In Goma, UN Council Lands Next to the Lava, Talks Justice in Mobutu's Villa by the Lake

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc2goma060808.html

GOMA, June 8 -- As part of the UN Security Council jetted to Goma and its lava-covered airstrip, the head of the UN Mission in the Congo Alan Doss told the press he needs drones and other surveillance equipment to deal with violence in Eastern Congo. When Inner City Press asked about reports that the UN peacekeepers from India got orders from New Delhi to stand down, while the CNDP militia of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda routed the Congolese Army in December, Doss acknowledged that some have criticized the UN for not getting more involved. In fact, the resounding defeat of the Congolese Army emboldened not only Nkunda's but also other militias. Most recently the Hutu FDLR killed nine people in the Rutshuru internally displaced persons camp. Malu Malu of the Amani disarmament process, also on the special UN plane, told the press that he understands that the FDLR were in retreat that day, and began shooting and killing in the IDP camp as a form of revenge.

As it turns out, Nkunda's CNDP captured many weapons from the Congolese army in December. The FDLR, Doss says, may be getting weapons in connection with the transportation and illegal trade of minerals, from the airports in Goma, Bukavu and Walicali. Doss mentioned the cell phone components coltan and casiterite, but gold is what these hills are known for. That this is what makes the acknowledged involvement of UN peacekeepers in illegal gold trading all the more outrageous was not mentioned by Mr. Doss.

Doss' plan, it seems, is to pay to buy back guns. There are safeguards: no group can get money for demobilization unless it can show that it has at least one gun per purported combatant, and that these know how to use the guns. How this test is administered was not said. Then they get a rebel I.D. card, which they can use to get their benefits. Groups have been recruiting more fighter, just to raise their payments and their leverage. Still it is more credible that in Nepal, where the Maoists claimed they had seven times as many fighters as guns.

Another part of the plan is to offer FDLR dead-enders the option of being relocated elsewhere in the Congo. It's hard to imagine a community, at least in Congo, that would welcome an influx of FDLR fighters, in a sort of witness protection program. But apparently money can solve their problems.

The UN plane to Goma was barely half full. The reason, Doss said, was that with the runway shortened by the volcanic lava that still covers a third of it, if full of people a plane cannot be full of fuel. Inner City Press asked him how much it would cost to clear the runway of lava. "Fifteen million dollars," Doss answered.

When the plane came down through the clouds, over the lake with the volcano in the distance, journalists and ambassadors marveled. "It's like Switzerland," one said. Busses whisked them through streets of wooden houses to a lakeside villa once used by Mobutu. There they met with the Governor of North Kivu Julien Paluku. Blue uniformed soldiers patrolled the lawn, one with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. At a stakeout on the lawn after the meeting, Inner City Press asked Governor Paluku if he thought the International Criminal Court could be helpful to the disarmament process. Yes, he said, impunity must end. The busses continued to the Sylvia Lodge, where soldiers stood with tear gas canisters by the lakeside. Only in the Congo...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc2goma060808.html

Eastern Congo Violence Allowed by UN, Fancy Uvira Camp as Council Visits Goma, Gold and Guns Denied

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1goma060808.html

EN ROUTE TO GOMA, June 8, updated Kigali June 9 -- As Security Council members head to Eastern Congo, the UN's own performance in the Congo has been called into question. It has emerged that during the fighting in December in North Kivu in which the forces of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda soundly thrashed the Congolese Army, the UN Peacekeeping battalion in the area, Indian nationals, stood down and did not fight. Worse, the orders to take no chances are said to have come from New Delhi, which continues to cash big UN checks for providing peacekeepers to UN mission. But what's the value, in a place like Eastern Congo, if the troops refuse to fight?

Inner City Press at a Thursday news conference in Kinshasa asked the UN's Alan Doss, head of the UN Mission in the Congo, what he is doing about documented allegations that Indian peacekeepers in Eastern Congo traded for gold, with rebels, and that a Pakistani contingent did the same, according to new interviews given by militia leaders Dragon and Kung Fu from prison in Kinshasa. Doss off-handedly questioned how anyone could interview them, since they are in prison. Then he repeated the party line from the UN in New York, that these allegations have already been investigated, and only a few of them found true. But even for those found true -- for example, the Pakistanis who drove illegal gold traders around in UN vehicles -- no punishment has been issued. The Pakistanis were sent back to their country, but despite a "note verbale" from the UN, Pakistan has refused to say what discipline, if any, has been imposed on them.

In fairness to the Pakistanis, many in the region marvel at the way they have transformed the Eastern Congo town of Uvira, or at least their forward base there. An officers' club serves the best Punjabi food, there are Christmas lights on the trees and even swimming and light surfing, when the crocodiles allow. The physical improvements, it is said, are characterized as quick impact projects in the UN's budget. But quick impact for who?

More seriously on the war crimes and military fronts, the International Criminal Court's indictment and arrest of Jean-Pierre Bemba has caused reactions from other powers on the ground. Nkunda, it is said, sealed off the areas he controls in the days after Bemba's arrest. A senior member of Joseph Kabila's government who hails from Eastern Congo is said to be re-forming his own militia, in case he needs to hide there. One can never be too prepared. The ICC has promised, and for consistency's sake must bring, indictments about the Kivus. Who'll come first? And are the investigating claims that Rwanda has supplied Nkunda, specifically through Ugandan territory? And what of the colleague of still-free Peter Karim, who was in a U.S. training program? If responsibility were truly followed to the top, the Permanent Five members of the Council would not be sitting so pretty. They do, however, have veto rights on Council votes and all of its Chapter VII resolutions like those aimed at Sudan. This Council power over the ICC process was again denied at the Saturday night press conference in Kinshasa's Grand Hotel, when Inner City Press asked Amb. Ripert how Bemba had come up in the earlier meetings in the Palais du Peuple. "The ICC is a completely independent body," Ripert said, the Council is not to interfere with the ICC. But the Rome Statute itself allows the Council to refer cases to the ICC, and even to freeze and put on hold indictments that have been issued by the ICC.

The Council members' program starts in Goma, with a meeting at the Governor's office then "lunch with Malu Malu" at the Stella Hotel. The risque part is set for Sunday afternoon, a visit to the Mugunga I camp for internally displaced people. An earlier version of the program, shown to Inner City Press, said to have security ready to extract the Council members if the IDPs get violent. It also urged proper behavior by the Congolese National Police (in French the PNC), at least during the few hours that the Council is in Goma. After that...

The Council is not visiting Sake, the town repeatedly taken by Nkunda. Nor will they visit the Rutshuru camp, which the FDLR recently attacked. The group's press release after the attack, issued by an ex-UN Development Program employee who used UNDP equipment to kill Tutsis, was circulated for response within MONUC's highest reaches. Don't dignify it with a direct response, was the decision. Ridicule it obliquely and really drive the FDLR crazy. But is that what's needed now? Crazier behavior?

