparts in Darfur on July 4, the Mission declined to answer, referring the question to Gration's staffer Marie Nelson, who after three telephone requests also did not answer.
Another UN diplomat offered this answer: Sudan is “so important to the US that the US refuses to work with, through or under the UN.” If true, and pending answers from the Obama administration's State Department, what would this mean for the short and long term future of South Sudan?
