By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, May 3 -- After the war in Southern Kordofan spread into Umm Rawaba in North Kordofan, on May 1 Sudan's Permanent Representative Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman told Inner City Press he had written to the UN Security Council asking them to condemn the attack.
Inner City Press has obtained Sudan's April 30 letter and puts it online, here. Inner City Press has also obtained Sudan's new May 3 letter and, also exclusively, puts it online here.
Inner City Press on May 1 asked US Ambassador Susan Rice about Sudan's request for a Council press statement. Rice told Inner City Press, with some sarcasm, "Like we've had so many statements recently."
Two days later, at 5 pm on Friday, May 3 Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman came to meet the Security Council president for May, Kodjo Menan of Togo, to press the point forward.
Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman told Inner City Press one point was double standards. The Security Council members express concern about violations of human rights elsewhere but, he said, in Abu Karshola dozens of civilians were "slaughtered;" a man was put on a table, cut into pieces.
An article attached to Sudan's May 3 letter gets into details -- the "looting... of personal cell phones," analogizing the attack to those of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.
Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said there were six thousand people held as "human shields." He said the attacks have the goal of unraveling agreements made between Sudan and South Sudan, and undermining the talks with the SPLM-North in Addis Ababa. That, he said, you'd think the Security Council would care about.
There are of course other issues, many of them. But do they mean the Security Council does and says nothing about this? What does that say about the Council? Watch this site.
Footnote: Inner City Press also asked Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman about the improbably named Telephone Kuku; Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said he was just released, and has more right to speak for the Nuba of Southern Kordofan than anybody. Speak by Telephone? Watch this site.