Some in the Congo whisper that Alan Doss, though a nice guy, is not the right man for the task. He did well in relatively post-conflict situations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire. But the Congo is not truly post-conflict at this time. William Lacy Swing, for all his other bluster for example on Kazana, the town torched by the Congolese Army under the watchful eye of UN peacekeepers then denied, was a hands-on guy, who went out to hold meetings even while fighting raged around him, as in March 2007 in Kinshasa. He moved in an armored personnel carrier and had to be extracted from Jean-Pierre Bemba's house. This is not Alan Doss. His approach in the East seems to involve throwing money at the rebels. The so-called Kisangani process, the Goma accord, all of it, has given rise to the hand-out of per diems to purportedly rebels, some of them imposters. The idea is that if you're paying them, there will not be as much fighting. But close observers of the Kivus note for example that sexual abuse has gone up as fighting has done down, as rage and violence is displaced as people are. The number of IDPs has increased, a troubling fact that Doss and MONUC try, rather than addressing, to spin away by saying the higher count is attributable solely to having more access.

Speaking of access, or the lack thereof, the French have gotten worse. On the flight from Chad to Kinshasa, there was not a word from Ambassador Ripert. It's said that Sarkozy's public face of human rights, Ms. Rama Yade, was in town. But again no questions were allowed. As with Chad, missing opposition leaders and Deby's mass evictions, she's got some 'plaining to do about the Congo. Back in March 2007, after hundreds were killed in Kinshasa, France arrived with an aid package and new cooperation agreement, replete with secret clauses. As Inner City Press reported on the way from Sudan to Chad, French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert bristled at questions about France's deal with Chad, insisting it is not for defense but only... ammunition. So where are these agreements?

Footnote: Also on the security front, it has emerged that back when the Council was still considering visiting Somalia, the UK offered MI6 as protection but was rejected by the UN. UK Ambassador John Sawers left the delegation on Saturday night, whisked to the airport from the Palais de Peuple in a four-by-four flying his country's flag. More and more Ambassadors are leaving; even some still in Kinshasa were said to stay poolside and not venture to Goma. In fact, the remaining Ambassadors flew to Goma, although some forewent the IDP camp visit for an NGO briefing that one Ambassador afterwards characterized as same-old, same-old, even "canned." By the time the trip gets to Abidjan, it may be only Burkina and the Press. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1goma060808.html

UN Council Faces and Dodges Congolese Push-Back About Bemba's Indictment by ICC

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Preses in Africa:
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1bemba060708.html

KINSHASA, June 7 -- The UN Security Council's contradictory stance on the International Criminal Court was on display Saturday in Kinshasa, in the corridors of the huge Palace of the People. Emerging from an hour-long meeting with Congolese Senators, France's Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert told local reporters that while the issue of the ICC had been brought up, the ICC is entirely independent from the Council, and thus he had nothing to say on the matter. But back in Sudan, earlier in this ten-day Council trip from Africa, Amb. Ripert had bragged about France's position, later clarified to be the European Union's as well, that "further measures" might have to be taken on Sudanese officials who don't cooperate with the Court. So speaking in and of Sudan, the Security Council speaks of the Court and condemns those who don't comply. But speaking in and of the Congo, to legislators angry that one of their own was arrested in Belgium without notice, the Security Council claims it has nothing to do with the ICC, and refuses to answer questions.

Inner City Press then asked Costa Rican Ambassador Jorge Urbina, who often speaks about the rule of law, how the issue had come up, and if it concerned Bemba. He nodded in assent, but repeated the argument that the Security Council is entirely separate from the Court. Meanwhile, his country at the ministerial level is pushing a Presidential Statement at the Council in New York, to back up ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. So what's this about selective separations between the Council and Court?

The Palace of the People is a huge, Soviet-style building. The Council moved from its Senate meeting through a darkened hallway to meet with members of the Assembly. A videographer and sound-man argued with security about a stolen tripod. "This disappear here mysteriously all the time," a knowing local quipped. She predicted that the UN will never leave the Congo, at least not under Kabila. "They call it Maman Monique," she said, using the Congolese i-for-u pronunciation.

While the Council Ambassadors met with legislators and ministers, in the streets of Kinshasa the talk was of the Ministre de Poubelles, the Minister of Garbage, a famous local artist. Another artist, a popular painter, has a work called Le Ministre Inutil, the Useless Minister. There is a vibrant art scene and street life in Kinshasa, that Maman Monique has little to do with. Except MONUC-ers in their personal time. More on this to follow.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1bemba060708.html

Congo's Kabila Praises Indictment of his Enemies, UN Spins Kivu Displacement

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1kabila060708.html

KINSHASA, June 7 – After being scoffed at by Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, that the U.S. would demand compliance with the International Court of which it is not a mention, and after Chad's president Idriss Deby Itno did not even meet with them, the UN Security Council members on Saturday found an African leader who praised them, albeit behind closed doors. Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo came in to the blue-ceilinged meeting room where the Ambassadors were waiting, shook hands and asked what the press was doing there. In the closed-door meeting that followed, Kabila said that he's found that arrest by the International Criminal Court of militia leaders, most of them his opponents, "is a very good thing," according to Inner City Press' sources in the meeting. It's not surprising that he would praise these arrests, of opponents in Ituri and most recently of Jean-Pierre Bemba, his main challenger in the last election.

After the meeting, Inner City Press asked French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the leader for this leg of the Council's ten day cross-Africa tour, if the issue of the draw-down of the UN Mission in the Congo had come up. Of course, he said, but it will not happen soon, and should not happen abruptly. When the UN and its Council finally find a place they are wanted, they want to stay. The UK's John Sawers, who confirmed that he is leaving the delegation tonight then headed to London to prepare for a visit by Ban Ki-moon, bragged that his country has become the biggest aid donor to the DRC. "France can't be happy with that," it was suggested. Then they should raise their foreign aid, was the reply.

That the UN or at least its officials in the know are, however, looking beyond the DRC is exemplified by the plan by the long-time spokesman for MONUC, Kemal Saiki, to decamp for a similar position with the UN Mission in Darfur by mid-July. He will be replaced by Kevin Kennedy from UN Peacekeeping in New York, but only in September.

How will messages be crafted in the interim? For example, faced with NGOs' exposes that the number of displaced in North Kivu has been increasing so far this year, MONUC has tried to ascribe this to increased humanitarian access. According to MONUC, it's a positive and not negative story in the Eastern Congo. Being so Pollyanna is, however, a double-edged sword. If things are so good, the drawdown should begin. The Council's next stop will be in North Kivu -- watch this site.

Footnote: The press waited in the palace's first floor, where six air-conditioners cooled an open-air patio facing the river. There were portraits of Kabila, in nearly every room, and also once on the second floor of Patrice Lumumba. On the way into the compound, soldiers with automatic weapons demanded that no photos be taken.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1kabila060708.html

France-Led UN Council Goes Soft on Chad, Child Soldiers Unanswered, Strange Approach to JEM

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc2chad060608.html

CHAD, June 6-7 -- The UN Security Council in a convoy of 24 four-wheel drive vehicles moved Friday across the Chadian plain, from Goz Beida to the internally displaced persons camp of . French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert stopped to have his picture taken with IDP children, some of whom wore Eminem t-shirts. Later he would close the Council's meeting with non-governmental organizations to the press, saying "they need to be protected." Since this is precisely what was said Thursday in Sudan, one wondered the basis for France and the most vocal members of the Council saying that Chad's Idriss Deby is appreciably better. But that appears to be the Council's party line.

Just before ejecting the press from his NGO meeting, Ripert asked if "bilateral ambassadors" -- that is, non-Council members -- could attend Friday evening's meeting with Deby. But of course. Even though there are questions one expected the Council to get Deby's answers to, it became then even clearer that unlike the meeting with Bashir on Thursday, Friday's planned session with Deby would be little more than a photo-op.

