By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 7 -- The day after Sudan defended its exclusion of the new Expert on Sudan Sanctions appointed last month by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Ghassan Schbley of the United States, on Friday the US Mission to the UN responded.
The US Mission's Deputy Spokesperson Payton L. Knopf told Inner City Press, "unfettered access for Panels of Experts is a fundamental principle. It is unacceptable that Sudan or any country would prevent a member of a Panel of Experts from conducting his or her work as mandated by the Security Council."
After Inner City Press first reported on the blocking and "interrogation" of Schbley by Sudan, it emerged from closed door Security Council consultations that this month's Council president, Morocco's Permanent Representative Loulichki, has been directed to "demarche" Sudan's Permanent Representative Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman on the topic.
But does that mean Loulichki will order Sudan to let Schbley in? And if so, would Sudan do so?
Inner City Press asked Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, who expanded on his Mission's letter which Inner City Presspublished yesterday. He said that Schbley has been on a Sudanese "blacklist for six years," based on activities "against the interest of Sudan."
But why then did Sudan give Schbley a visa, before not letting him in? This has yet to be answered, and at least one major non-Permanent member of the Council tells Inner City Press this is the key question.
Others want to know which incoming Security Council member will replace Nestor Osorio of Colombia as chair of the Sudan Sanctions Committee.
Pro-Khartoum sources snark to Inner City Press that Colombia was given the chair on Sudan and Iran sanctions because it is a supporter of US foreign policy, on these and more generally. These sources predict, admittedly without definitive knowledge, that the chair will go to like-minded South Korea.
But what of Schbley and Loulichki's "demarche" of Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman? Watch this site.
