By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 26 -- In Darfur, moves by the UN to hand over to the government five supporters of Fur rebel Abdel Wahid al-Nur were criticized Tuesday by the UN's own Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak.
Inner City Press, which first exposed the UN's draft agreement between Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti and Ibrahim Gambari of the Darfur mission UNAMID, asked Nowak if such a turn over would violate the law. Video here, from Minute 30:40.
Nowak replied that objectively, “there is no question that torture is widely practices in Sudan.” Are the five sheikhs, political opponents targeted by the government of Omar al-Bashir, for some reason exempt from torture?
Gambari's draft agreement with Karti, leaked to and published by Inner City Press, sought only to preclude execution, with a promise from al-Bashir. Even this promise has been disavowed -- Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Dafaala Al Haj Ali Osman on October 25 told Inner City Press such a commitment has not been and could not be made, that at most Gambari must have been referring to the idea that “blood relatives” might offer forgiveness (for money). Video here.
Gambari was in New York on October 25, according to Nigerian mission sources, but did not come to the UN Security Council's meeting about Darfur and UNAMID. Inner City Press has repeatedly asked the spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Martin Nesirky, where Gambari is.
On October 26, Inner City Press asked Nesirky for Gambari's or the UN's response to Nowak's statement urging the UN not to turn the five over to Sudan. Nesirky replied that “special rapporteurs have independent status.” Video here, from Minute 32:07.
On October 25, chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy told the Security Council “we have made clear we cannot hand over the sheikhs in the absence of a clear commitment the death penalty, if issued, would not be carried out, alongside other assurances.”
But Nowak, when asked by Inner City Press, said that “diplomatic assurances with respect to torture are not worth the paper they are written on.”
While Gambari has asked Inner City Press, in a containing in the UNAMID Super Camp, what he can do except negotiate to turn the five sheikhs over to Sudanese authorities, now the UN system's two top experts on torture have said this would violate the law, including customary international law.
How as the UN so badly lost its way? And who will be held accountable?
The issue was raised to Western Permanent Five ambassadors of the Security Council before their Sudan trip. But the UK's Mark Lyall Grant twice said it wasn't among the trip's “terms of reference.”
The US' Susan Rice has indicated she asked about the issue while in Sudan, but has declined to disclose what she or Gambari said. It was impossible to ask her these questions at the Security Council's October 25 meetings on Darfur and South Sudan, because she was not present and therefore no US official took questions at the stakeout, unlike Sudan's Ambassador.
What is the US position on torture? Watch this site.