On the plane ride from Khartoum to Abeche, Amb. Ripert came back to speak with the press. When Inner City Press asked about France's agreement with the Deby government, Ripert said, we are not here to talk about that, I will tell you once, it is a cooperation agreement, for medicine, ammunition and training. When asked if the two soldiers on EUFOR patrol who went into Sudan and were shot were, in fact, France, Ripert said, they were EUFOR, that's all. But the UNAMID peacekeeper killed recently in the Zamzam camp was described as Ugandan, that's how news is reported.

While in Chad the Council spent more time listening and looking than they did Thursday in Darfur's Zamzam camp, still some of the interaction felt scripted. To two separate meetings, UK Ambassador John Sawers said, "Yesterday we pressed President al-Bashir." In the first meeting, applause became before Sawers had even finished the phrase. In the second, at the Chadian IDP camp, there was only silence. In fact, sources in the Council's meeting with al-Bashir describe Sawers, far from pressing Bashir, getting pressed by him, when he made complaints in the name of NGOs. "We set up a commission for that," al-Bashir said. "Why are the NGOs raising it to you, and you to me?"

In Chad, the Council ended up meeting not with Deby but only with the new prime minister Youssouf Saleh Abbas and a handful of others quickly dubbed the B Team. They met in what looked like a living room, but for Deby's portrait on the wall of the living room and throughout the house. The Prime Minister left halfway through, to pick up Deby from the airport, saying he had just returned from Libya. Afterwards, Inner City Press asked if they had even mentioned the issues they had said while in Sudan they would be raising here. Where is the Chadian opposition leader who disappeared earlier this year and whose whereabouts are still unknown? Did Chad fund the Justice and Equality Movement's assault on Omdurman on May 10? Were child soldiers recruited and captured, as the UN Mission in Darfur's own Rodolphe Adada told Inner City Press has been confirmed?

Ambassador Ripert dodged the questions, saying they had discussed "human rights" and the "rule of law," and that Chad denied supporting the JEM attack on Khartoum. He did not even respond on child soldiers or the missing opposition leader. When the BBC's Africa hand asked if there was any precedent for a president being in his country and refusing to meet with a full Security Council delegation, Ripert claimed the Deby was still not in the country, despite what had earlier been said about the purpose of the Prime Minister rushing to the airport.

At a reception on the spacious back lawn of the residence of France's Ambassador to Chad, on which a small gazelle was on display, Ripert introduced UNHCR's Serge Male, and then walked away.

Did France ask Deby to pardon the NGO workers from L'Arche de Zoe from their convictions for kidnapping children from Sudan and Chad? Were these the NGOs who "needed to be protected"?

UK Ambassador John Sawers declined to answer questions, saying he thought that work had stopped. For the journalists, it had -- the hotel the UN put them in, with the highest room rate yet, had no Internet in the rooms, and the lights went out even as the delegation turned in. UN sources say that the Special Representative of the Secretary General had neglected to extend the UN room rate with the hotel.

Inner City Press asked this SRSG, Victor Angelo, to respond to criticism that "international" action in Chad, particularly but not only EUFOR, is mostly French interests dressed in the clothes of internationalism. Angelo declined to comment on the record about EUFOR. Likewise when Inner City Press asked if the Justice and Equality Movement is active in Chad, Angelo said his answer was off the record. This was amazing, in context, given that the UN claims to work for and not around its member states.

Only the third of Inner City Press' three questions did he answer without going off the record. Inner City Press asked about statements in the British parliament that two of the UN's last top representatives in Zimbabwe were so close to Robert Mugabe that they took property from him. "She has retracted that," Angelo quickly answered, adding that she was probably referring to "the Cameroonian" who came between himself and the present head of UN operations in Zimbabwe. Yes I spoke with Mugabe right to the end, Angelo said. Just as now he deals with Idriss Deby and even certain rebel groups he supports.

Ripert has promised to be open to the press, to take them everywhere that the Ambassadors go. But as soon as the delegation got off the plane in Abeche, Ripert and the Council got into 4 by 4s and sped off, leaving the press seeking shade under a tree, under the watchful and at times leering eye of Chadian troops. When the Council came back and poured into two smaller planes, the press was suddenly told that there must be a pooling arrangement, leaving some under that tree in Abeche for the next four hours. Finally Inner City Press was allowed on a helicopter marked "UN" but operated by "Vertical T," the company which crashed one and perhaps two copters in Nepal, killing at least ten.

An even smaller pool was then projected for the visit to Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the region where the UN is most systemically accused of wrongdoing, from sexual abuse to, as Inner City Press has reported in detail, the trading by UN peacekeepers of guns for gold. After some push-back, it's said that a second plane, that will go and return early, is being arranged. We'll see -- watch this site.

Full disclosure: the majority of this column was written on a UN helicopter from Goz Beida, back to Abeche, run not by Vertical T but rather UTair.ru. The article was ready to be filed from five p.m. onwards, but the UN had not even made sure there would be Internet access for the press. Victor Angelo had not renewed the UN room rate or booked a press room, as UNMIS had done in Sudan. The UN, it seems clear, wants there to be criticism of Sudan, but not of Chad.

News analysis: At least as to the Sudan and Chad, the UN and its Council do not appear to be working even-handedly to try to settle disputes. They may even be exacerbating conflict, largely because the Council has openly become a tool of some of its PermanentFive members.

Final footnote on fruit: Friday morning at the Khartoum airport, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN vented to Inner City Press about a Costa Rica-sponsored draft Presidential Statement introduced in the Security Council in New York in support of the International Criminal Court's actions on Sudan. We do not intervene in the affairs of banana republics, he said. Why are they intervening in ours? Panama's Ambassador, asked by a reporter for a response, said, "At least we are a republic." After the wan meeting with the Chadian B Team, many Ambassadors left. But we intend to continue to report, in spite of rather than with in the assistance of the UN, at least in Chad.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc2chad060608.html

UN Council Has Questions to Ask Chad, from Child Soldiers to Pardons and Carjacking

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1chad060608.html

SPECIAL UN PLANE, June 6 -- As UN Security Council members head from Sudan to Chad, questions have arisen to be asked. Sudan's display of armed pickup trucks captured during the Justice and Equality Movement's May 10 assault on Omdurman included purported evidence of Chad's involvement in the attack, including photos of 18 child soldiers Sudan is holding one hour from Khartoum. Late on June 5, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed to the press a 16-minute DVD including interviews with some of the children, one saying for example that he had been kidnapped to "the place of Deby," that is, N'djamena. The DVD ends by urging the international community to pursue the issues not only with and against JEM, but also Chad.

Even while Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, in his closed-door meeting with the Council on June 5, said he will never turn over Ahmad Harun or Ali Kushayb to the International Criminal Court, it is something of a test of fairness to see if in fact these questions are asked of Chadian authorities. Al-Bashir also alleged Thursday that the humanitarian groups' vehicles which are carjacked in Darfur are taken to Chad, with the knowledge of both the UN and of Deby's government. Essentially, Sudan is accusing Deby of involvement in carjacking.

One imagines a sequel version of the video game Grand Theft Auto.

