As Sudan Starves Kalma camp and Jebel Marra, UN Has Stayed Quiet, OCHA is AWOL
UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- In Darfur, why has the UN remained so quiet not only about Sudan blocking humanitarian aid into the Kalma camp since August 2, but into eastern Jebel Marra since February 2010?
In an August 4 response to a question from Inner City Press about restrictions and the Kalma camp, chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy said that the government had blocked humanitarian groups for the four previous days.
On August 5, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm this blocking of aid. Nesirky said he would check. Since the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is supposed to have and provide information on just these topics, Inner City Press e-mailed two OCHA spokespeople, thinking that confirmation should be on hand. But hours later, OCHA replied that it was checking with people.
Still having no answer on the morning of August 6, Inner City Press asked OCHA again, and some addition questions about the discontinuation of UN reporting on humanitarian issues in Darfur, including malnutrition. (OCHA referred this question to UNICEF, to which Inner City Press has now forwarded the questions).
At the UN noon briefing of Friday, August 6, Inner City Press asked again about Kalma camp, and Nesirky said again that he would have to check. Where is OCHA chief John Holmes? Inner City Press asked, isn't this precisely the type of situation OCHA is supposed to advocate, and loudly, about?
After the noon briefing, Associate Spokesman Farhan Haq provided this answer, that OCHA confirms lack of access to Kalma camp since August 2, and to eastern Jebel Marra “since February 2010.” He said the OCHA is advocating “locally.”
First, this “local” advocacy, if it exists, has not worked: witness the continuing lack of access to east Jebel Marra for more than FIVE MONTHS.
Second, it is unclear why this OCHA would grow so quiet on this issue. Inner City Press asked, are there other situations OCHA is staying quiet about? Nesirky did not answer, and the OCHA spokespeople have yet to answer the questions Inner City Press put to them on August 5.
Nor would Nesirky confirm to Reuters the Sudan Tribune's report on the UN's “talking points” to Khartoum, nor to Inner City Press whether Khartoum has formally asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to turn over six people in Kalma camp it claims are responsible for the violence.
Has the UN come to any of the “full understanding of the facts” behind the violence in Kalma camp which the Security Council asked for a full week ago? You could have asked Le Roy on August 4, answered Nesirky, who on that day limited Inner City Press' questions.
The question remains: where is OCHA? Where is John Holmes? Where, for that matter, is Ban Ki-moon. Physically, he is in Japan. But where is he on the issue, of Sudan's intentional starvation of people in Kalma camp and eastern Jebel Marra?
And if this is addressed with a “statement attributable to the spokesperson for the Secretary General,” would Ban Ki-moon walk away from the statement, after a governmental complaint, as he did on the UN's statement about Kashmir? Watch this site.
