By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 24 -- This afternoon's closed door meeting on Sudan at the UN has been presented as a watershed, a highlight of this year's UN General Assembly. US President Obama's “14 minute speech” has been hyped by his Special Adviser Samantha Power, when Inner City Press asked why Obama had not mentioned Sudan in his General Assembly speech.
The UN Secretariat has bragged to reporters about its role in putting together the Communique to be issued after the meeting.
Inner City Press has obtained a near final draft of the Communique and it putting it online here in advance of the meeting. Of its 14 paragraphs, three deal with Darfur and one with Eastern Sudan. The Communique is a surprisingly weak statement, human rights advocates say. “How could this be the highlight of the US' involvement?” one asked Inner City Press.
Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha will participate in the meeting, and is slated to speak to the Press afterward. The day before, Inner City Press asked African Union Commission President Jean Ping what the AU hopes to come out of the meeting.
Ping said the AU takes a “holistic” approach, which some view as a codeword for “drop or suspend the International Criminal Court indictment of Omar Al Bashir for war crimes and genocide.”
Less than four hours before the meeting, Inner City Press asked Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan what if he thought the meeting -- and by implication, the Communique -- dealt sufficiently with Darfur, where Nigeria has peacekeeping battalions controlled by former Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari.
President Jonathan spoke about Darfur but also about the referendum, saying that the borders should be clear before the vote, scheduled for January 9, 2011. It seems unlikely that the borders, much less the division of oil revenue, will be decided before then.
While the US “big foots,” as one advocate put it, nearly unilaterally stalling a planned Security Council trip to Sudan due to a reticence for the US Permanent Representative to meet or take a photo with Omar al Bashir, smaller non-Permanent Council members try to do what they can.
Mexico is on record as favoring the Council trip to Sudan, even if “some P-5 Ambassadors stay in their hotel rooms.” Austria has offered legal expertise to both sides, in meetings Friday with Khartoum's foreign minister Ali Ahmed Karti and two ministers from South Sudan.
When told by Inner City Press of this work and these complaints by non Permanent Council members on Sudan, a senior UN official this week replied, “I'd hate to be a small member state.” And so it goes at the UN. We will be Tweeting and live blogging from outside the Sudan meeting: watch @InnerCityPress