In a large meeting room in the compound of the Wali of North Darfur on June 5, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN issued a criticism of France's role in the "kidnapping of children" by the French NGO L'Arche de Zoe, including in getting the NGO workers pardoned by President Deby. France's Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert rushed back into the room and said that France played no role in Deby's pardons. Afterwards on the tarmac of El Fasher airport in Darfur, Inner City Press asked Sudan's UN Ambassador for his response to Ripert's claim. "Nothing move in Chad without the wish of France," he said. One wonders what motive Deby could have had, absent a French request, to pardon Europeans who tried to kidnap his country's children. This too should be pursued.

France has promised a better-organized leg of this Security Council tour, including taking all journalists to refugee camps in Eastern Chad, and allowing them and the Ambassadors time and place to speak directly with the refugees. We'll see. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1chad060608.html

Sudan's Bashir Cites US Precedents Against It, Calls Lockheed "Bizarre," Urged to Forgive JEM

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc5khartoum060508.html

KHARTOUM, June 5 -- The UN Security Council Ambassadors were dressed-down by Sudanese President Al Bashir on Thursday, in harsher terms than the Ambassadors afterwards acknowledged to the press. After Bashir had finished his opening speech, all journalists were asked to leave, so that the Council members' questions and Basher's answered would stay secret.

Surprisingly soon after this closed-door meeting began, the Ambassadors emerged, some of them grim-faced, and trooped out to their bus. Sudan's Ambassador to the UN told Inner City Press that the procurement issue sprang directly from the PAE / Lockheed Martin no-bid contract. He said that his president had told the Ambassadors that Sudan would never turn over any of its people to the ICC, particularly when a member of the Security Council also doesn't accept the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Back at the Rotana Hotel, Inner City Press asked if President Bashir had spoken about a member denying ICC jurisdiction, and if so how the Council had responded. UK Ambassador Sawers, gesturing to U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, said he'd leave the response to the member in question. There are others, Amb. Wolff noted. He then said that since it involved a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, Sudan is required to comply.

Inner City Press asked for a response to a more specific fairness question: since the U.S. has a veto on the Security Council, it could never be referred to the ICC by the Council. But that is how Sudan has been referred. Their reasons and our reasons to argue jurisdiction are different, Wolff said. And then the official press conference was over, with nary a mention of the "local procurement" issue which President al Bashir had raised even in the opening meeting.

Sources who were inside the meeting tell Inner City Press that Bashir specifically attacked the PAE - Lockheed contract in comments to the Council. Why choose an American company to build camps? he asked. Since the U.S. says that its companies can't do business in Sudan, why is the UN assisting a violation of a sanctions regime? He asked under what legal regime this was done, and he did not get an answer.

Bashir also asked, even if Sudan does allow Thai peacekeepers to deploy, why they would be brought in on American planes? Since both the Lockheed contract and the current air transport plans are attributable to the previous chief of the UN Department of Field Support, it has been suggested that the issues be revisited by the new DFS head, Susana Malcorra.

On the ICC, Bashir said pointedly that Sudan learned it disregard from its "elders," the United States. Bashir asked why, if the U.S. could invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and fire missiles into Somalia, Sudan can't act against Chad-backed rebels who make an attack on Khartoum. The Council wanly tried to convince him to forgive, in essence, the JEM. This doesn't seem likely.

Footnote: Also being revisited is the Council's modus operandi in IDP camps. On Thursday at the Zamzam camp in Darfur, only the UK's John Sawers was able to get out of the staged meeting and talk to some displaced people, if only in the market. Other Ambassadors faced questions of why they were removed from the people, that no one knew who they were. Several expressed dissatisfaction at the co-head's "grand-standing," calling it "the John Sawers show." Our take, in fairness, is that it's not easy running events for four straight days. We'll be watching the France / Ripert show closely -- especially in light of word on the Khartoum street that Monsieur R may not now by head of Peacekeeping. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc5khartoum060508.html

Sudan's Bashir in Open Meeting Calls for Local Procurement, Derides "Vicious Campaign"

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc4khartoum060508.html

KHARTOUM, June 5 -- Mere hours after International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo called his government's hindrance of deployment of the UN Mission in Darfur a crime, Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir spoke before the 15 members of the UN Security Council, denouncing a "vicious campaign" that "tarnishes the image, heritage and values" of his country. While not directly mentioning the ICC, he blamed the continuing "crisis in Darfur" on the groups which did not sign the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, principally the Justice and Equality Movement, whose march on Khartoum was stopped just across the Nile in Omdurman on May 10. This he blamed on Chad's government.

He took several swipes at the UN, most notably reminding the Security Council members of the admonition by the wider General Assembly in December 2006 in connection with UNAMID's budget to in the future give priority to regional and African contractors. This was done in a series of paragraphs which called for an investigations of the UN's $250 million no-bid contract with Lockheed Martin, for camps in Darfur. In his speech, President Bashir said that "as decided by the UN General Assembly resolution on the financing of UNAMID, we urge that similar attention be given to local procurement and contractors. Sudan's Ambassador to the UN greeted Inner City Press in the ill-lit green corridor of Khartoum's Friendship Hall, deriving Lockheed Martin's contract and PAE subsidiary, for which he's said visas will be pulled in July 2008.

U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the press, on the UN's special plane flying back from Darfur to the meeting, that he intended to raise to President Al Bashir his government's failure to execute the ICC's warrants on Ali Kushayb and Ahmad Harun, who is Sudan's Minister of Humanitarian Affairs. There was a name plate for this position on the meeting table Thursday night, but Harun did not attend. The UN's Ashraf Qazi and Rodolphe Adada sat on the Sudanese side of the table, across from the 15 Council members. Wolff was next to last. A reporter joked that he'd been put at the end of the table on purpose. After I speak, he said, they may put me in the [translation] booth [at the end of the room.

Before each place at the table was a set of water and orange soda and a bowl with a few hard candies and nuts. There were displays of dead floors set on tripods. When Al Bashir had finished, the press was told to leave. "There's no news," some reporters said. Another pointed out Bashir's prediction, echoing one earlier by his UN Ambassador, that the problem of Abyea will be addressed very soon between him and South Sudanese president Salva Kiir. What about procurement, the swipe at the non-bid Lockheed contract? It made the wires today, it was pointed out, after being virtually ignored since October, even after the General Assembly, which has cited Inner City Press on the topic, specifically criticized and asked for an investigation of the Lockheed contract, and that preference be given in the future for local and African companies. In the half-light outside the closed door Bashir meeting, it felt like the Lockheed issue had ripened. And in fact it was raised again in the closed-door session, where the contract was called "bizarre" by President Bashir, according to sources at the meeting. Additional story to follow.

On the humanitarian front, the World Food Program has had 76 trucks of food hijacked on the roads between El Obeid and Darfur. Fifty trucks and 36 drivers are still missing. Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers why the UN can't provide some protection to the WFP trucks, perhaps similar to the large UN helicopter which hovered protectively over the Security Council's bus Thursday on the road from El Fasher to the Zamzam internally displaced persons camp. Ambassador Sawers said that the UN Mission in Darfur cannot operate all the way to El Obeid, and the UN Mission in Sudan does not have a presence there either. To some, the UN's acceptance of the waste implicit in having two entirely separate missions in the same country now takes on a more ominous hue. We will continue to follow these issues.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc4khartoum060508.html

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

In Darfur, No-Bid Contract Problem Ripens, UN Ambassadors Jockey for Position, Children Wave

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1lockheed060508.html

DARFUR, June 5 -- As the members of the Security Council flew Thursday to Darfur, a long-simmering scandal of the UN's $250 million no-bid contract with Lockheed Martin's PA&E subsidiary came to the fore. The head of the UN Mission in Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, told Inner City Press that while Sudan has stayed firm that Lockheed cannot get any more extensions of its no-bid contract, the issue was discussed between Sudan and U.S. Envoy Richard Williamson before he stormed out of Khartoum earlier this week, saying he was "sad and disappointed." Sources indicate this concerned the Lockheed Martin contract in Darfur and not only the growing tension in Abyea in the south. In the airport terminal before the flight to Darfur, Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed said while his country had granted the UN's plea for a three month extension for Lockheed Martin through July, that will be "final... no more visas will be given."

