By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 16 -- When the UN Security Council met behind closed doors Thursday about the humanitarian situation in South Kordofan, Sudan, much criticism was directed at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, whose troops in Kadugli reported declined to leave their base and do their jobs, as recently happened with the Zambian peacekeepers in Abyei.
After the meeting, Inner City Press asked DPKO chief Alain Le Roy about the criticism. He acknowledged that a UN battalion in Kadugli was “not willing to escort a convoy... there was heavy shelling.”
Moments later, Inner City Press on camera asked French Ambassador Gerard Araud if the Council discussed if a peacekeeper battalion declined to provide escort or come out of its base. According to the French Mission's transcript, Araud replied that
“a question was specifically asked whether all the instructions had [always] been followed. Alain [Le Roy] told us 'yes, they have always been followed.' The only example - which was an example where the personnel was requested to evacuate, so it’s not a question of protection - was when the personnel hesitated for a few hours because of their own safety on the ground.”
But Le Roy spoke about a battalion refusing to escort a convoy, presumably not only of soldiers. In fact, the UN evacuated -- or relocated, as UN OCHA put it -- international staff from Kadugli to El Obeid. In any event, refusing orders to escort a convoy is a “command and control” problem, as one Council delegation put it.
Some skeptics wonder if the French Mission's and Ambassador's speed to speak on these issues is entirely attributable to a concern for protection of civilians, or might involve defending the performance of DPKO whose past, current and seemingly future chiefs as promised by S-G Ban Ki-moon seeking a second term are all French.
Inner City Press asked Le Roy about the safety of Sudanese UN staff, who were not evacuated by the UN to El Obaid. Le Roy to his credit said that the UN was trying to contact all of them by radio, but had not been able to reach those in “downtown Kadugli because we have no access to downtown Kadugli.”
Some question how UNMIS can be said to be protecting civilians in Kadugli if it has “no access to downtown Kadugli.” Watch this site.
