By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, January 12 -- When a group of 6000 fighters marched on Pibor in South Sudan earlier this month, the UN Mission UNMISS was unable to quickly respond because Russian helicopter pilots based in Juba has been refusing to fly for more than a month, as Inner City Press on January 11 exclusively reported.
On January 12, Inner City Press asked the UN to provide the its explanation of why it neglected to replace the Russian helicopters during that time, leading up to the slowly-responded to bloodbath in Pibor. By deadline seven hours later, no such explanation has been provided.
Russia stopped flying after its pilots were shot at, brought down and detained, for example in Louro and Chukudum in Eastern Equatoria State. In November in the Security Council, Russia's request for a Council Statement on the issue was blocked, sources told Inner City Press, by the United States. Requests to the US Mission at midday and then more formally at deadline for comment were not responded to.
In the consultations in the last week leading to a Pibor press statement by the Council, US Ambassador Susan Rice is said to have opined that the Russians, even if not under UN contract, could and should have flown to Pibor.
But, other Council members beyond Russia point out, it was the US which blocked a simple statement defending the Russian pilots back in November, as reported at that time by Inner City Press
In the post-Pibor press statement that the US did agree to, the issue appears in disguised or compromised form: "The members of the Security Council expressed concern with UNMISS' shortfall of operational air transport assets, which seriously impacts its ability to carry out its mandate, and urged the Secretary-General to continue efforts to address this problem."
Claims are made by one that one source about the Secretary General's efforts, and those of his head of the Department of Field Support Susana Malcorra.
Regardless of these efforts -- and Inner City Press is eager to be told about them -- the fact remains that the UN knew that it was leaving much of South Sudan unprotected from mid November, and at latest from December 1 when Malcorra was at a meeting in Juba with Hilde Johnson at which the refusal of the Russians to fly was discussed.
No one is saying that these UN officials wanted the bloodshed to occur, much less profited from it. But when $1 billion a year are spent to protect civilians, and an Organization knowingly proceeds without helicopters willing to fly for more than a month, the resulting inability to protect civilians can be blamed on negligence, on the current public record. And what happens next? Watch this site.