On the airport tarmac in El Fasher, as Inner City Press photographed the ritual handshakes between UN Ambassadors and local dignitaries dressed in bright white robes, a Sudanese military handler grabbed at the camera. He pointed behind the photo-op at two helicopter gunships marked with the Sudanese flag. "You do not make photograph of that," he said, indicating that he wanted to see the camera's monitor. An apology was given, and the slow drive over sand roads to the UNAMID base began, led by a mixture of Sudanese military and UN-African Union peacekeeping troops, some bearing the acronym AMIS.

South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, when told that the delegate would only visit a single internally-displaced persons camp and that only for an hour asked, "What are we, tourists?" By the time the Ambassadors reached the UNAMID camp -- which does have a large PA&E sign outside -- the program had been modified, to confine the UNAMID briefings to a minimum and allow more time in the field, with the Wali of North Darfur put to the end of the Council's program, "when we will know what we've seen," Amb. Kumalo said.

SRSG Adada, asked if he thinks that Sudanese government wants peace in Darfur, said "we have to assume so, no? It is not simple for any country to accept foreigners with arms in their country. If they do they must want peace." Inner City Press asked about the issue of the child soldiers that Sudan says it captured during the Justice and Equality Movement assault on Omduran. Adada said the child soldiers exist, there are 89 of them, and that UNICEF has visited them. On Wednesday, UK Ambassador John Sawers had said the UN has no proof about the child soldiers. Perhaps Adada will share these facts with him on Thursday. The question remains of what the UN will do about the issue.

As the plane descended toward El Fasher, Amb. Sawers took some questions from the press. Inner City Press asked him about the Lockheed Martin contract, without a real response, and told him about the Aegis Trust film, put online this week, of Darfur witnesses against Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb. Amb. Sawers agreed, pretty damning. A French reporter asked him if the UK will "follow the French" and threaten sanctions on those in the Sudanese government who do not cooperate with the International Criminal Court.

"Follow the French?" Amb. Sawers asked, clearly peeved. "I thought they were following us." The scuttlebutt is that since French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert is said to be angling to take over from Jean-Marie Guehenno as head of UN Peacekeeping, he is positioning himself even in closed-door consultations as the man with an extra idea, an extra thing to say. On the plane, Amb. Sawers added that Ripert had only been laying out a European Union position, and that the UK has member a member of the EU for 35 years, it is not "following" France.

As these Permanent Five bickered, children in front of mud houses waved at the passing convoy of soldiers all armed to the teeth. Welcome to Darfur. To be continued.

Full disclosure: this column was written in a windowless trailer in the UNAMID camp... courtesy of Lockheed Martin and the $250 million no-bid contract it was given.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1lockheed060508.html

As UN Council Heads to Darfur Camp, Questions of Mandate, Abyei and Changing Beliefs

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1darfur060508.html

SUDAN, June 5, updated 4 p.m. Darfur -- As the UN Security Council heads for a day of talks in Darfur, the UN's limitations and weaknesses in The Sudan are front and center. Despite the UN's tens of thousands of personnel in South Sudan, it stood by as civilians fled Abyei. In the North, the UN ostensibly knows near nothing about the Justice and Equality Movement's incursion with hundreds of armed pickup trucks to the outskirts of Khartoum in Omdurman last month, nor about the child soldiers Sudan says it has been holding since then.

The night before the Council's Thursday visit to Darfur, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told Inner City Press that he believes the UN Mission in Sudan already has the legal authority to get between combatants in Abyei, to protect civilians. Meanwhile the U.S. consul in Juba, and charge d'affaires for all of the Sudan, has a different view, that a new Security Council resolution would be needed. Inner City Press asked him if he thinks a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter would be needed, as opposed to UNMIS' current Chapter VI mandate. I'm not a lawyer, he answered.

He lives in one bedroom of a three bedroom house, his deputy works and sleeps in another of the bedrooms. They have a swimming pool, one of only two in Juba, which he says they describe to the State Department as a water storage facility. Another savvy U.S. diplomat charged new curtains as "security screening." As with the UN Mission in Sudan, whatever it takes.

Ambassador Wolff told Inner City Press he would be presenting his interpretation of UNMIS' mandate to the Special Representative of the Secretary General Ashraf Qazi. What Qazi would do next is anyone's guess.


Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed took issue with the fact that Qazi's legal advisor allegedly spoke against the press tour of captured pickup trucks and weapons in Omdurman. "We were going to take strong action against him," the Ambassador said. Qazi acknowledged but did not answer Inner City Press' questions about the child soldiers Sudan says it is holding, which UK Ambassador John Sawers said the UN in Sudan is investigating.

After more than three weeks it is time for conclusions. If JEM and Chad recruited them, action is needed. In any event, 12-year old children should not be captives.

In Darfur on June 5, the Council will first visit with the Wali of North Darfur, and UNAMID's senior leadership including Rodolphe Adada and General Martin Agwai, Henry Anyidoho, Hocine Medili, Michael Fryer, Wolfgang Weiszegge, Aminata Thiaw and "UN Country Team Representative" Oluseyi Bajulaiye.

This will be followed by a one hour whirlwind visit to a camp for internally displaced persons. Although the which camp will be visited has presumably been known to a variety of Sudanese interlocutors, Inner City Press will leave the location and tribal makeup unidentified until the delegation has left. It is a camp, however, which UNAMID police have yet to patrol at night, one patrolled by armed personnel of the SLM/A Minni Minawi faction and closely watched, the UN says, by the Government of Sudan.

Back at the ARC Compound -- whether any of the $250 million the UN awarded to Lockheed Martin on a no-bid basis has been used for the compound remains to be seen -- there will be a closed briefing: "media representatives will take photographs and then leave the room." Then representatives of the humanitarian community and the UN Country team will "make presentations to the Council and interact with them." The NGOs listed included Malteser, Action Contre la Faim, Oxfam and Partner Aid International. [Names of individuals have been removed, tellingly due to their expressed fear of being targeted.] Not on the list of organizations to be be with were SUDA, Relief International, CHF, Plan Sudan and, most strikingly, the Sudanese Red Crescent.

Inner City Press on Wednesday asked a major figure in the NGO community in Sudan if she deals with Ahmad Harun, the minister of humanitarian affairs who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. We deal with the ministry, I probably shouldn't say any more than that, she replied.

