By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 24, updated -- After the UN Security Council received a briefing about the Abyei peacekeeping force of Ethiopian troops agreed to by Khartoum and Juba, there were splits in the Council about what mandate the force should have and how large it should be.
Multiple Council sources told Inner City Press that France and the UK questioned whether the more than 4000 troops agreed to by the parties in Addis Ababa are in fact needed. Another delegation marveled that on wanting the more than 4000, China, the US and India were all on the same side.
To that list Russia can be added. They'd “like to save money” as much as the next delegation, they say, but “Babacar Gaye,” the UN's military chief, explained why over 4000 are needed, to defend themselves.
Germany is known to argue that to stick to the Addis agreement, and have no human rights monitoring component to the mission, would be a step backward, a bad precedent. But as Gaye, the Russians and others argue, if is wasn't in the Addis agreement it shouldn't be imposed.
To add more, they say, could be an invitation for Khartoum to refuse to withdraw its troops from Abyei.
In fairness to those who urge going beyond the Addis agreement, we publish this from a self-described “Security Council diplomat” --
“a number of delegations have a lot of questions. Of course, those delegations want the Ethiopians in, and expeditiously. We need them there. We want them to have a robust posture. And we don't want to undermine the Addis agreement. But as proposed, its a purely military and not an integrated mission, so we need at minimum to ask some questions about how humanitarian and human rights issues, or links with policing in Abyei, or what the civilian component of UNISFA would do, could be addressed in a co-ordinated, if not integrated, way. These elements aren't necessarily inconsistent with what was agreed at Addis, and that's what we are trying to explore.”
A member who favors simply adopting what was agreed at Addis said, if they delay or make additions, the violence will be on them. Call it brinksmanship. Watch this site.
Update of 6:40 pm -- while some are speaking of a Saturday session and even vote on the Abyei resolution, a knowledgeable P-5 source predicted to Inner City Press that it "needs to go back to capitals" and "they don't work on weekends, so Monday." We'll see.
Update of 7:10 pm -- a non-Western Council member tells Inner City Press the idea is to leave human rights only in the perambular paragraphs, while tying the operative ("thou shalt") paragraphs directly to the Addis agreement. In consultations, DPKO defended the 4000 soldier figure (against those asking why not reduce to 3000) by pointing to Kosovo with 40,000 troops; the number of police in Manhattan was also brought up, host country...
