By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED* NATIONS, September 14 -- The last time the UN Security Council met about Sudan, on September 8, the acting chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations told the Press and presumably the Council that Khartoum and Juba had just agreed in Addis Ababa to withdraw their troops from the contested Abyei area.
The UN called this good news, by contrast to their lack of access to the killing zones in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state.
But on September 14 even the UN's good news on Abyei was denied by Khartoum, on the government run Sudanese Media Center. As translated:
"The government denied that arose recently in the media to reach a new agreement on Abyei between the states of Sudan and Southern Sudan. Said Omar Suleiman, a member of the negotiating team told (smc) that the interview officials at the United Nations on the two sides to reach a new agreement on Abyei is not accurate, revealing that the meeting was only for the oversight committee composed of representatives of the parties in the ninth of this month to follow up the implementation of the Interim Agreement Management Abyei signed between the parties on the twentieth of June..." [H/t ST]
Khartoum has a history of reneging, for example on the agreement signed about Southern Kordofan later repudiated by Omar al Bashir. But in this case, was the UN too desperate for good news, after being under fire for inaction in Southern Kordofan as civilians were killed?
On September 8, Mulet rushed away from the Press, saying he had an appointment. The UN Spokesperson's Office took Inner City Press questions about the lack of a Status of Forces Agreement for Abyei -- the reason Sudan could block a medevac helicopter from Wau in South Sudan after which injured Ethiopian peacekeepers bled out and died -- but has yet to provide an answer. Now what?
Footnote: this is another reason that the continued absence of the new head of Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous who was named on September 2, is so outrageous.
There are scandals not only in Sudan but also in Haiti, where another deputy, the Department of Field Support's Tony Banbury, is now going. More than one Haitian has noted that it was Banbury who, when asked about the rape of Haitian women in the post-earthquake camps, said only three rapes? That elates me. Is Banbury the right person to go? Watch this site.
