By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 3 -- After dozens of death in Abyei, the matter was taken up Thursday in the UN Security Council. Outside the chamber, Inner City Press was confronted by two different versions of events, from two Ambassadors co-exising in Sudan's Mission to the UN under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
The Ambassador of Southern Sudan / SPLM said that Khartoum is trying to take Abyei step by step, using the nomadic tribes.
The Permanent Representative from Khartoum, on the other hand, said that the tribes were simply going about their traditional business when local police with the SPLM stopped them then shot at them.
The Chinese Council President for March, Li Baodong, read out a press statement and took a single Press question: who is to blame for the violence, and did UN Peacekeeping say if the UN Mission in Sudan will again, as it did in January, be providing a free flight to South Kordofan governor Ahmed Haroun, indicted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court?
We are watching the situation closely, Li Baodong replied, presumably referring to the fighting in Abyei and not any UN assistance to indictee Haroun. A Western Deputy Permanent Representative and his spokesman said that they hadn't heard DPKO give any notice in consultations of a repeat flight for Haroun. But... we'll be watching the situation closely.
Footnotes: at Thursday's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky about reports of continued bombing from the air by the government in Jebel Marra in Darfur. Nesirky said he didn't know about this and would look into it. We'll see.
Meanwhile the South Sudan representative says very few Southerners went to Libya, while there are many Northerners there. The International Organization for Migration has told Sudan it can only repatriate those who get out, mostly to Tunisia.
Khalil Ibrahim of Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement is still in Tripoli. Inner City Press asked Nesirky if the UN would respond to calls, including from Suleiman Jamous, to get him out and to Doha.From the UN's March 1 transcript:
Inner City Press: on Libya, there is this Suleiman Jamous; there is this high profile JEM leader, the Justice and Equality Movement in Darfur, has said that the JEM has asked the UN to help get Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of JEM out of Libya, maybe to take him to the Doha talks or otherwise. Can you confirm that a request has been received and what is the UNs response to, not to say that one person, but this is somebody that Mr. [Djibril] Bassolé has been dealing with, it now says they want to go to Doha. Are they going to be taken out of Libya? Can the UN do anything about that?
Spokesperson: I have seen the reports, and we’ll follow up on it. I think I probably answered the second part of that question just now, given the security constraints that there are at the moment. What’s your question; the final question now?
[Later, the Spokesperson squawked the following: "The UN-AU joint mediation team has been working for some months with Dr. Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement regarding his attendance at the peace talks in Doha. The Joint Mediation continues to work with him on his movement to Doha, including under the present circumstances in Libya."]
