By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 16, updated -- A day after the UN released its Southern Kordofan report, delayed it seems in order to remove sections including about Egyptian UN peacekeepers' inaction, discussion was underway about how the Security Council should deal with the report.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, officially the releaser of the report after edits by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, will brief the Council on August 18, but for now only on Syria.
Inner City Press on August 16 asked a well-placed Council source if Pillay will also brief about Southern Kordofan. That's already been requested, the source said, adding that Pillay will be in New York longer than at first thought, so a Kordofan report briefing may be possible on a day other than August 18.
The source added with a roll of the eyes, a lot of these briefings are useless, we'd oppose them if we could. The reference may have been to the Council's contested and contentious Syria briefings, and not to Kordofan.
The initial report, put online by Inner City Press, stated for example that
"29. On 8 June, an UNMIS independent contractor (IC) was pulled out of a vehicle by SAF in front of the UNMIS Kadugli Sector IV Compound in the presence of several witnesses, while UN peacekeepers could not intervene. He was taken around the corner of the compound and gunshots were heard. Later he was discovered dead by UNMIS personnel and IDPs. Several sources confirmed that the victim was an active SPLM member." (Emphasis added.)
When the edited version was released, this paragraph appeared with the key phrase "while UN peacekeepers could not intervene" entirely removed, as if the Egyptian UN peacekeepers had not been there:
"17. On 8 June, an UNMIS individual contractor (IC) was pulled out of a vehicle by SAF in front of the UNMIS Kadugli Sector IV compound in the presence of several witnesses. He was taken away from the vicinity of the compound and gunshots were heard. Later he was discovered dead by UNMIS personnel and IDPs. Several sources confirmed that the victim was an active SPLM member."
There are other difference between the original and edited reports. But how would Pillay justify airbrushing out the presence of inactive UN peacekeepers? How would the June 8 incident above, for example, be re-cast?
(On August 15 at the UN noon briefing Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, click here for that exchange. The UN held no noon briefing on August 16.)
Susan Rice and Ban: will an explanation of the airbrush be asked & given?
Later on August 16 US Ambassador Susan Rice issued a statement urging other Council members to "join us in pressing for implementation of [the report's] recommendations."
None of these recommendations are directed at the UN Secretariat, or at the Council, as for example human rights group's reports do.
Nor did Rice's August 16 statement mention the airbrushing out from the report of the inaction of Egyptian UN peacekeepers in Kadugli. On August 15 on the Colbert Report, Rice insisted that the "blue helmets" protect civilians in conflict and aid workers, saying they're "good guys" just like UNICEF.
Updated with transcript:
Colbert: It’s important to keep those two separated when you talk about the UN. There’s the blue helmet thugs who take away our guns, and there’s UNICEF, who helps the children.
Rice: The blue helmet guys are protecting the people who are the victims of conflict and protecting those that are delivering the assistance in many parts of the world. So they’re good guys too.
How about Srebrenica? Rwanda? And now Abyei and even more so Kadugli in Southern Kordofan?
It's good to offer praise where it's due, but equally or more important to not airbrush out negligence or worse by those who are ostensibly supposed to help. Watch this site.