Perhaps relatedly, earlier on Wednesday Inner City Press was ejected by uniformed UN Development Program guards from a UNDP workshop held at a spacious hotel in Khartoum. The sign outside said "Sudan Competency Workshop." No answer was even given about what training was being offered. Subsequently, a UNDP representative explained it was UNDP's training entitled "Emotional Intelligence: Empowering Self to Serve Others!" She had flown in from New York to give the training. "My work is cutting edge," she said. The 10-page hand-out among other things encourages UN personnel in Sudan to "release beliefs that no longer serve us" and "step out of the 'right / wrong' or 'good / bad' dualistic thinking." Whether this is what is happening with the UN in Darfur remains to be seen. Watch this site.

Footnotes: UNMIS computers are unable to play the two CD-DVDs which the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave entited "The Chadian Forces and its [sic] Aggression on Omdurman, Sudan" and "The Terrorist Justice and Equality Movement." Those urging more ICC action on Sudan, on the other hand, have put their materials streaming on the Web, including this week a 17-minute film just put online by the Aegis Trust showing blurry-faced survivors of attacks on three towns in Darfur naming Ahmad Harun as providing money and orders to Ali Kushayb, to directed looting and killing. Click here to view the film. On this we will have more as well.

We will continue to ask, what now is the UN's role inside Sudan? While Security Council members met with officials of the Sudanese government on Wednesday, UN staff facilitated the transmission of that government's message to the traveling press. It went beyond translation, to promises to provide official numbers of the dead at Omdurman. "The UN is providing propaganda," one attendee muttered. While Inner City Press now thinks that reasonable minds can differ on this, probably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could and should have found its own translator and even facilitator for this material. In shepherding Security Council members around on Thursday, a different UN / UNAMID approach is anticipated. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1darfur060508.html

In Sudan, UN Security Council Doesn't Know of Child Soldiers, Split on International Criminal Court

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc3khartoum060408.html

KHARTOUM, June 4 -- The Sudanese government has published the photographs of 18 children, who it says were recruited into and participated in the assault on Omdurman on May 10. The issue was raised today to the UN Security Council delegation in Khartoum by Nafie Al Nafie, advisor to President Omar Al Bashir. Afterwards Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers, the co-head of the delegation, what the Council and the wider UN are going to do about the issue. "We don't have proof of that," he said, "but it is quite right that UN agencies... should investigate this case now."

But the case has been known for more than three weeks. On Wednesday, the UN in Khartoum offered the press, in a written flier, "the opportunity to meet and talk with a number of child soldiers arrested during the attack on the Sudanese capital."

Arguably, presentation of those captured, particularly children, would violate the Geneva Conventions. That the Sudanese government would offer up this "opportunity" is perhaps understandable. But the propriety of the UN passing along the opportunity, and arranging to accompany and presumably translate on the trip to the captive children in El Gaily, an hour from Khartoum, raises the question of whether it is possible for the UN to violate the Geneva Conventions, as a matter of customary international law.

In Omdurman, Inner City Press asked Sudanese Major Jamal, who narrated a tour including bloody uniforms and pictures of detainees, what will happen with the children. He mentioned capacity building -- a classic UN buzzword -- and rehabilitation. Only after that, he said, might the children be returned to their parents, some of whom are alleged to be in Chad.

So what other than offering tours and interviews is the UN actually doing, more than three weeks after a state in which it has not one but two large peacekeeping missions announced it captured child soldiers? We will continue to pursue this issue, including with UNICEF headquarters in New York.

Meanwhile regarding the International Criminal Court indictments, Amb. Sawers said that "a significant number of members of the Council raised their concerns" about "the absence of Sudanese government cooperation" with the ICC. "We had an unsatisfactory response" in which Nafie Al Nafie argued that because Sudan is not a party to the Court, therefore it is not responsible to cooperate. Sawers said the resolution is binding and compliance is required.

But Chinese Ambassador Liu, when asked, said that "Darfur is very complicated" and that the issues have to be addressed together in a "coherent and comprehensive way." Some took this to imply that the indictments might be traded away, as some say is happening in slow motion with Northern Uganda indictee Joseph Kony.


French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert jumped in to say that "on behalf of France, and as a member of the European Union," additional measures might be needed against those who are not cooperating with the court. Amb. Ripert heard but did not answer Inner City Press' question to the assemble Council members about Chad's involvement in the attack on Omdurman. Ambassador Sawers said there's another version that "we'll hear in N'jamena." We aim to have more on this from there.

Footnote: The Council's next stop, however, after a Wednesday night reception by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will be El Fasher in Darfur. Regarding UNAMID's deployment, Amb. Sawers said that the commitment has been confirmed, that contingents from Nepal and Thailand will be allowed, after deployments by troops from Egypt and Ethiopia. Remembering what the Council heard from nearly all interlocutors in Djibouti, one wag suggested that if the Ethiopian troops moved or were moved from Somalia to Darfur, something might be accomplished. We'll see.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc3khartoum060408.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

In Sudan and in New Film, War Crimes Questions Unanswered, Ahmad Harun's Narrow Escape Recounted

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc2khartoum060408.html

KHARTOUM, June 4 -- As UN Security Council members in Khartoum prepare to visit Darfur tomorrow, in New York International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo finalizes testimony and, it's said, an additional indictment. Already indicted Ahmad Harun has reportedly been involved in Khartoum's battle in the south at Abyei. A 17-minute film just put online by the Aegis Trust shows blurry-faced survivors of attacks on three towns in Darfur naming Harun as providing money and orders to Ali Kushayb, to directed looting and killing. Omda Yahya is named as one direct victim of Kushayb. Click here to view the film.

In one clip, Ali Kushayb is said to claim to have killing orders directly from the president, called on his "thuraya" or satellite phone. Still, when Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers, co-leader of the Council's visit to Sudan, if he intended to mention the ICC indictments in meetings with President Omar Al Bashir, or today with his advisor Nafie Al Nafie, Amb. Sawers said the meetings would be confidential. Speaking on June 3 in Juba in South Sudan, Sawers did not not mention the indictments in the list of issues he said he would be raising.

Regarding efforts to execute the arrest warrants, a story has emerged, a close call for Harun. He was to travel to Mecca in December for the Haaj. While his defenders advised him to go primarily by land, with a bit of sea to Yemen, he had decided to save time and fly. Meanwhile the ICC, it brags, had convinced some neighboring countries to divert Harun's flight, force it to land and arrest him. A country that shares the Nile is thought to have been enlisted to help. At the last minute, Harun got off the plane.


Some say Harun was tipped off, some say by Saleh Gosh, described as among other things a U.S. national security asset who's passed on information about Al Qaeda suspects.

While the Aegis Trust online film goes out of its way to redact names of so far unindicted people, the website includes a "Wanted" poster of Musa Hilal, click here for view.

The ICC has been asked, why not also indict the rebels? Wednesday the press traveling with the Security Council is being offered interviews with alleged child soldiers recruited by the Justice and Equality Movement, some from Chad. The response is that no country has presented evidence. Of course this is passing the buck.

Sudan might well have proofs to show, but no interest in buttressing the legitimacy of the ICC. Speaking of which, with the U.S. still not a member, how can the U.S. applaud these indictments?

And how can the UK, which loudly played a role in the Security Council's referral of the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court on March 31, 2005, now through Amb. Sawers said that faced with evidence of systemic killing of civilians in Somalia, the Council should not interfere by making any referral to the ICC, despite requests from Somali civil society? And what are Moreno-Ocampo, the Aegis Trust, et al. saying and doing about Somalia? These are questions for which answers will be sought, in Sudan, Chad and elsewhere. Watch this site.

