By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 30 -- The UN seems barely able to keep up with events in Sudan, despite having two peacekeeping missions there, nor in South Sudan with one UN mission.
On December 29 and 30, Inner City Press asked the UN about reports on 17 killed in South Sudan by the Sudan Armed Forces, about fighting in Darfur and the alleged entry of the Darfur JEM rebels into South Sudan, and about the tear gassing of protests at University of Khartoum by Darfuri students, related to SAF's killing of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim (as well as displacement for a dam near Dammir.)
On the afternoon of December 30, the Office of the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon provided answers to some of these questions, but nothing about the protests in Khartoum:
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Questions
To: Matthew.Lee [at] InnerCityPress.com
On Sudan: UNAMID has received multiple reports of armed groups manoeuvring in the Adilla, El Daein and Geraida areas in South Darfur in recent days. The Mission is verifying the reports and has stepped up its patrolling in these areas. The intentions of the armed groups are not yet known.
Further, UNAMID and UNMISS are investigating the veracity of reports that JEM elements have crossed from South Darfur into Northern Bahr Al Ghazal and that Sudanese Armed Force aircraft have dropped bombs in Western Bahr Al Ghazal. The reports have not yet been confirmed.
Meanwhile, the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth and least competent Frenchman in a row to hold the post, appeared on the UN's web site on December 29 with a monologue bragging about DPKO's accomplishments.
For months Ladsous had dodged the press, canceling Q&A stakeouts and refusing to answer questions about Haiti, Rwanda and his role as chief of staff to disgraced former French foreign minister Michele Aliot-Marie in her flying on aircraft of cronies of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali.Now, without any questions allowed, the UN on December 29 put online a nearly four minute monologue by Ladsous, recorded on December 5, bragging about the UN's deployment in Abyei (where UN peacekeepers stood by as civilians were killed), about the elections in Liberia and, of course, France's pet project, the toppling of Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast. Video here.
Even in this propagandistic format, Ladsous could not come up with anything to say about the $1 billion mission in Darfur. Watch this site.
