In Darfur, Zamzam Camp Food Rations Cut in Half, Balsamic Vinegar for Sale in El Fasher

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc2darfur060508.html

ZAMZAM IDP CAMP, DARFUR, June 5 -- In a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles complete with UN peacekeepers brandishing rocket-propelled grenades, the members of the UN Security Council on Thursday visited the Zamzam Internally Displaced Persons camp here, thirteen kilometers south from El Fasher. They arrived on the camp's market day: pancakes and re-strung beds and cellular phones were for sale at small stalls amid the smell of donkey dung and the presence of UN police and peacekeepers. Residents interviewed by Inner City Press said that the rations provided by the UN's World Food Program have been cut in half. The peacekeepers, too, asked the press to publicize their needs. "Tell them we need resources," Abu Mansaray instructed. He spoke bitterly of the recent murder in the camp of a Ugandan peacekeeper, killed as he sat alone in his vehicle. "They didn't even steal his cell phone or his money," another person marveled.

The Council's convoy was watched over throughout by a looming UN helicopter. The road was patrolled by Sudanese military and police, parked in pickup trucks in the shade of the few trees.

"Where are the janjaweed?" one journalists demanded, impatiently.

"Further west on the border with Chad," answered another. "The JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] is based there, and there's a lot of retaliation."

The members of the Security Council entered a compound near where the convoy of busses came to park. Camp resident pressed up against the compound's fence, holding up handwritten signs for the Council, some with drawings of helicopter gunships killing people, one saying "No for war, yes for peaces!" The woman holding the sign said she was fifty years old; she used to grow vegetables until danger drove her into ZamZam camp.

El Fasher on the other hand has become another UN boom town. One returning visitor complained of houses now renting for four thousand a month. You can buy balsamic vinegar here now, it was noted. There is even a pizzeria. There are signs for CHF and German Agro Action. At the entrance to the UN Mission in Darfur camp, before the sand-filled barriers and the barbed wire, there is a white metal sign with large blue letters: PAE Darfur. It is a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. military contractor. Their rations are not being cut. In fact, they were awarded a multi-million dollar no-bid contract to serve food to peacekeepers, and place trailer homes in rows and call it a military base. How the pizza oven made its way into Darfur is not yet known. The question will be pursued.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc2darfur060508.html

Sudan Trumpets Museum of May 10 Justice and Equality Movement Attack, Omdurman as Evidence for ICC Indictment of Chad

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1omdurman060408.html

OMDURMAN, June 4 -- There are piles of pickup trucks with rocket launchers on the back heaped burned-out in Khalifa Square in Omdurman, a five minute drive from the Presidential Place in Khartoum. The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, part of the "state apparatus" which the International Criminal Court says is complicit with war crimes in Darfur, has produced a 60-page picture book entitled "The Aggression of Chad government on Omdurman, 10 May 2008."

Sudanese Major Jamal told Inner City Press that the vehicles and weapons, including equipment for Katyusha rockets and even poison darts, belonged to the Justice and Equality Movement and were purchased for them by Chad. He pointed to a picture of armed fighters on a pickup in front of a mosque, which he identified as the Sheikh Dawoud Adbullah Komba Mosque in Chad. They came from Chad, he said, and they fired on mosques and stores and civilians. As the square is ringed by pictures of President Omar al-Bashir, the intended meaning of the briefing could not have been clearer: Sudan is a victim of aggression, by an outside force which itself recruits child soldiers in violations of the laws of war. Why aren't JEM and the Chadian government being indicted by the ICC?

Khalifa Square, resonating with history for example of Ali Mahdi who fought the British and others, has been turned into a theme part, a sort of Mad Max militia museum. Major Jamal first read a speech standing at a lectern in a tent, and then answered questions while giving a tour of exhibits around the three sides of the square. First there were the vehicles. The leaders of JEM, he said, drove in cars which still have roofs. Lower-level fighters were in vehicles without windows or tops, many with rocket launchers mounted on the back. He said the government captured 90-some such vehicles, out of a total of 300 or more which attacked.

How such a convoy could have driven in from Chad or Darfur without being spotted and confronted, at least with Sudan's attack helicopters, remains unclear. The exhibit makes much of the range of Sudanese forces which stopped the incursion at Omdurman. But sources tell Inner City Press that the Army was slow to react, and most of the fighting was by police and security forces, some in civilian dress but wielding sub-machine guns. Regarding who funded the attack, alongside Chad sources point the finger north, to a member of the Security Council. We will have more on this.

Major Jamal showed sacks of powder he said was sorghum flour brought by the insurgents. He showed what he said were captured identity papers, including a work permit for World Vision. He showed a uniform with a incongruously new-looking "Tchad" patch sewn on the sleeve. He showed a passport that appeared to even have an exit visa in it ("Sortie"). Given that Sudan charges $151 for a visa to visit the country, at least if one comes from New York, one of Maj. Jamal's interlocutors joked that high visa fees may have been relevant to the attack.

The exhibit includes gruesome photographs of charred bodies, blood-splattered houses, and at least 18 vacant-eyed child soldiers.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was eager to present these children to the press, but they are one hour from Khartoum, and the time proposed conflicted with a press conference by members of the UN Security Council. These members, who traveled on June 3 to Juba in South Sudan and each signed the book of condolences and tribute to fallen leader John Garang, might want to make it their business to check out Omdurman. It is not everyday that dozens of burned out war trucks are piled up in a square under a large photograph of Ban Ki-moon. We will have more on this.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1omdurman060408.html