Footnote in fairness on the Aegis Trust: this is the group which at UN headquarters, as reported exclusively by Inner City Press, when their display about Rwanda garnered complaints from Turkey about a reference to genocide against Armenians, consented to the display being taken down, and a line about "Ottamans" being inserted, along with other changes. One is seeking consistency, between regions, conflicts and continents, but finding little.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc2khartoum060408.html

In Khartoum, UN Council Comes In Just as US Envoy Leaves, Alternative Tours Offered, the Spin of Carnival Rides

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1khartoum060308.html

KHARTOUM, June 3 -- As members of the UN Security Council arrived in Khartoum fresh from hearing about escalating tensions in Abyei from South Sudan President Salva Kiir, U.S. envoy Richard Williamson was leaving Sudan, saying he was "sad and disappointed" at the lack of prospects for peace. Nafie Al Nafie, advisor to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, said "if they come back, we will engage." Sudan's Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed, in Khartoum to greet the same Ambassadors he lobbies in New York, was more blunt, saying Williamson "did not negotiate in good faith... He came just to pollute the atmosphere and go."

Now the Security Council is here, slated to meet with Nafie on Wednesday before heading Thursday to Darfur. Some in the Council delegation seem fixated on not being deemed polluters. In Juba, UK Ambassador John Sawers listed several issues he said will be raised to the leadership in Khartoum, including President Bashir, but again did not mentioned the International Criminal Court among them.

Since the Council's meetings with Nafie and Foreign Minister Deng Alor are closed to the press, the Foreign Ministry has offered through the UN an "Alternative Media Program," complete with "child soldiers arrested during the attack on the Sudanese capital," some alleged to be from Chad. The UN's child soldiers envoy Radhika Coomaraswamy gave a briefing in New York about Chad, saying commitments had been won for the release of child soldiers. Whether she interviewed these particular children is not known. Also not known is the origin of a rumor that the UN's plane was shot at. It was not, a media on the trip rushed to clarify.

When the Council members arrived without incident in their special UN plane, it was dark in Khartoum. They were whisked into a greeting room and served tall glasses of fruit juice. Sudan's UN Ambassador was there, glad-handing reporters and diplomats. Busses swept the delegation to a spacious hotel, the Rotana, which is said to only take payment in cash. Out the window, the rides of an amusement park were visible. The UN set up a media room with a half-dozen computers, all tuned to the webpage of the UN Mission in Sudan. "Are they secure?" was a question asked more than once. The answer appeared to be no. Like the UN and its host, outside the carnival rides continued to spin.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1khartoum060308.html

In Juba, UN Council Finds Rising Tensions and Rents, Not a Single Printing Press in South Sudan

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1juba060308.html

JUBA, June 3 -- Three weeks after violence emptied the southern Sudanese town of Abyei, the UN Security Council arrived in Juba, to meet with the president of the South Sudan region, Salva Kiir. There was talk of a battalion from Khartoum moving into the South. Salva Kiir confirmed it, telling the press that "the troops are coming down from Khartoum to Abyei... I have already called upon [President al-Bashir] to order his military commanders" to leave, "we're not going to fight them."

The UN Mission in Sudan's media handlers, meanwhile, showed the press a hospital complete with a warehouse funded by the UN Population Fund, and the UN's radio station, Mireya, headquarters in an expansive UN base with sandbags and Bangladeshi guards, rows of offices in sheds with air conditioners humming. Out in the streets of Juba, where goats walked free and garbage lay in piles on the ground, the economy was clearly in an upswing, or being UN-leashed into inflation, with construction signs praising USAID. High walls surrounded the South Sudan compound of the UN Development Program.

At the government building where the Council met with Salva Kiir, South Sudan soldiers patrolled with machine guns, unconcerned with the swarm of white UN vehicles. Unlike in Darfur and Khartoum, these do not seem to raise concerns about sovereignty. Local sources told Inner City Press that it's true that Ban Ki-moon (they called him "Moon") was cheered by thousands when he visited last year, as with the visit of South African President Mbeki. "It's been so isolated here, when big shots come, we all remember it."

While it seems clear that a yes vote's to be expected in the independence referendum provided for in 2011 under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 between Khartoum and South Sudan, on the trip south from Djibouti on the special UN plane Russia's representative said not to speak of independence. The territorial integrity of Sudan is the Council's policy, he said. Perhaps he was preparing for Thursday's visit west to Darfur.

In Juba, a town of round thatched huts and tents for IDPs, a vote for independence seems assured. In fact, sources tell Inner City Press that's why Salva Kiir so quickly supposed Khartoum when the Justice and Equality Movement attacked the capital last month. If the government changes, the CPA's deal might be off. Then again, the fighting in the oil-rich region around Abyei might also have that result.

Local sources told Inner City Press that all oil leaves southern Sudan to be refined elsewhere. Some is re-imported to run generators. It seems clear that among many other things, South Sudan needs a printing press.The Juba Post is printed in Khartoum; the Southern Eye is printed in Kampala. The UN has distorted the economy in Juba: hotel rooms that are little more than tents cost $200 a night, houses without running water are overpriced. The services offered are run or invested in by people in Kampala and even further afield. Money pours outward from the area.

The swarm of UN vehicles conjured up Kosovo, to Inner City Press and at least one Security Council Ambassador who, un-prompted, bought up to the Press on the plane, the issue of Kosovo, an area the UN supervised toward independence. In the case of Kosovo, it was a unilateral declaration of independence, whereas in South Sudan, it was be by agreement and by vote. But while the UN is often said to be the obsessed with sovereignty, in these two cases it stands for entropy or independence. Are these, then, cases in another UN strand, that of decolonialization?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc1juba060308.html

UN Council Meets Many UK-based Somalis, Dodges Requests for Human Rights Prosecutions

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc4djibouti060308.html

DJIBOUTI, June 3 -- Many of the Somalis meeting at this luxury hotel in Djibouti with UN Security Council members from New York came in not from Somalia but from the UK. That the Transitional Federal Government is top-heavy with UK citizens has recently been exposed, as discussed here. But it emerged on June 2 that even the vice-chairman and spokesman for the ostensibly Eritrea-based Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, Abdulrahman Abdishakur Warsame, lives in London.

When Inner City Press asked him about reports that the town of Baidoa is surrounded and about to fall, he replied, "I am not in Baidoa, you should ask the Transitional Federal Government." That he was not then physically in Baidoa was obvious. But the disconnect is more fundamental. The A.R.S. delegation in Djibouti is distant both from compatriots still in Asmara who demanded the immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian troops and from the insurgents on the ground who are fighting the Ethiopians.

UK Ambassador John Sawers was seen meeting Monday night with some of the A.R.S. delegation, after a liquor-less reception thrown by the Saudi Arabians. Earlier he had encouraged the traveling UN press corps not to freeze the A.R.S. into a hard-line position about the withdrawal of the Ethiopian, which apparently would be accomplished by quoting what they actually said.

Tuesday before the Council and press headed to Juba in South Sudan, they received a "Statement by Somali Non-state Actors and Civil Society" which read suspiciously like a production of the UN's Ould-Adballah. The statement called Ould-Adballah's Office "the best institution to lead the current International supported peace process." Inner City Press has asked about how the Somali delegations' hotel bills at the Djibouti Palace Kempinski, with its $90 buffet, are being paid. "Half by the E.C.," was the beginning of an answer. If and when we get more information, it will be reported on this site.

