By Matthew Russell Lee
KHARTOUM, October 9 -- Not a single question about Darfur was taken at the press conference on Saturday ending the UN Security Council's mission to Sudan.
In the basement of the luxury Rotana Hotel, the outgoing Public Information Officer of the UN Mission in Sudan chose five questions, all about the North - South referendum, including questions from the UN's own media.
Inner City Press, which accompanied the Council from the South Sudan government's conference hall in Juba through the UN's Super Camp and an IDP Camp in Darfur to Sudan's foreign ministry in Khartoum, sought to ask what if anything was accomplished about Darfur.
The spokespeople shook their heads and later stated they were never going to take this question, or questioner.
The delegation including Press was whisked to the Khartoum airport's VIP terminal. (On the way to the flight, $15 had been collected from each passenger as a form of tax.) In the terminal, Ambassadors milled around also apparently unsure what had been committed to about Darfur.
Perhaps to blow off steam, US Ambassador Susan Rice raised her voice to Sudan's Permanent Representative, complaining about the requirement on her entourage, and even on her, to go through the metal detector, and then with increased vehemence about the $15 fee. [Update: the fee was later returned, although at least one other Permanent Five ambassador said he had not problem paying the fee.]
A crowd gathered and one wag remarked, if only Susan Rice had been this forceful about Darfur, including the turn over of five supporters of Fur rebel Abdel Wahid Nur to the government of Omar al Bashir by the UN's Ibrahim Gambari.
This is not to say that Ambassador Rice did not show passion at times during the Council's trip. At the Government of South Sudan's training base at Rejaf, next to the GoSS Minister of Internal Affairs as he praised her and said that independence had been a long time coming, Susan Rice was beaming.
How IDP camp residents in Darfur live, $15 not shown (c) MRLee
Moments later, in what another Council diplomat later incredulously called “a political rally,” Susan Rice gave a speech to a tentful of young trainees. “Are you ready for independence?” they were asked. “Yes!” they answered.
Cynics have said, perhaps for drama's sake, that US envoy to Sudan Scott Gration cares most about Sudan's North - South conflict, while Susan Rice cares about Darfur because, they say, of her action and inaction during the (“first”) Rwanda genocide in 1994.
But on this trip, to the eye, Susan Rice also cared (much) more about South Sudan than Darfur. Officials of the Bashir regime clearly will pick up on this. Will things get even worse for the people of Darfur? Watch this site.
