By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 20 -- On Sudan, the UN misspeaks and keeps secrets. In August, Inner City Press asked the UN why it had stopped reporting malnutrition data for Darfur. The UN - African Union Mission in Darfur and UNICEF said that data would be released in “one or two days.” But none was.
Now months later a local UNICEF official has admitted that the government blocks the collection and release of such information. Nils Kastberg of UNICEF says
“when we conduct surveys to help us address issues, in collaboration with the ministry of health, very often other parts of the government such as the humanitarians affairs commission interferes and delays in the release of reports... Sometimes it is security services that hinder access or delay access, sometimes it is the humanitarian affairs office that delays the release of nutritional surveys. Sometimes it is delays in granting permissions and visas. It is different sections of different institutions which interfere in our work.”
The UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Georg Charpentier did not say this. In fact, when he spoke to Inner City Press in El Fasher earlier this month, Charpentier handed over a green folder he said he had given to the Security Council. When asked by Inner City Press if the malnutrition data was inside, Charpentier said “yes.” But it wasn't.
Inner City Press asked top UN humanitarian Valerie Amos about this, and she said she would look into it. Inner City Press understands that Ms. Amos has privately been critical of Charpentier. But keeping this private and in secret accomplishes nothing for the people the UN is supposed to protect.
Similarly, the UN on Wednesday continued to dissemble about the responsibility of its Mission on Sudan, UNMIS, to act on complaints about Khartoum's troop build ups along the border of Southern Sudan when the complaints are, as they were, filed with the joint ceasefire monitoring commission.
Acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq insisted that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is looking into the issue. But to simply describe UNMIS' duty should not require research.
Haq joined Gambari in chiding Inner City Press for publishing documents showing Gambari close to turning over five supporters of Fur rebel Abdel Wahid Nur. Haq claimed that the UN needed secrecy for this, and refuse to comment on the applicability of the Convention against Torture.
But who is the UN, to engage in stealth negotiations it doesn't even tell the member states? Watch this site.