Afterwards, Inner City Press asked the Somali Peace and Human Rights Network's Abdinasir A. Osman who, in his view, has been committing the human rights violations in Somalia, only the insurgents or also the Ethiopians and the Transitional Federal Government? He answered by referring to Amnesty International's reports, and said that the Security Council should consider referring perpetrators for criminal prosecution, presumably by the International Criminal Court, to which the Council can and has referred cases, such as in Darfur.

At the Council's close-out press conference in Djibouti, Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador John Sawers if the Security Council is going to act on the civil society request that the Council "establish a commission of inquiry to investigate violations of human rights." Amb. Sawers said that will be up to the Somali parties. This is not the approach the Security Council has taken toward Sudan, to which the Council members were headed, on their special UN plane.

Curtain-raising footnote: Three weeks after violence emptied the southern Sudanese town of Abyei, the UN Security Council headed to Juba, to meet with the president of the South Sudan region, Salva Kiir. They were also slated to visit -- and render "homage," one Ambassador said -- at the tomb of John Garang. We will report from there, or from Khartoum after that. President al-Bashir has traveled to the food summit in Rome, and so the Council will wait to speak with him.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc4djibouti060308.html

Ethiopian Troops Cast Shadow on Djibouti Talks, But Who Could or Would Replace Them?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc3djibouti060208.html

DJIBOUTI, June 2 -- The Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia delegation meeting the UN Security Council laid down a condition for moving forward: there must be a timeline for Ethiopian troops to leave Somalia. Some saw this as a softening of the A.R.S. position, in which actual departure was the threshold for discussion. But who would replace the Ethiopians?

When A.R.S. vice-chairman Abdulrahman Abdishakur Warsame emerged from meeting with the Council to take questions, Inner City Press asked if the Alliance would support a UN Peacekeeping force in Somalia. Yes, he said, we would support that. But earlier in the day, the Council was told that there are no countries waiting to send troops. So what if the Ethiopians were "re-hatted" as UN Peacekeepers?

Inner City Press asked Abdulrahman Abdishakur Warsame about reports that the town of Baidoa, defended until now by Ethiopian troop and those of the Transitional Federal Government, is surrounded and about to fall. I am not in Baidoa, he answered. "You should ask the TFG." Inner City Press did ask, the TFG's minister of information. He did not deny the town might change hands. Instead he said that the TFG has taken the decision to "stop all operations," including apparently operations to defend Baidoa, and Jowar before it. What these talks can or do have to do with events on the ground in Somalia is not clear.

UK Ambassador John Sawers afterwards told the press that perhaps the A.R.S. representatives here in Djibouti are having to take into account the less flexible views of their compatriots still in Eritrea. Inner City Press' sources say that "the A.R.S. members in Eritrea are demanding that the breakaway group that is now in Djibouti return to Asmara for consultation. The ARS members in Eritrea are actually accusing the SRSG and these 'UN mediated talks' as a U.S. inspired program to divide the resistance." Al-Shabaab's representative was even more focused on Monday, saying that the UN is the U.S.. Djibouti is crawling with U.S. military presence; there's talk of beer in the Sheraton Hotel and even a red light district.

Footnote: U.S. Ambassador Wolff, meanwhile, took a surprisingly (but perhaps understandably) low profile in Monday's talks in Djibouti. France took an even lower-key approach: their Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert is skipping Djibouti and will fly directly to Sudan. Never a dull moment...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc3djibouti060208.html

Report on UNDP in North Korea Raises More Questions Than It Answers, But Who Will Be Held To Account?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1panel060208.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- As the UN Development Program prepared put its gloss on a report by Hungarian prime minister Miklos Nemeth, in a hastily called press conference by UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, questions arose about the irregularities that the report confirms, in places begrudgingly. As so often happens at the UN, these confirmations are buried deep in the report. A wire service emphasized that the report "concluded that [Tony] Shkurtaj's claims of retaliation are without merit. As a contract employee he could not have been fired, it was just that his contract was not renewed, it said."

But UNDP formally selected and notified Shkurtaj of his selection and hiring for a full-time UNDP staff position as UNDP's North Korea operation manager, out of a total of 174 applications and a finalist list of 29 applicants. (Click here for Inner City Press' interview with Shkurtaj at the time.) Then UNDP subsequently retracted that offer from Shkurtaj. This fits any credible definition of retaliation. Significantly, despite UN Ethics Officer Robert Benson's plea to Dervis to allow his office, the UN specialist in whistleblower protection, to investigate the case, UNDP said no. Then UNDP said that this panel, which also included former World Bank official Chander Vasudev of India and former U.S. and U.N. official Mary Ann Wyrsch, would clear the air. But consider these questions about UNDP's operations:

The Panel conducted "[a] review of documentation related to the Selected Projects budgets" and concluded that "[f]or 77 transactions (74%) the available supporting documentation was insufficient to determine whether the ultimate beneficiary is consistent with the payee name indicated in the financial system (pg 158).

"38% of disbursements made by UNDP-DPRK" were to DPRK "government agencies" which constituted 11 of the top 20 of all payees and totaled $9.13 million (pg 100-101). This analysis does not even include "disbursements made on behalf of UNDP-North Korea by UNDP country offices and other UN agencies" which totaled in the range of $33.3 million -- $48.5 million (pg 118). If at the same percentage payment rate to the DPRK government, then an additional $1 2.65 million to $18.43 million was paid directly to the DPRK government as part of the UNDP DPRK program.

The Panel's review of the most sensitive items - those the Panel classifies as Level I and II -- exported by UNDP to North Korea focused on 151 pieces of equipment and found that 95 items were "classified as being on the Commerce Control List.... [and] would have required a licensee from the U.S. Commerce Department for export or re-export to the DPRK"? (pg. 210) The Panel found many such items were "controlled by the U.S. for national security and anti-terrorism reasons.... and were of heightened concern" (pg. 213).

"At the suspension of the UNDP program in the DPRK in March of 2007, the UNPD transferred a large amount of equipment in closed projects to agencies in the DPRK government.... [and] to the extent that this equipment included U.S.-origin items, the UNDP's retransfer to the DPRK government of U.S.-origin items subject to U.S. license requirements would likely be considered by the U.S. to contravene its export policies prevailing at the time" (pg. 215-216).

Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs Larry Johnson reportedly opined to UNDP that UNDP required a "retransfer authorization" from the U.S. to transfer the equipment to the DPRK or other third parties and that UNDP did not obtain any such "retransfer authorization" prior to transferring these items to the DPRK government (pg. 220). But what did the UN's Office of Legal Affairs, of which Larry Johnson is the Deputy, do about this?

The Panel concluded "that in the course of his duties and areas of oversight, Shkurtaj in fact reported conduct and facts about UNDP operations in the DPRK that required resolution and may well have been in violation of UNDP policies as well as applicable agreements with the DPRK" (pg. 312).

The Panel noted a "management lapse" in UNDP's handling of the counterfeit currency (pg. 269). The Panel "noted discrepancies" in the accounts that UNDP Comptroller Darshak Shah gave to the Panel regarding the counterfeit currency issue (pg. 267) What action will be taken against Mr. Shah for his inconsistent statements to the Panel?

While the UN system become ever-better known for lack of accountability, at UNDP this rises to the level of impunity.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1panel060208.html