UNITED NATIONS, September 20 -- Before the Sudan meeting on September 24, which will include US President Barack Obama and Rwandan President Paul Kagame among others, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is trying to name the three members of his Panel to monitor the referendums set for January 9.
The UN says it is trying to name a former African head of state as the panel's chairperson, but has received push-back from the National Congress Party of Omar al Bashir and from the SPLM. The UN privately admits that it will not open the 80 monitoring sites it has announced, but perhaps only as few as fifty five.
Meanwhile on Darfur, joint UN - African Union mediator Bassole wants to announce a new set of talks in Doha for September 28-29 with “a movement,” believed to be the relatively pro government Liberation and Justice Movement, which is headed by a former UN staff member.
Another former UN staff member who served with the Mission in Western Sahara which has yet to hold the referendum promised there is now in charge in Sudan of the Referendum Commission, with the UN trying to provide assurances to the SPLM that this does not portend delay.
Inner City Press on September 20 asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky to confirm that previous service with the UN in Western Sahara. Nesirky, who often tried to shirk off such questions from Inner City Press to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations or Department of Political Affairs could not do so in this instance, and promised to revert.
Nesirky or DPKO should also explain how it is legitimate for the UN to use UN Volunteers for most of the 600 new posts in its UNMIS Mission. Nesirky's office has previously claimed that the UN's humanitarian coordinator Georg Charpentier does not show his press releases to the Sudanese humanitarian affairs minister, something of which a more senior UN official has since said that Nesirky's answer was not true, that the releases ARE being shown during this “tense” period.
Of the September 24 meeting itself, the UN has already circulated the elements of the statement it hopes will issue, and says that Ban Ki-moon will restrain himself to five minutes, hoping that other participants will. But President Obama's advisor Samantha Power, on a September 20 conference call, said that Obama will be delivering “substantial remarks” in the meeting.
Inner City Press was not called on to ask Ms. Power or Ambassador Susan Rice to describe the current status of the UN Security Council's trip to Sudan, which has been stalled based on the desire of the US, UK and France to avoid a photo op with Omar al Bashir, indicted for war crimes and genocide. There is a dinner on Monday night hosted by Sudan at which this may be discussed. Or will the trip be among Obama's “substantive remarks” on Friday?
On the White House conference call, very little was said of Darfur. The UN has accepted restrictions on its freedom of movement so that it does not even leave its bases while civilians are being slaughtered, as happened earlier this month in the Tarabat Market. President Obama, it seems, will not be mentioning this. And the UN, retaliating for coverage of its inaction, speaks only to its friends. Some diplomacy. Watch this site.
