By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 22 -- The issue of Darfur, once burning hot, degenerated Wednesday into a closed door UN Security Council meeting with no output. Even the scheduled press availability by Qatar's foreign minister, in New York to present the so-called Darfur Peace Agreement, got canceled.
“Where is George Clooney?” a representative of Qatari state media asked Inner City Press. More to the point, where was US Ambassador Susan Rice?
Qatar has hosted the Doha process, urging rebels to come in order to show the emirate's diplomatic prowess. But the final product has not been signed by the Justice and Equality Movement, whose leader Khalil Ibrahim the UN has refused to evacuate like its own staff from Tripoli, nor the factions led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur and Minni Minnawi.
From the “Astroturf” rebel movement led by former UN staff member Al-Tijani Al-Sissi, even Ali Karbino has broken away and joined the still-fighting rebels.
So what was or would be solved by the Darfur Peace Agreement?
The Security Council met for hours on Wednesday with former joint UN-AU mediator Djibril Bassole, now Burkina Faso's foreign minister, and his Qatari counterpart.
Afterward top UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy told Inner City Press, no one has signed the agreement yet. The Council is going to issue a press statement to put pressure for them to sign.
No press statement was issued. The focus seemed to have shifted to South Sudan -- some surmised that Darfur had just been used as a bargaining chip, to indict Omar al Bashir as leverage to let South Sudan go. And after July 9? Watch this site.
